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“You don’t seem happy about that.”
Lake absently rubbed his foot against Grady’s. The water rippled around their legs as he tried to think of a way to explain without sounding like a petulant child. “Avery and I always spent Valentine’s Day together,” he said eventually.
“With your brother?” Grady asked, and Lake could hear the laughter in his voice.
“Don’t be dirty. It was like… even if we were dating someone, we wouldn’t do anything for it on principle, you know? Because Valentine’s Day is a commercial trap that was made for the sole purpose of taking the hard-earned money from poor schmucks in love. And now…” he trailed off.
“Now he’s spending it with someone. Two someone’s,” Grady corrected.
“Right.”
“Who happen to be your best friends.”
Lake ran his fingers across the surface of the water. “It’s not like that. Felix and Zach are the best guys I know. I couldn’t think of anyone better for my baby brother.” He cleared his throat. Hewashappy for them. It just felt like everything was changing so much more quickly than he’d thought it would. “I just feel a little left out,” Lake admitted quietly. “That’s not their fault.”
“Have you told them that?”
“Not… in so many words.” Not at all. What was he supposed to say? I’m jealous you’re spending so much time with yourboyfriend? It sounded stupid in his head. It would sound worse out loud. And most of it was his fault.
“Don’t you think maybe you should, then?” Grady asked.
Lake fiddled with a loose strand of thread on his shorts. “I don’t want them to think that I don’t want them to have what they want.”
“That’s a lot of ‘don’ts’ and ‘wants.’ I happen to be an expert on what happens when one party doesn’t tell the other party how they’re really feeling.”
Lake winced. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think of that. But it’s also not really the same thing. I just want them to be happy.”
“They wouldn’t want you to sacrifice your own for theirs,” Grady remarked. “If you’re upset by something, you need to tell them. It’s not fair to youorthem if you keep it bottled up. You’ll end up resenting them, and then things will be a lot worse off than they are now.”
Lake didn’t respond as he stared at the clear water of his pool. He’d imagined Saturday afternoons with children running around screaming and giggling and swimming in the water. Of barbecues and family get-togethers. His kids playing with Felix and Zach’s, cousins in all but blood.
None of those things had happened. His life had just passed by without him even noticing. And here he was, at thirty-one years old, with nothing but a big empty house to keep him warm.
“Thanks,” he said to Grady.
Grady pulled his legs out of the water and stood, holding up a hand to help Lake stand as well. “For what?”
“Not running screaming in the other direction?”
Grady chuckled as he grabbed the towels that they’d left on the outside dining setting. He threw one to Lake, and they dried their legs before heading inside.
“Give it time, I may yet,” Grady said.
“Well, I had fun while it lasted,” Lake said with a lopsided grin. “You wanna watch a movie?”
“Do you have appropriate movie snacks?”
“I can’t believe you just asked me that,” Lake said, only half faking offence. His house was practicallymadeof junk food. Not have movie appropriate snacks? Come on!
Grady smiled wryly. “You’re right. My mistake.”
They ended up with a bag of M&M’s that had been left over from Lake’s Christmas Eve party last year—he’d basically bought the entire supermarket out, and there had been so many left afterwards that Lake was still making his way slowly through them—and a large bowl of butter-and-salt popcorn.
Lake stopped as he browsed through his DVD collection. “Wait a second,” he said, turning to give Grady an incredulous look. “You haven’t seenJurassic Parksince you were akid?”
“I don’t have a lot of time for movies.”
“That’s because you spend all your free time watching reality TV shows and reading weird books.”
