Oscar burst into laughter, leaning back in his chair. He covered his mouth when he couldn’t stop after a few seconds, eventually folding his arms on the table and burying his face in them, his whole body shaking as he just kept laughing like this was the funniest thing that’d ever happened.
It seemed like aslightoverreaction to Ezra.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment, gasping for breath. “I’m so sorry, I’m not laughing at you. But I don’t think I ever actually told you how Ryan and I got together, did I?”
Ezra paused for a moment to think, and realized that Oscar never had. The place in his memory wherehow Oscar and Ryan got togethershould have been was empty.
Interesting. Now Ezrahadto hear it.
“You didn’t,” he confirmed, turning his chair around a little way so he was facing Oscar. “But I’m all ears.”
“Okay, so, you know Ryan came here after his divorce, I think? Which is why we took so long to get around to this wedding.”
Ezra nodded. He’d heard that from Ryan, and about the awful shape the books were in and how no one else evenrealizedthey had a Facebook page.
“So like a week after he showed up, May sent us both to this… charity dinner thing? Anyway, one of the big donors mistook us for a couple, and Ryan played it up because he figured we’d get a donation out of it… which ended in the two of us going away to their summer home for the weekend. As a couple. Which wedefinitelyweren’t.”
Wow. That explained why Oscar had been laughing.
“So then…?”
“So Ryan kind of… half-mumbled something about wanting to try out being bi, and at first I kinda rolled my eyes over it, but then I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
“Heishot,” Ezra said.
“Right?” Oscar grinned. “I figured, y’know, what happens at a mansion in the middle of nowhere stays there, but… well, you know most of the rest of the story, anyway. But yeah. We started from a lie exactly like that.”
“Huh.” Ezra took a moment to absorb everything Oscar had said, turning it over in his mind. “Just like that?”
“Well, there was a brief period where neither of us could quite figure our shit out and also, the aforementioned big donor’s son turned out to have a thing for me, but… we got through it. And look at us now.”
“So cute together it’s kinda gross,” Ezra teased. He was happy for Oscar and thrilled that he got to be a part of his big day. Oscardeservedthis.
“The moral of the story is that fake relationships turn into real ones if you’re not careful,” Oscar said. “Not that I’d change anything. I’m so happy it’s a little gross tome. I didn’t know I could feel like this.”
Ezra smiled at that. He liked the thought of Oscar being impossibly happy. Finn and Nolan seemed that way, too.
So it was just him, now. All his friends had found someone. Which was awesome, because it meant that their little sanctuary family had expanded.
But it also left Ezra wondering whyhehadn’t found anyone yet.
“I don’t think I need to worry about Mike suddenly falling in love with me,” Ezra said. Mike was straight. He’d never been interested before. Why would he be now?
Of course, he knewRyanhad assumed he was straight before Oscar came along, but Oscar was cute and fun and impossible not to be attracted to. Ezra was… just some guy who liked birds a lot.
And Mike was hisfriend. They’d been best friends for years before he left. If Mike was going to be attracted to him, that would have come up by now, right?
Oscar shrugged. “Never say never, is all I’m saying. Weddings make people horny.”
Ezra’s mouth fell open, but he couldn’t stop himself laughing a moment later. Oscar’s bluntness was one of his favorite things about him.
“I’m not sure they make them magically bi, though,” Ezra said.
“Anything can happen here,” Oscar said. “This place has some kind of magic to it.”
“It does,” Ezra agreed. That part, as far as he was concerned, wasn’t up for debate. There was nowhere quite like the sanctuary.
It was a place that tended to give people what they needed, when they needed it.
