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“Not really,” I shrugged. I’d never really understood why birthday parties were so important to some people. “I had my 30th last month and you didn’t see me having a party.”
“Not a public one,” he said slyly. Felix smirked as he looked at me, raising an eyebrow.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I turned away from the dartboard and crossed my arms over my chest. If my best friend wanted to say something, he could just say it. He didn’t have to go through the motions of being sly or careful.
“Are you really trying to tell me all of the submissives at that club you go to weren’t pleased as punch to get on their knees for you?” Felix chuckled. “You really want to tell me they weren’t begging you to take them?”
“Well,” I started to say, but he just laughed harder. He wasn’t making fun of me. He just thought the situation was hilarious. Felix and I had been best friends forever. He’d known me my entire life. While he was never into the kink scene, and he’d never particularly been interested in BDSM or clubs’, he always supported me in my endeavors. He also teased me relentlessly.
“It’s happening, David, and I want you there. Saturday night at eight.” Felix stopped laughing and looked serious. “I mean it.”
“You’ve got to be messing with me,” I sighed. A birthday party? I didn’t want to go to a birthday party. We weren’t kids anymore. Birthday parties were lame. I would much rather go to my favorite sex club and hang out with my kinky friends. I didn’t want to go to a place that was wildly vanilla, where everyone would be eating oysters and drinking expensive wine, yet not getting drunk. That sounded like hell to me. Not to Felix, though, apparently.
“Can I count on you? It’s important.”
“For the party?” I asked. Felix looked so hopeful that I couldn’t turn him down. “Yeah, whatever.”
He knew I’d be there. Felix and I had been best friends since we were kids. Our moms had been best friends before us, and we’d somehow carried on this weird family legacy of being buddies. We looked out for each other. That was probably the most important thing about us. No matter what happened, we always had each other’s backs. That was how we’d both managed to secure insane positions at the same law firm right after we graduated from law school. The best part was that we’d done it together as true brothers. Felix was the most important person in my life, and he knew it.
“Good,” he said. He picked up his jacket and slipped it on. Then he grabbed his beer and finished the last sip.
“Leaving so soon?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he nodded, dropping some cash on the table for the tab. The bar we went to was a tiny hole-in-the-wall where everyone knew everyone, and most of the time, their credit card machine “wasn’t working.” Cash was king in a place like this.
“Lauren’s waiting up, huh?” I asked.
“She should be back from her girl’s night out,” he smiled. “And I’d like to see her before we spend the entire day at her mother’s place tomorrow.”
“I don’t know what you see in her,” I laughed, shaking my head. “She’s not kinky, you’re not kinky, and you spend your weekends at family picnics and bonfires.”
“She completes me,” he joked, making a little heart in the air with his fingers. He smirked, knowing I hated stuff like that.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
Felix gave me a hug and turned to go, but then he stopped.
“Oh, and David?”
“Yeah?”
“Zoey’s flying in.”
Then he grinned, and he left the bar, and I stood there staring at the place where he’d been. Zoey Lane was coming to Kansas City? Seriously? I sat down. My solo game of darts was forgotten as I let his words sink in. I hadn’t seen Zoey Lane since the day I punched out her would-be prom date. She’d managed to make it through the last few weeks of my senior year without crossing my path, and anytime I’d come to see Felix during the summer, she’d been mysteriously absent from the house.
Felix and I had gone to college out-of-state and then we’d been busy with law school. Zoey graduated two years after us, and according to Felix, she’d gone to school back in Monterey where they’d lived before their mom died. She’d gotten a job out there, and even though Zoey and Felix remained close, she’d never so much as thanked me for what I’d done.
Not that I’d done it for a thank-you.
Still, I’d been confused by her reaction. I’d figured she would have cried and told me to leave her date alone. She hadn’t, though. She’d just watched me punch him, and then she’d never spoken to either of us again. It was strange, really.
Felix wasn’t an idiot, though. He knew I liked his sister as more than a friend. I’d always been infatuated with Zoey. She was sweet and innocent when we were teenagers. She was playful and funny and a huge goofball in all of the right ways. She was perfect, in my opinion. She was wonderful.
And then...
Then we’d been nothing. Felix had given me life updates on his sister, but he hadn’t called me out for liking her. The fact that he told me she’d be at the party was the first sign I’d had that he acknowledged my infatuation with her. Even after all of these years, I still viewed her as the one who got away. I still considered her to be someone who was wildly out of my league.
Well, maybe that was all about to change.
