Page 1 of Playing for Keeps

Prologue

Luke

Six years earlier

Iwalked into the bar and the sight of Ethan’s blond head had my heart doing its usual happy dance.

I used the walk to the booth to tamp down my feelings to a level that was more appropriate for a guy seeing his best friend.

“Hey, man.” I slipped into the seat across from him.

Ethan gave me one of his sunshine grins, but I instantly knew it was a fake. I’d been on the receiving end of his real grins often enough to notice the missing ingredients now—the sparkle in his green eyes, the way the left side of his mouth tilted higher, the dimple in his right cheek.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “I got you a beer.” He slid a Canterbury Draught, my favorite, across the table.

“Now that’s service,” I said.

“You know me.” Another fake grin. “I aim to please.”

“You going to grab something to eat?” I asked.

“Nah, I’m not hungry. You get something though.”

I scanned the menu, but my attention kept drifting back to Ethan. He sipped his beer intermittently while he messed around with the condiment packets on the table.

Ethan was a fidgeter when he was nervous.

He arranged the sugar packets into a pyramid, but he somehow managed to rip one, scattering white grains over the table.

“Shit.”

I reached out and clamped my hand over his, trying to ignore how the nerves in my fingers buzzed where I touched his warm skin.

“You’re turning fidgeting into an Olympic sport,” I said.

Ethan looked at me, the corners of his eyes creasing as he finally gave me his real smile. “I’ve always wanted to be an Olympic champion of something. I guess I’ll take fidgeting. What are the marks awarded for?”

I released his hand so I could tick off the categories on my fingers. “Degree of difficulty, finger technique and duration.”

We grinned at each other and lightness filled me. Because this was us. Kings of spinning random shit, of creating our own private universe together.

He blew out a large breath, ruffling his fringe, then looked away, his grin vanishing as he concentrated on sweeping the spilled sugar into a paper napkin.

My heart thudded.

Ethan had invited me to the pub, saying in his message that he wanted to talk about something. From how nervous he was, it was obviously something major.

Hope flared inside me, bright and sharp.

Was this what I’d been waiting for?

Recently we’d had a…moment.

Well, we’d had a series of moments growing up. But I was fairly sure Ethan had chalked those up to stuff you did with your best friend when you were horny and no one else was volunteering their hand. He had no idea how much those moments meant to me, how much my craving for him had increased as the years passed.

A few months ago, to celebrate finishing high school, we’d headed over to my family’s holiday house in Wanaka.