The sauna, though…
I took a slow breath so that it didn’t dry out my throat, and I exhaled slowly too.
Fuck me, this was just what I’d needed.
Leaning forward with my arms on my knees, I hung my head, eyes closed, and just let the heat flow through me. Tension rolled off my back, leaving me in waves, and loosened me up.
“You have a birthday coming up soon, don’t you?”
Quiet, boy.
“Yup.” In a couple of months.
Forty-six. How the fuck had that happened?
I wasn’t gonna think about it. Birthdays had been big in our family, but my forty-fifth had been awkward and forced, so I wasn’t planning on doing anything for this next one. Those days were over.
I had a cruise to look forward to instead. Next week, I’d get a few days in the sun with old and new friends from Mclean.
I needed that. If I was going to spend the rest of my life without Nate, I had to surround myself with friends and fun times.
Perspiration beaded across my body, and I absently rubbed against a sore spot on my neck.
“I wonder where the others are,” James mused.
I didn’t give a shit. This was my brand of team building, when everyone wasn’t up in one another’s business the whole day. We’d played basketball, we’d golfed, and now this. We’d see everyone at dinner.
I yawned and rolled my shoulders.
That night, I had the pleasure of discovering how fun James was when he’d had a few too many to drink.
Things had started out well enough. Theo and I each gave a short speech, thanking our employees for another year at Riley Construction & Scaffolding, followed by amazing steaks and crispy potato wedges with the skin on. The booze flowed freely, from beer and wine to whiskey and rum, and James was thirsty.
Something was clearly going on, because I caught him on his phone several times. He kept it hidden under the table, but I saw him texting and glancing my way. I assumed he was talking to Jordan. And then James decided to have another drink.
This went on until midnight, when everyone was dead on their feet and ready to get some sleep.
“Will you deal with that?” Theo asked, amused by the mere sight of James.
I huffed a chuckle. “I think I can wrestle him into the elevator.”
I wasn’t exactly sober myself, but I hadn’t lost my marbles.
“Let’s go, Jamie boy.” I dragged him out of his chair, and heoomph’d and leaned against me.
“Goodnight, everybody!” Luiz hollered.
“I’m not a boy,” James muttered. “I’ll be offi…officially old soon.”
I reckoned he meant the big four-oh, which he wasn’t turning until next year.
“You just turned thirty-nine, buddy.” I guided him out of the restaurant and toward the elevators. “If forty’s old, what does that make me?”
He dragged a hand over his face and blinked blearily. “Hot as fuck.”
I laughed.
With booze came honesty.
