Rachel had teased him aboutEzra?
About… dating Ezra, maybe?
“We, uh-” Ezra began, only to be cut off by Mike laughing nervously.
“Uh, yeah,” Mike said, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah, totally. You, uh… you figured it out before I did, I guess. If I wanted to hang out with Ezra so much, I should just date him, right? Like you always said.”
She’d saidthat?
Ezra wasn’t sure what to think. Had Rachel been jealous of their friendship?
Or maybe she’d realized how Ezra felt. Seen the way he looked at Mike.
And then teased Mike about it in the hopes that he’d see it, too. Maybe as a heads-up, maybe to scare him away from sticking around. Who knew? Ezra had never been all that close to Rachel, she’d been more comfortable working with mammals than birds.
Mike had always been happy to lend a hand where it was needed most. Once upon a time, they’d been theonlysanctuary in a hundred-mile radius equipped to take on birds, so that’d been where they needed the help. There was a specialist one an hour away now, but there was overflow from them, too. Ezra was still plenty busy, but it wasn’t an all-hands-on-deck situation anymore.
None of which answered the question about whether or not Rachel knew how he felt about Mike, but Ezra wasn’t ready to think about that.
Hedefinitelywasn’t ready to process the fact that Mike had just claimed they were on a date. No, not juston a date, but actively dating.
Crap.
This wasnotwhat he’d signed up for.
On the other hand, though… he wasn't about to throw Mike under the bus. He was still Mike'sfriend. He'd promised they could go back to the way things were as though they'd never changed.
And Mike wouldn’t have been doing this if Rachel hadn’t assumed they were dating first. All he wanted was to come away from a run-in with his ex without feeling terrible about himself.
Ezra couldn’t deny him that.
“That’s exactly how he put it when he asked,” Ezra joked, beaming at Rachel and reaching out to take Mike’s hand. Mike accepted it eagerly, squeezing Ezra’s fingers the moment he had a grip on him.
So, this was what they were doing. That was fine. Totally fine.
Hell, pretending to date Mike would make it way less likely that Mike might realize how Ezra actually felt about him.
“Aren’t they cute?” Rachel enthused to the man on her arm, and Ezra genuinely couldn’t tell whether she was being sincere or not. Maybe she reallywashappy for Mike.
“This is Rick, by the way,” she continued. “My husband. He’s thrilled to meet you, he just doesn’t say much.”
“Too busy looking at you, honey,” Rick said, though Ezra knew he’d been scanning the room. Which was fine. He seemed a little… bland, for Ezra’s taste, but nothing about him screamedterrible personor anything.
If Rachel thoughtMikewas boring, though, it was definitely a surprised that she’d ended up with this guy.
Ezra still hated him on principle, out of loyalty to Mike.
“Oh hey,” Rachel spoke up again. “Mistletoe.”
Ezra looked up to see a sprig of mistletoe hanging just a handful of inches above his head.
“Ifyoudon’t kiss him, I will,” she said to Mike.
Mike looked directly at Ezra, panic washing over his features again.
This was an awkward situation. There was no way Mikewantedto kiss him, and Ezra wasn’t going to haul him in for a kiss he was sure the poor guy would hate, but… if theydidn’t, it might as well have been confirmation that Mike had lied about them being together.
After all, Ezra had never shied away from kissing people in public, and even Rachel knew that.
