Which was fine—he meant what he told Noah about not tallying orgasms—but damn.
Ramin was a block away from his apartment when his phone began to buzz. The sidewalk was more even here, so he risked taking it out. Arya was FaceTiming him.
“Are you okay?” he asked as soon as Ramin answered. He was dressed in a dapper blue suit, though he’d left his collar undone. The lights of Kansas City’s downtown backlit him, twinkling through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his swanky apartment in the Power & Light District.
“I’m fine,” Ramin assured him. “It’s nothing bad. Sorry, didn’t mean to worry you. I just thought you might be up still.”
“Just got home,” Arya said. The image juddered, and Arya muttered ashit. Probably banging into the furniture like usual. Arya always had the randomest bruises. “Making some herbal… wait.”
Arya narrowed his eyes and brought the screen so close, all Ramin could make out was the expanse of his bald head.
“Why is your hair all messed up?”
Ramin reached up to fix it. Fuckety-fuck—
“You finally got laid!”
Damn it. Of course Arya could tell. Arya could always tell.
Ramin sighed. Before he could figure out what to say, Farzan joined the call, lounging shirtless in bed. The bedside lamp turned his brown skin golden. His own hair was longer, curly, anddefinitelyshowing signs of being freshly fucked.
“How amIthe only one not getting any Vitamin D?” Arya lamented. The picture went shaky again; Ramin heard the beeping of Arya’s kettle.
“Wait, Ramin got laid?” Farzan said, scratching his chest hair. “When?”
“Last night.”
“I didn’t have sex last night!” Ramin interrupted, way too loud, because some of the folks passing by swiveled to look at him. He lowered his voice and pulled out his keychain to get through the gate.
“You didn’t have sexlast night,” Arya muttered, and then his eyes widened. “You had sexthis morning?”
Ramin groaned. Why oh why wasthatthe conclusion Arya had drawn? And why oh why did he text his friends in the first place?
Because he loved them, that’s why. He loved them and he was a mess and he needed advice. He needed someone to help him figure out what to do. He needed his real friends, not their little miniature angel-devil versions.
“Okay, can we pause on that, at least until I get into my apartment?” Ramin muttered. “How are you both doing?”
Arya sighed. “Ugh. Some days I don’t know why I do this job.”
“Because you love it and you’re good at it,” Farzan said. “What happened?”
“We had a big wedding at Union Station,” Arya said. “Andapparentlythe father of the bride picked flowers his future son-in-law was allergic to. On purpose. For a hundred floral arrangements.”
A deep, rich laugh preceded David as he flopped onto the bed next to Farzan, equally shirtless, with a black silk cap protecting his hair. “No shit?”
“No shit,” Arya said.
Ramin finally made it off the elevator and into his apartment. He went straight for the kitchen to grab a saucepan for some tea.
“Okay, dude, are you back now? Out of earshot of nosy Italians?” Arya asked. “Wait, I thought Italians loved sex. Why are you so worried?”
“Can we focus?” Ramin asked automatically, then wished he hadn’t, because fuck, the focus was onhim.
“Exactly,” Farzan said. “Spill.”
“Wait, what’re we spilling?” David asked.
“Ramin had sex with someone this morning.” That was Arya.
