Chapter One
Callahan McMillian Needs a Date
The paper was cold as ice. Either that, or Callahan McMillian had a fever. Or maybe his hands were on fire. He dropped the invitation onto his kitchen counter and studied his palms to be sure. They were not on fire, and his life line and love line cut deep across his palms, not intersecting, just the way they always had. He pressed his fingers against his cheeks, and everything felt fine temperature-wise.
Gingerly, he reached for the white cardstock invitation again. The paper wasn’t as cold the second time, but it was as glaringly large and ostentatious as he’d expected it to be. Callahan had known it would be coming, he just didn’t think it would be so soon.
Callahan’s father had died the year before, and on top of leaving him a life he’d never asked for and a bank account he’d never be able to spend through, he’d bequeathed a large financial gift to St. George’s University. The invitation, of course, was for the ribbon cutting on the brand new McMillian School of Marketing, the newest addition to the prestigious business programs the college offered.
Seeing the McMillian name brandished in such a large font was nothing new, but seeing it across the middle of the invitation had his stomach twisting in uncomfortable ways he couldn’t quite describe.
Callahan had never been interested in being the center of attention. That spotlight had been reserved for his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather. At eighteen, he’d begrudgingly accepted enrollment at St. George’s because he wasn’t allowed another option. The university was founded by a friend of another great-grandparent, or uncle, or someone he’d lost track of, and all the McMillian’s had attended there since its very first graduating class.
After four years, Callahan graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s in business he didn’t need, because along with an automatic acceptance to one of the top private colleges in the country, he was also guaranteed a job, owing to the fact his father owned McMillian Marketing, one of the largest marketing and PR firms on the coast. Callahan didn’t even want to be in marketing. He’d never enjoyed it, but the degree and the job were two things on a list of many that he had no control over.
The invitation was embossed, he realized, tracing the pad of his finger over the swooping script that spelled out his family name. For him, being a McMillian had always felt more like a curse than a privilege, but it washiscurse, and with his father dying the year before, it was time for him to step up and own the name the way generations before him had so proudly done.
Callahan loosened his tie and carried the invitation across his loft, where he pressed his forehead against the floor-to-ceiling glass window, staring down at the street below. Sometimes the view made him dizzy, and sometimes it made him scared, or invigorated, but tonight, the horns, and lights, and the speeding cars only served to make him sad.
He shuffled backward to his couch, plopping down onto the cool, white leather. He toed off his shoes and propped his feet up on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankle with a sigh. Callahan fished his phone out of the pocket of his slacks and tapped through his contacts until he reached his best friend, Sebastian. He pressed the call button and then speaker, dropping the phone beside his thigh.
“I thought we were friends,” Sebastian said.
“We are.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
Callahan closed his eyes and thumped his head against the back of the couch. “The invitation is here.”
“I know,” Sebastian said. “I got mine today too.”
“Today.” Callahan scoffed. “Sebastian St. George, you’ve known far longer than I have that this was coming and you didn’t tell me.”
“You should talk to Blanche. She is the one who confirmed your availability when Jessica called to check. And that was almost four months ago.”
Callahan frowned. Blanche had been his father’s secretary and he’d inherited her when he stepped up into the CEO role within the company. She was painfully soft-spoken, overwhelmingly kind, nicer than his own mother had ever been, but horrible about checking with him before making monumental, life-changing additions to his calendar.
She made really delicious lasagna, though, so he imagined he would have to let it slide.
“You’re telling me my secretary blocked out an entire weekend on my calendar and I didn’t know?” As he asked the question, Callahan swiped into the calendar app, checking two weeks out and confirming Blanche had, in fact, booked him solid Thursday through Monday. She’d even gone as far as to leave him a detailed itinerary, booking a flight, a hotel room, and a car service for the whole trip.
“Did she?” Sebastian asked with a chuckle.
“Is Rhys going to be there?” Callahan asked instead of answering Sebastian’s question.
“Of course,” Sebastian told him. “He’s my brother. Why wouldn’t he be?”
“Can’t he marry someone else and drop the last name?”
Sebastian laughed louder. “Even if he did get married, Rhys wouldn’t ever drop St. George. You know that.”
Callahan rubbed his eyes. He did know that, because it was a conversation he and Rhys had before. One of many late night talks they’d had when Callahan was in college, and Rhys would get home late from work. They’d eat takeout in bed and talk about the future, and Callahan had been foolish enough to believe they’d had one.
As a teenager, his parents were angry enough that he was gay, and then nearly enraged when they found out he’d gotten involved with Rhys after being away at school for less than two months.
Didn’t he understand the repercussions for the families if things went wrong between the two of them?
Didn’t he care about the optics?
