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“Liam!” The banging was louder. “Don’t make me call in a wellness check. You know how much I hate Miami PD.”
“Jack!” Liam called. “Morning, bud! What’s going on?”
“Is Mateo in there? His car is downstairs. Can you open the door?”
“Let me put on some clothes first, mate,” Liam shouted. “Wouldn’t want you to see my junk or anything. That sort of thing would probably change our friendship.”
“This is very true,” Mateo muttered while pulling on his own clothes. He grabbed a pillow and tip-toed over to the couch.
“Do we need to keep this a secret?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But my head’s throbbing right now, so I don’t want to think about explaining this to Jack,” he whispered back at me. “Find somewhere to hide.”
“I’ve been calling all morning,” Jack said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
I pulled on my panties and a T-shirt, then looked around the studio apartment. Mateo was laying on the couch with the pillow, while Liam stood by the front door, impatiently waving me on while he waited to open the door. There was only one place to hide, so I hurried straight to the bathroom. Closing the door would be suspicious, so I left it open and climbed into the shower, slowly pulling the curtain closed. I could hear everything pretty clearly from there.
“Morning, bud,” Liam said cheerfully. Too cheerfully. “What’s the problem?”
There was a long, pregnant pause. “Neither of you showed up to breakfast at the diner. And then neither of you answered your phones. I started freaking out.”
“Clearly,” Mateo said, adding his footsteps to the others. “We played Call of Duty. I crashed here.”
“He was definitely too drunk to drive,” Liam added. “I was mighty sauced myself. Must’ve slept through your phone calls. Didn’t mean to worry you.”
Jack let out a long sigh. “Sorry for almost breaking down the door. I had some weird dreams last night and have been in a weird mood all morning. So when neither of you showed up…”
There was a clapping sound. I pictured bro-hugs, slapping each other on the back the way guys did. “Glad you’ve always got our back, Jack.” Liam chuckled. “What kind of dreams had you all flustered?”
I heard more footsteps, and the front door closed. Then Jack’s voice again. “Reliving the last two residential fires. Running around that house searching for occupants. And before that, the fire at the Ford house.”
“Couple of rough calls,” Liam agreed.
“I keep replaying it in my head,” Jack explained. “Kicking down the door and seeing her. Lying there, helpless.”
He’s talking about me, I realized. But I thought Liam was the one who carried me out.
“I don’t believe in fate or anything,” Jack explained. “But I keep thinking about how she popped back into my life like that. Maybe it’s coincidence. The randomness of the universe. But what if it isn’t?”
“I believe things happen for a reason,” Mateo said slowly. “People do not just appear in our lives. We are all on paths, sometimes separate, and sometimes joined together. When two paths cross, whether for the first time or after many years apart… surely it means something. It must.”
His words were so genuine, so certain. And he had to know that I could hear everything he was saying. Did he really believe what he was saying? That my path had crossed with Jack—and Mateo, and Liam—for a reason, and that last night wasn’t just meaningless sex? The thought left me feeling confused.
“I don’t know what I believe,” Jack said. “But after that dream, I can’t shake this feeling about her.”
“Well, shit,” Liam said with a laugh. “Now I feel bad for sleeping with her.”
Mateo laughed nervously.
“Don’t feel bad,” Jack said. “I’m not mad, or jealous, or anything else. I’m just figuring some stuff out.”
“Hey, nothing wrong with that,” Liam replied.
“Besides, it doesn’t matter,” Jack added. “Alyssa lives in New York. Eventually, she’s going home. Even if I figured out my feelings for her, it wouldn’t matter. So I might as well get over myself.”
“That’s true,” Liam said. “No use getting involved knowing that. Unless all you were interested in was a random hookup.”
Jack’s laugh was bitter. “I don’t think you can have just a random hookup with Alyssa fucking Ford. At least, I know I can’t. She’s the kind of girl you—”
