Page 27 of The Forever Vault

“Who’s there with you?”

“O, Austin, Ezra and Miles.”

“How’s Miles doing?”

“Good, but hard to tell. He’s a little quiet. Speaking of…” I turned away from everyone and lowered my voice. “We’ve had some issues with Preston. He’s pretty much been banned from working with the team. To put it nicely, he’s a homophobe. I know you worked with him and Miles. Was he like that then?”

“Ah, fuck. Yeah. He was a handful. He never seemed completely comfortable with me and Declan, but he wasn’t an ass about it. Honestly, I thought he was in the closet and possibly jealous. Then he got his new coach and it was over. He stopped working with me after that. Sorry, I should’ve warned you.”

“That’s alright. You have enough on your plate.”

“Tell me about it, bro. I didn’t think a wedding in California would be so much planning. We might as well have gone to Hawaii.”

“Planning it during the Olympics so a lot of your friends could go was nice of you though.”

“It’ll be a miracle if everything goes well.”

“When will you get here?”

“In a few days, bro. I’ll be there to watch you guys compete, for sure.”

“Sweet. We’ll see you then. We’re pulling up to the restaurant.”

“See you soon. Miss ya!”

“Me too. It’ll be good to see you.”

6

Camden

“Hey, Luke! Over here!"

I had been keeping an eye on the door since Colton, Zeph and I arrived at the restaurant early.

Luke smiled as he made eye contact with me and I watched him lead the guys to our table near the back.

"Hey, handsome. Miss me?" Luke leaned down for a kiss, which I returned.

"Of course."

"Well, you guys know O and Austin, and you probably know of but may not have met Ezra and Miles. The goofy one's Ezra, the quiet one's Miles."

"I am not goofy. I am a delight!"

I watched as Ezra made a move for the seat next to me. Luke grabbed the chair from him and pushed him to the side.

"Oh also, Ezra has a crush on you, Cam."

What?

"I do not!" he yelped, taking the seat on the other side of Luke with a pout.

"Naw, he's too busy lusting after his mortal enemy."

I had been away from the team for too long. "Do I wanna know?" I asked.

Austin answered, "Ezra's been trading jabs back and forth on Twitter with Jack Davies. It's true love, for sure."