“As long as you’re there?” I can feel the grin spreading across my face. “Bring it the fuck on.”
Nineteen
Best Men
October 2025
“COLE!!!” A POUNDINGon the bedroom door, jolting me awake. Cole lifts his head, leaving a spot of drool behind on my chest. “Ezra, do you have Cole in there with you?”
“Shit—”
Cole is giggling, reaching for the covers. He has just enough time to pull them up over the two of us before Bree bursts into the room. Her eyes are blazing, and she’s wearing a short white satin robe and fluffy high heeled slippers.
“Jesus Christ, Bree, I’mnaked—” he gasps.
“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Bree replies crisply. She grabs Cole’s boxers off the floor and tosses them in his direction, along with a pink satin robe. “Do you have any idea whattimeit is?”
“It’s — time to get up?” Cole guesses.
“It’ssix thirtyalready! The photographer is here, and we have a breakfast buffet set up in the lounge, but I wake up to find out that my man of honor has snuck out of my room in the middle of the night —”
We’re in the Berkshires for Bree and Seth’s wedding, in one of the many lush bedrooms in a palatial villa that Rodney Slade rented out for the weekend for the bridal party. Last night, Cole was supposed to stay in Bree’s suite with the bridesmaids, and I was supposed to stay over here in the other part of the house with Seth, since Bree and Seth aren’t planning to see each other until the wedding. But Cole and I — well, we just don’t have that kind of self control these days.
“Okay, okay,sorry—” Cole sits up, pushing the hair back from his face, and I can’t help reaching out, running my hand up the curve of his spine. He winks at me over his shoulder, then turns to Bree. “I’ll be out in a minute, okay?”
“You’dbetterbe.” Bree flounces toward the door, but turns and glares back at us before she steps out. “And don’t think you’re off the hook either, Ezra. You are onthin ice.”
When she’s gone, Cole buries his face in his hands.“Fuuuck, it’s going to be a long day. Breakfast and mimosas and trying to keep Bree from freaking out and hair and makeup and —”
“And, you know, the wedding,” I chime in.
He flops back down among the pillows, then rolls over and props himself on one elbow so that he can look at me. “And what exactly is the first thing onyouragenda today?”
I yawn, stretching my arms ostentatiously over my head. “I think Seth and I are going out for a hot towel shave at nine? Before that, though — you’re looking at it.”
“I hate you —” he groans, half-rolling on top of me.
“Youloveme —” I hook my hand around the back of his neck, dragging him down into a kiss.
It’sintimate, familiar, both of us fuzzy with sleep, moving slowly, humming contentedly as we press skin against skin. I feel like the past month has been one long extended kiss, both of us making up for lost time, letting out every single tender feeling that we’ve held back all these years. We’ve kissed on the couch in Cole’s apartment and against the kitchen counter in mine, on the beach at Sandy Hook and right in Dad’s driveway, where all the neighbors could see us. We’ve kissed in the grass in Prospect Park and in an alley behind Cole’s favorite dive bar in the Village. We’ve kissed and kissed and kissed, and yet I know that it’s never going to be enough, that I’m always going to want more of this,every single day.
I roll him onto his back, sliding a hand down his belly. “Hey, any chance we have time for —?”
Cole laughs, shaking his head. “Ohfuck, no!”
“Are yousure? You know how fast I can get you off.”
“Babe, if I’m not out in that hallway in thirty seconds, Bree will literally come in here and slap my dick out of your hand.” He gives me one more lingering kiss, then wriggles out of my grip. “I have plans for you tonight after it’s all over, though — Ipromise.”
“Mmm, okay —”
I lie among the pillows, absentmindedly stroking my belly as I watch him wiggle into his boxers and pajama pants, and then the pink robe with the wordsBRIDE SQUADemblazoned in sparkly letters across the back. When he’s done, he leans over me, brushing our lips together.
“See you in a few hours, okay?”
When he’s gone, I stare up at the ceiling, too keyed up to go back to sleep. I guess I could take care of business myself, but there’s something enjoyable about holding onto the ache, theneedfor Cole, until I can be with him again. We’ve managed to see each other nearly every day in the past four weeks, even with my teaching schedule and Cole’s upcoming gallery opening and last-minute wedding prep and driving down to New Jersey every weekend to visit Dad. I’ve spent more nights at Cole’s apartment than I can count, and maybeI’m not quite ready to poke at that yet, the way our lives are intertwining. But it’s all good, and I’m looking forward to today much more than I ever thought I would.
***
