We'll find one when it's time,his wolf offered.
Zane tried not to wince. He believed in fated mates a little bit more than his father—who had never found one—did, but not much more. Instant attraction, yeah, he could see that, but the soul-deep confidence that someone was the right person for him? That seemed…unlikely. And Zane designed fashion for film stars, whose entire lives were unlikely, so he felt like he had a pretty good grasp of what 'unlikely' looked like. The idea of fate was just a little too far for him to go.
"Partner," Dion said with a disappointed sigh. "How about 'girlfriend?'"
Zane wrinkled his nose. "I'm thirty-eight. That's too old to have a 'girlfriend,' isn't it? And I like the word partner better anyway. It suggests…" He waved his hand in an easy, fluid gesture. "You know. Partnership."
Dion, watching that fluid motion, said, "It also suggests gay."
"Does it still? In this modern world?”
“It does when single men in their thirties who design fashion use it.”
“Well, eventually, if slightly flamboyant straight white men like myself keep using it to define their relationships, it'll just be a word," Zane said firmly.
His assistant relented with a grin. "'Slightly?'"
"Just book me a flight to Virtue, Dion."
"Yes sir, Mr. Z."
Virtue,New York hadn’t changed a bit, and Zane didn’t mean that in a good way.
It wasn’t a big enough town to have an airport of his own, so Dion had arranged flights to Syracuse, and proposed hiring a chauffeur to drive them up to Virtue.
Zane could just imagine his father’s reaction tothat.
Instead he’d driven them up, hands tight on the steering wheel while Dion leaned out the window, oohing and ahhing at the low mountains and the brilliant spring greenery. “I can’t believe you ever left here. You know Los Angeles is a desert, right?”
“It wasn’t for me.” That sounded absurd and cryptic and Zane didn’t say anything else until they were pulling up to the town center, at which point he said, “Jesus, it’s exactly the same.”
“It’sgorgeous!” Dion looked like he might bounce out of the car if Zane didn’t pull over, so he did, and Dion did, stepping up onto the sidewalk around the world’s most ridiculously, unnecessarily huge town square. The gigantic gazebo he remembered still dominated the literal acres of greenery, although there were slender saplings in several places now, offering a promise of shade in the years to come.
Zane somewhat resentfully concededthatwas different. There were also businesses he didn’t recognize around the borders of the square now. A doughnut shop, a cafe, and a massage therapy clinic were new, although the store that had sold hand-made toys since before his own childhood was still there, as was the Jones’s bed and breakfast. The church loomedover one end of the square, and opposite it lay the town hall and other political offices.
He couldn’t see the schools he’d gone to off behind the row of businesses to the right of where he sat in the rental car, or the library he’d spentthousandsof hours studying fashion at a few blocks away to the left, but he knew they were there. He knew where everything was in Virtue, like it was imprinted on the back of his hand, or on the backs of his eyelids. Zane remembered this town better than he’d ever remembered anybody’s face, and mostly, he wished he could forget it.
Dion came back to the car, leaning in the driver’s side window to frown at him. “You really don’t want to be here.”
“I really don’t.”
He waited, and he didn’t volunteer anything else. He never had. After a moment, Dion shrugged. “Well, let’s get checked into the B&B. I knew you didn’t want to stay, so I’ve got the press coming this evening?—”
Zane groaned. “Did you have to?”
Dion said, “Yes,” unrepentantly. “The Starlight Ball is a fundraiser, Zane. You raise funds with promotional activity. You are Doing Your Part.” He spoke with capital letters, causing Zane to groan and lift his hands in defeated acceptance.
A minute later they were carrying their bags into the B&B, where a short, round white woman in a green dress that suited her body shape very well called, “Just a second,” from the breakfast area off to the right of the entrance. She swished in to the desk a minute later, tossing long nut-brown hair over her shoulder and smiling. “Let’s see, today it’s Dion Newman and…holy shit, Zane Bellamy?” The woman jerked her gaze up, met Zane’s eyes, and blushed hot pink. “Oh, good grief. Hi, sorry, that wasn’t very professional. You wouldn’t remember me, Emmy Jones, but you used to hang out with?—”
Zane smiled. “Todd. I do remember you.” Herememberedher, although he wouldn’t haverecognizedher if he’d been paid to. But then, that wasn’t unusual for him, and Emmy Jones didn’t need to know that. “You must have been about eleven the last time I saw you. How’s Todd?”
“He’s good! Um. Married. Four kids. He still lives in Virtue.” She laughed. “I guess most of us do. You got out, though.”
“And yet here I am, back again.” Zane tried not to let his smile look pained. “Glad you’ve got space for us at the inn.”
“Always! I’m surprised you’re not staying with your dad, though. We see him at the town council meetings sometimes, usually trying to make sure absolutely nothing ever changes in Virtue.”
Zane couldn’t keep his smile from disintegrating that time. “Sounds like him, yeah. No, I’m just here overnight and didn’t want to bother him to put us up.”
