Chapter Twenty-One
By the time Friday evening rolled around, Flynn’s stomach was in knots.
After about a hundred checks in the mirror— his hair, his shirt, the evenness of his shave, and a dozen other tiny details—he’d finally convinced himself to leave his apartment and head to the restaurant Zach had texted him the address of. Now, he’d been standing outside it like an idiot for ten minutes, and there was another ten to go before the actual time they were supposed to meet at.
Playing puzzle games on his phone was doing absolutely nothing to calm his nerves, either. What if he screwed this up? What if he said the wrong thing and Zach lost both his school funding and the trust of his grandma in one evening?
The thought made Flynn feel sick. It would’ve been one thing if they got caught out before they were married. Or even after, but before they’d become…
Friends.
Boyfriends, he thought, though he was beginning to wonder if that was a mistake, too. Not because he didn’t like Zach, but because he had the power to screw up his entire life with one wrong word.
Because Zach deservedbetterthan the other brother. Better than a substitute.
And that was nerves talking, and Zach would have told him he was being stupid, and then for good measure he would have called Callie and hadhertell him he was being stupid, but that didn’t stop himthinkingit. Inside his own head, left to his own devices, he couldn’t stop himself.
“Hello, handsome,” a familiar voice said, and Flynn looked up to see Violet smiling at him. He smiled back, glad to have the relief from his own thoughts even if this was the moment when he had to face his fears.
The thing was, helikedViolet. Lying to her had been uncomfortable from the get-go, but he’d done it because Zach had cried in his arms and he was a sucker for anyone who did that, and, well…
He didn’tregretit, exactly, he just wished…
He wished they’d met differently. Without Aiden’s involvement. Aiden had a way of cursing everything he touched, and at one point Flynn had thought he was just unlucky, but now he was starting to see that it was because he washim.
Which Flynn hoped didn’t say anything about his future potential as a parent.
“You look great,” Flynn said, figuring Violet had started with the compliments, and therefore it was okay to pass one back. She made a gracious, approving nod, so he was probably right about that.
“I take it Zach’s late?” Violet asked, clearly unsurprised. “You know, I got him a watch when he was twelve. It never helped.”
Flynn chuckled. “I usually don’t notice,” he said. “He just… shows up when he shows up. I’ve never given him a time.”
All of that was true, so he wasn’t really lying. Even if he was implying that he’d known Zach longer than he actually had.
“He needs a window,” Violet said, understanding in her tone. “I guess you got the hang of him quickly. Let’s go inside and drink all the wine on him.”
Flynn laughed again, offering Violet his arm, and telling himself that maybe things would be okay, that he hadn’t screwed upyet, that he could get through this and everything would be okay and nothing bad would happen.
Zach showed up five minutes later, when Flynn had nervously sipped his way through half a glass of wine already, and kissed both of them on the cheek before sitting down.
Some of the worry in Flynn’s gut eased off.
“Flynn was just telling me all about your studio,” Violet said. “Which I’m hoping to see this weekend.”
Zach blushed, glancing over at Flynn, but smiling. “I think I could find some time,” he said. “I have to watch the market stall on Sunday, so I was hoping maybe one or both of you would want to come with me?”
“I’ll come,” Flynn volunteered, not wanting Zach to feel like he wasn’t interested in spending more time with him. They were both working around hectic schedules right now while Zach dealt with school and Flynn dealt with the post-summer rush of clients, people coming back from vacations and spending time with their family who had the sudden urge to fix their web presence.
It happened every year, but there weremoreof them every year. That was the price of success, he supposed, and it meant he got to pick and choose the best projects for himself and then refer the others to people who he knew needed the work, but it meant spending a lot of time deciding what he wanted to do. And taking on extra work out of fear that he wouldn’t make it through the lean holiday season.
Callie had described him as being like a squirrel storing acorns.
She probably wasn’t wrong. He did that with a lot of things.
“I’d love to,” Violet said. “I’d love to see people appreciating your work.”
Flynn smiled, partly because he was proud of Zach and wanted to see that, too, but also because if Violet saw that Zachwasmaking a living, maybe she wouldn’t worry so much about him.
