Page 3 of Reunion

My brother had told me Dane had messaged Shay earlier about a bomb threat in the airport where he was waiting for his connecting flight. It’d turned out to be a hoax but had grounded flights for the rest of the day.

“Let’s get you a drink—you deserve it. And some food. Are you hungry?” Shay fussed with Dane’s suit jacket before seeming to remember I was there. “Cole, you want a drink, too? Looks like you’re empty there. Come with us!”

I waved her off with a grin. “You two catch up. I’m taking a breather.”

“All that standing around is tiring, isn’t it?” She poked the tiny dimple in my chin, a long-standing family habit she’d picked up on. It drove me crazy. Dane smirked as I batted her hand away.

“Hey, I’m—” I gestured toward the dance floor. “I was heading in that direction. At some point. Maybe,” I finished in a mumble.

“Great, save me a dance, then.” Shay tugged Dane toward the bar, and I watched them go, which wasn’t exactly a hardship. The man clearly had a good tailor who knew how to fit a suit to take full advantage of Dane’s assets. When he glanced back over his shoulder and arched a brow in exaggerated fashion as he caught me staring, I started to jerk my attention away and then figured, hell, I’d already been caught anyway. So I gave him an equally dramatic brow arch in return. Like any mature adult would.

2

Dane

2.5 seconds. That’s how long it took the enormous high school crush I’d had on Cole Green to come roaring back with a vengeance the moment I’d spotted him. I would’ve thought that years of other partners, of good sex—offantasticsex—might’ve muted that old yearning. At least a little bit. But no, it’d flooded through me with the force of an afternoon deluge as I’d stalled nearby, watching Cole watch Chase with a kind of desire I recognized all too well.

I shoved Shay lightly as she guided me toward the buffet table and nearby bar. “You could’ve warned me that Cole was still hot as hell.”

Shay beamed. “He’s a cutie for sure. Did you short-circuit?”

“I might have if my body wasn’t still trying to figure out which limbs were controlled by which parts of my brain.”

She snickered. “Sounds like your dick’s not having any trouble with that, at least.”

“So crass,” I chided. “And here I spent three hours in a Mini Cooper to come to your fancy wedding.”

“You have my eternal gratitude for making it, though. That counts for something, right?”

“Tell it to my left asscheek. Maybe that’ll wake it up.”

She gave it a resounding smack and laughed. “How’s that? Better?”

“Your technique has improved. Aaron getting the benefit of that?” I waggled my brows, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

“I’ll never tell.”

“Liar. You’ll tell me in lurid detail, and then you’ll probably want advice.”

“Probably.” Shay pursed her lips, then huffed out a dramatic sigh and handed me a plate. “But seriously. It means the world that you would do that for me.”

“Told you I wouldn’t miss it, babe.” Shay and I had become close shortly after I’d come out at the tail end of senior year in high school. She was the only other person in our class who openly identified as anything besides straight. Then we’d discovered we were attending the same college in New Orleans. After freshman year, we’d moved in together, and despite the inevitable questions, we’d never been anything other than platonic. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so I counted her as close to a sibling as someone not blood related could be.

As I loaded my plate, Shay darted off to the bar and returned with two glasses of white wine. “So Cole’s single, by the way, although he and Chase have been giving each other the eye all night. Chase doesn’t have a subtle bone in his body.”

“Nice segue,” I retorted, though I did glance over my shoulder to where Cole been standing before and now no longer stood. Probably on the dance floor with Chase. I couldn’t blame him. Had Cole not been here, Chase would likely have been my first stop, too. But Cole’s presence changed everything. I knew next to nothing about how he’d filled the time since high school, except that he worked as a graphic designer and had traveled all over. Shay mentioned him occasionally and had told me he’d come out in college, but I got the sense that both she and Aaron were somewhat removed from his life, too, since they were in NYC.

“Just saying.” Shay nudged me again.

“Remember what happened last time you tried to set me up?”

“You had some really hot sex?”

“Yeah, and then what happened?” I bit into a samosa and chewed slowly while staring at her pointedly.

Shay mumbled into her drink.

“What was that?”