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Noah shrugged. “I was thinking of sharing my recipe for ribs with him in exchange for learning how to make that cowboy caviar thing he makes that drives Rowe insane.”
Andrei just shook his head. “I had to get my mom to cough up a new Romanian recipe in exchange for a lesson on how to make cowboy caviar. Love that stuff. And Lucas likes it when we do Taco Tuesdays.”
“Speaking of…” Rowe drawled, running both his hands through his hair. “Where’s our boy at?”
Andrei nodded over to the far corner of the patio area that was largely cloaked in heavy shadow. “Facetiming with my mom,” Andrei said.
“Really?” Noah squinted and leaned forward so that he could now see Lucas sitting against the railing, his phone horizontal and raised so that the faint glow revealed an intense expression.
“It’s my parents’ anniversary. Thirty-five years. I called to say ‘hey’ and my mom ended up sucking Lucas into the call.”
“He gets along with your parents?”
Andrei rolled his eyes and groaned. “My mom loves him. He’s still adjusting to my parents. They can be a bit much.”
Rowe snorted. “Yeah, well no one can top Jude’s mom, Anna. I’m pretty sure that woman just wants to wrap Snow up in cotton and feed him endlessly.”
Noah looked over at Lucas again to find that the man had lifted his eyes up from his screen and was looking at them. The dim light did nothing to conceal the scorching heat in his gaze. The intensity of that gaze sent a flush through his body and Noah suddenly struggled to swallow.
“Are you sure he’s still talking to your mom?” Noah asked.
Rowe and Andrei looked over at Lucas, but the other man’s attention was back on his phone. Rowe shrugged and silently walked over so that he was standing behind Lucas’s shoulder. It took only a second before Rowe’s cackle echoed across the lake. Lucas jerked the phone away as Rowe attempted to grab it and glared up at him.
“Is this what goes on at work?” Lucas snapped.
“Oh fuck,” Andrei groaned, sinking a little lower on the sofa next to Noah. “I was really hoping he wouldn’t notice that damn video.”
“What video?” Noah demanded, his eyes darting from Andrei to Lucas and back again.
“Someone posted a video of our sparring session.” Andrei turned a little so that he was facing Noah more, his eyebrow lifting. “You didn’t see it?”
“Sparring session?” Noah paused as he searched his memory for any sparring he’d done with Andrei in the past several months. Andrei spent most of his time training the newbies…and then laughed as the memory hit him. “You mean that time where you kicked my ass for a solid twenty minutes and then let me crawl away?”
“Yes, that sparring session,” Andrei mumbled. “I didn’t even think about freaking YouTube or Facebook at the time. I need to be more aware of Lucas’s image.”
Noah snorted as he watched Lucas push out of his chair, his eyes locked on Andrei. The damn man was radiating enough heat to set the boat on fire, and all his attention was focused on one person.
“I don’t think he’s really worried about his image,” Noah drawled.
Andrei looked up when Lucas stopped in front of him and swallowed hard, his hand slipping down to unconsciously adjust himself in his loose shorts.
“Let’s talk,” Lucas said, his voice barely more than a growl as he took Andrei’s hand and pulled him to his feet. He kept pulling until Andrei’s chest crashed into his, snagging his mouth in a commanding kiss that had Andrei moaning. From where Noah was seated, he had an all-too-clear view of Lucas’s large hand grabbing Andrei’s ass and pulling him in closer so that they could grind against each other while he wrapped his hand up in Andrei’s dark hair. Noah debated trying to slip away from them and to another part of the boat before someone started losing clothes, but Lucas suddenly broke off the kiss and tugged Andrei toward the bedrooms.
Rowe’s laugh followed them through the boat, but neither man looked back at them. They were lost in their own world.
Rowe crossed the deck and started to claim the empty seat next to Noah when Snow stepped out onto the deck, a bottle held aloft.
“Ward! Drink with me. I found the tequila,” Snow declared.
Rowe smiled broadly at Snow and then it slipped away as he looked down at Noah, clearly torn. Noah refused to touch tequila. Too many drunken nights and wretched hangovers the next day had forced him to swear off the stuff permanently. But Noah knew that Rowe loved drinking with the surgeon.
“Go!” Noah laughed, delivering a quick kick to Rowe’s ass. “Just don’t fall off the boat, because I’m not saving you.”
Wrapping his arm around Snow, the two men stopped in the kitchen long enough to grab limes and a knife before disappearing to the upper deck. Jude stepped onto the deck and dropped into a chair across from Noah.
