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Silence fell over us as we regarded one another from across the table. There was…a lot to say. First on the docket was the fact that we’d very nearly screwed in his hot tub. Sure, it’d been looking like a kiss at that moment, but I knew where it would’ve led.
And the scary thing was how little control I’d had over myself. It was like I’d been on total autopilot, my mouth moving toward his without any thinking of my own.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I’d been thinking about a few things, like his mouth, and his muscles, the way his cock looked in that tight pair of trunks…
“Anyway,” he said, clasping his hands together, as if he knew what was on my mind and wanted me to get my head in the game. “We’ve got some stuff to talk about.”
Shit. Is he going to bring it up?
“We do,” I said, speaking tentatively. “Big things.”
“Like you and me…”
Uh-oh. He’s doing it.
“…with the wedding.”
Relief and disappointment hit me in equal measure. He wanted to talk about less complicated stuff.
OK, that wouldn’t be so bad, right?
“Right,” I said, pushing the other issue out of my head and focusing on this more important matter.
But still, the fact of our attraction, and our unaddressed feelings, was most definitely an elephant in the room. And not a regular elephant—no, one of those enormo ones you’d see at a natural history museum, all stuffed and furry. A mammoth.
Feelings like the fact that I was still, as much as I hated to admit it, mad at him. After all, he’d screwed me and ditched me, made my first time just another pump-and-dump in what was assuredly a long, long list of them. Granted, he didn’t know that he’d taken my virginity, but still.
“You cool over there?” he asked, leaning in a bit.
“Yeah,” I said, plastering a smile on my face. “Totally cool.”
“So. I don’t know if you’ve ever done this ‘maid of honor’ thing, because I sure as hell haven’t done the ‘best man’ thing.”
“You’re right. Neither of those things are, um, things that I’ve done.”
Eloquence wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.
“Then that’s perfect,” he said. “We’re going to both be in support roles during the wedding—er, weddings. And with neither of us knowing really what we’re doing here, that’s going to help a lot to have someone who’s in the same boat.”
“Sure. Makes good sense. Probably lots of cake tastings and dress-trying-on and all that. For Pepper and Sam, at least.”
He nodded. “And if I know Will and Noah like I do, they’re going to act like they’ve got everything under control and aren’t flustered in the slightest, even if they’re totally in over their heads.”
“Then we’re going to be on full on watch duty. Watching out for the boys and girls, and watching to make sure we’re both on track.”
“Eyes on everything,” he said with a smile.
And it meant that, like I thought, we were going to be in each other’s lives more than we’d been in years.
He sipped his coffee, and I sipped mine. As soon as we set down our cups, he spoke up again.
“The other night—”
“It wasn’t a good idea,” I blurted. “Bad idea. Terrible idea.”
So much for playing it cool. But at least the small smile on his face let me know he didn’t think I was totally out of line.
“Bad idea. Glad we’re in agreement.”
“Especially with all that’s going on. Last thing we need on top of all that is—”
“I know.” He jumped in as if he were worried that by saying the words I’d make them more real. “We had a moment of weakness, and yeah—this double-wedding thing is going to be complicated enough without us revisiting the past.”
“Right. The past is the past. No sense in making it the present.”
Still batting zero, or whatever the worst score would be, for eloquence. But it was fine—like with the wedding, we were on the same page.
“Anyway. We still haven’t gotten a chance to catch up. I don’t even know what you’re—”
He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes going wide, and I knew it meant he was getting a text. Sure enough, he reached for his phone and gave it a look.
“Shit,” he said.
“Bad news?”
“No.” He slid his phone back in his pocket. “Manager wants to meet with me about some re-release of my first album and managed to get a meeting with someone at Spotify for exclusive streaming or something.”
“And the meeting’s now, I take it?”
He nodded. “Meeting’s now.” He put the plastic top back on his cup and got up.
“I’ll head out with you. Still got some errands to run.”
Outside, we both approached our cars.
“Nice ride.”
“It gets me around,” he said, his words striking me as much humbler that the cocky egoist I knew in college.
He stepped around as I hit my own key fob, unlocking the door. Sean then pulled the door open for me in an unexpected display of chivalry.
