Page 24 of Toren

Sawyer shoved plates of food in front of them and waited for Andrew to continue.

“I kind of agreed because he wasn’t listening to reason, then I hooked up with the other guy again.” Before either of his friends could say anything about that, he continued, “Dave has been avoiding me all week, so I went over there tonight to break up with him for good, and I don’t think I have to tell you what I caught him doing.”

“I’m sure he was being very monogamous,” Holt said around the stalk of broccoli he’d just shoved into his mouth.

“The most monogamous. But what’s worse, he still tried to stop me!”

Sawyer set his fork down and leveled a scathing look at him across the counter. “You’re not being serious.”

“I’m being so serious.”

“The same playbook how many years later?” Holt muttered.

Sawyer and Holt were two of his closest friends, Holt having been around since college and the only person in the friend group to have witnessed his relationship with Dave the first time around.

“I know,” Andrew agreed. “I don’t know why I thought it would be any different.”

“You wanted it to be.”

“You deserved it to be,” Sawyer added.

“And here we are, with noodles and beer, and it’s not any different than it was,” he said.

“But you hooked up with this new man Sunday night,” Sawyer said, brow raised. “And you were definitely home Sunday night.”

“He lives in San Diego.”

Sawyer hummed. “Convenient. What’s his name?”

“Toren.”

“Is he cute?”

“Very,” Andrew agreed.

“Tell us more,” Sawyer prompted.

“I don’t know much about him,” Andrew admitted with a grimace. “We haven’t spent a ton of time…talking…if you know what I mean, but he’s coming over tomorrow, so.”

“So you can do less talking,” Holt supplied.

Andrew flipped him off and dug into the noodles Sawyer had ordered for him. The three of them ate through the beginning of their meal in a friendly silence, but it wasn’t long before Sawyer piped up again.

“Is it a good idea do you think? To go from one relationship to another so quickly?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Andrew pushed his plate away and stretched his arms over his head. “We’re not in a relationship.”

That tasted a little bit like a lie.

“As long as he’s not in a relationship with Dave Harrington, I honestly don’t care,” Holt said.

Sawyer frowned at him, obviously seeing through the ruse, then started gathering the plates and scraping their leftover bites either into the trash or back into the takeout containers, depending on some arbitrary deciding factor that Andrew wasn’t privy to.

“And how was the art show?” Holt asked. “Dinner with your brothers.”

“All of it was good. I’m starting to get to know them a little bit better, and they’re all really good guys.”

“Do you see yourself in any of them?”