“Seriously, though,” Caleb spoke up. My eyes traveled upwards. The giant football player was the biggest of our group, even given that we had a bunch of other players with us. After all, Aiden, one of the grooms, was his old college teammate. The difference was that Caleb had actually made it to the real leagues. I saw more than one person giving him a second glance as they passed by, then whispering to their friends that they recognized him. “If your friend isn’t coming, we should just go sit down and order.”
“He’s my boyfriend, not my friend,” I reminded him through gritted teeth. What annoyed me more than anything was the fact that he was right. “And he’s only a couple of minutes late. Just give him a chance.”
“We can wait a bit longer, I’m sure,” Keaton spoke up. Trust my knight in shining armor to come to my rescue. I shot him a grateful look.
I’d saved him, once. Or, really, my parents had. We’d taken him in when his own parents threw him out for being gay. He’d lived with me for a year. Mom and Dad had insisted as soon as they found out he had nowhere to go.
Since that day, he’d been the one to jump in and save me from getting cut off by our other friends, time and time again. No matter how bad my behavior got, he was there to give me excuses and tell the others to give me another chance.
Keaton, Rowe… maybe I was developing a pattern.
I wondered how long I was going to be able to keep relying on that grace. Keaton was too nice to cut me off – probably. His husband, Olly, on the other hand, was already giving me a look that said they couldn’t actually wait too long at all.
Not that it mattered. It was down to the grooms – Aiden and Cade – to decide whether it was time to go in. It wastheirrehearsal dinner, after all.
I looked around the group, appraising who was on my side and who wasn’t, and had to mentally snort to myself. If Keaton’s dad could see us now, he’d have a fit. Excluding the families of the grooms, there were thirteen of us here – and eight were gay men.
On any normal weekend, I’d be thinking I liked how that ratio improved my chances of getting laid.
But right now, all I was thinking was whether or not I’d be able to translate this into a pity threesome with one of the couples when I really did get stood up.
“Hey! Sorry I’m late,” a voice rang out from behind me, and it took me a long second to realize.
I turned around, spinning so fast as soon as I worked out who it was that I almost fell over.
“Rowe!” I half-shouted, way too surprised and stunned to rein myself in. He was walking fast across the lobby towards us, his cane tap-tapping insistently on the marble floor. He looked breathless and slightly red in the cheeks, though it didn’t make him any less handsome.
“Hey, baby,” he said, his voice dropping to a murmur as he made it to our group.
My gut dropped inside me.Baby?I knew he was just putting it on in front of my friends like we’d agreed, but…
Say it again.
“So, this is the famous Rowe,” Keaton said appraisingly. I glanced over and saw he had a warm, welcoming smile on his face, but I could also tell he was checking Rowe out to see if he was good news. Despite all the times I’d fucked up, Keaton was still looking out for me here, too. “We were beginning to think you weren’t real.”
Ace snorted. “Give him a pinch and check, in case he still isn’t.”
“Stop acting up just because you’re jealous,” I fired back at Ace, tilting my head at him. “I know you still want me, but you don’t have to take it out on my boyfriend.”
Ace made a snarky face back at me. Sometimes this felt good, like old times – the kind of bantering that would lead to an exhilarating hate fuck upstairs later. But then I remembered he was out of bounds now, and he probably meant everything he said.
I rolled my eyes at him.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Aiden said, taking control. “We’re glad to have you here, Rowe. Better late than never.”
Rowe flushed momentarily, a dark smattering of red around his cheekbones that just as soon disappeared. My eyes flashed over it, drinking it in. Was it just because he’d called me baby, or was he even more attractive outside of work? “Sorry,” he said again. “I got caught up with sorting some things out for my sister.”
“She’s in the hospital,” I announced, automatically leaping on the opportunity to show off how virtuous and kind and good to his family my so-called boyfriend was. “Hey, you look out of breath. Do you need to sit down? You can lean on me?”
Rowe shot me a look for just a second. It was a strange look, and so fast I didn’t think anyone else would have had time to figure it out. It was kind of half-resigned and half-insulted. Like he couldn’t believe I would try and offer him help and single him out like that, but also like he was so used to people doing it that it was hardly a thing.
It took my breath for a moment. I’d wanted to come across as a concerned boyfriend, but he made me feel ignorant and selfish.
I didn’t like it.
“I’m fine,” Rowe said. He tapped his cane on the ground smartly as if to emphasize the point. “What’s the deal? Are we going right in to eat?”
“You’ve got your bag with you,” Cade pointed out, gesturing to the suitcase Rowe was dragging behind him. The cute redhead was usually happy to be quiet and hide behind his husband-to-be, but like Keaton, he was all kindness. “Xavi, why don’t you get Rowe settled into your room and we’ll meet you inside? It will probably take that long for us all to get seated and read the menu, anyway, so you won’t be late.”
