2
“Michael Halliday,” Ezra read off the RSVP he was holding, wrinkling his nose. He didn’t recognize the name, unless…
“Wait, Mike-Mike?” he asked, looking to Oscar, who was patiently running a ruler down the guest list to find the name. With a little more than a week to go before the wedding, things were picking up speed now.
Ezra suspected they were doing RSVPs a little late, but they were planning to have the whole thing at the sanctuary, so it was really just a matter of how many people they had to feed. Everyone wouldfit, they’d even cleared out a disused shed for the purpose.
Besides, they’d only invited something like fifty people.
Most of them had said yes, which was no less than Ezra expected. Oscar had always been popular. Everyone who met him loved him.
So now they were sitting around the table in the sanctuary’s kitchen, going through them and figuring out exactly who was planning on showing up. It might have been faster to just cross off the few names that had said no, or hadn’t responded.
“Yep,” Oscar confirmed.
“Who’s Mike-Mike?” Nolan asked, looking up from his own stack of RSVPs.
A slow, knowing smile spread across Oscar’s lips. He didn’t even look up, but that smile spoke volumes.
A knot formed in Ezra’s stomach.
“Ask Ezra,” Oscar said, throwing him under the bus without a moment’s hesitation.
Well, not that he minded telling Nolan. Nolan was his friend, and they were all family here. But…
Where did he even start?
“Mike is, uh… orwas… I’m not sure where to begin here,” Ezra said.
“He used to volunteer here,” Oscar interrupted. “Long before your time, when there were less wildlife sanctuaries around and everyone kinda flocked to us.”
“Sure,” Nolan said. “Half the guest list is ex-volunteers. So why’d you pause on his name?”
Ezra licked his lips. Nolan was unfairly perceptive about things like this. “Mike is the painfully straight man who made me realize I was painfully bi,” Ezra said, figuring that about covered it.
“Oh,” Nolan responded. “Oh. Wow. Are you gonna be…?”
“I’ll be fine.” Ezra put the RSVP card aside and looked at the next one. “Latrece Crawford is a yes.”
The sound of Oscar moving the ruler along his list filled the silence that followed.
“I didn’t mean to snap,” Ezra said, looking up at Nolan in apology. “I’m sorry, I just…”
“I’ll be here if you need to cry over him again,” Oscar said, halfway between sincere and teasing. Ezra believed hewouldbe, if necessary. Oscar had been the first person he came out to, and he wasn’t sure howOscarfelt about that, but to him, that’d always meant there was a bond between them.
The chair creaked under Nolan as he shifted his weight. “I poked a wound, huh?” he asked.
“Not really?” Ezra sat back, realizing he wasn’t about to get out of this conversation without spilling his guts. “There was, seriously, never anything between us. But I was younger and I freaked out over him. I’m over it, honestly, it was just… weird seeing his name again, for a second.”
Oscar sat up straight, reaching out to put a hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “If I’d known it was going to upset you…”
“I’m not upset,” Ezra said, covering Oscar’s hand with his own and squeezing tightly. “Honestly, I’mfine. This is my normal face.”
“Your normal face is a smirk,” Nolan pointed out. “This is a sad face.”
“Not sad,” Ezra corrected. “Just… thinking. He was the one who got away, I guess. I mean, maybe that metaphor doesn’t work, because there was never anything between us. Nothing romantic, anyway. I would’ve called him my best friend at the time. And then he moved away with his girlfriend and I never saw him again.” He shrugged. “So maybe the feeling wasn’t mutual.”
Nolan made a soft, sympathetic noise.
