At least, there aren’t usually strippers.
I’m not sure what Hugo has in store for this bachelor party. I should have been the one planning it, but he’s my friend, and he knew that I couldn’t manage it myself. Well, I definitely couldn’t have hosted a goddamn party. I’m not even positive I’ll be able to attend it.
“Coward,” I mutter when I’m still standing on the pavement.
I should be inside the building, happy that two people I love have found their happy ending. I’m not jealous. That would be too easy. I’m despairing. I’m lonely. I’m goddamn afraid that I’m always going to be this way. There’s something inside me that doesn’t know how to love, not truly, not deep. And Christopher? Harper? They could tell that about me.
I find Hugo inside the Den.
“Now what do you have planned for this shindig? So that I can pretend I give a damn, that is. Pin the tail on the donkey? A pinata?”
“A pinata? No. I didn’t think your heart could take much more of a beating.”
I study my empty glass, brooding. “Strippers?”
“That would have been too easy. Christopher said no to strippers.”
My eyes narrow. “You talked to him.”
“Someone had to.”
The accusation doesn’t have any heat behind it, because Hugo knows how much this cost me. Christopher showed up at the ranch, wearing his suit, authentically Italian, his loafers shiny against the dusty brown backdrop of my land. I want you to be my best man, he said, and God, fuck, no, never, I can’t, it will break me, I’m already broken.
It would be an honor. That’s what I said instead.
A very European one-shoulder shrug. “He understood why I contacted him, but he was very firm on the matter. No strippers. Besides, he does not seem like the type.”
“The type of man who likes tits and ass, you mean?”
“The type of man who likes to pay for them.”
I’m not sure how you tell them apart, but if anyone knows, it’s Hugo.
There are only so many ways a man without a dollar to his name can turn pure ambition into a fortune. As a blue-eyed roughneck, construction workers welcomed me into their fold. They were all too happy to send me in to speak to the foreman, to the project manager, to the investors, when the schedule had to be delayed—and the schedule always had to be delayed. They sent me because they knew I would have him sign on the dotted line, with a smile on his face while he did it.
Hugo had a slightly different path.
He worked as a male escort to wealthy women who wanted an orgasm once in a while. It’s not like their rich husbands were doing the job in between screwing the nanny at home and the secretary at work.
“An ice bar,” Hugo says, inclining his head. “The bar made from ice, the bottles. The cups. The whole thing. It’s already set up in the back room. We’ll have to wear parkas.”
“That must have cost a pretty penny.”
“I used your credit card. You don’t mind, do you?”
That earns him a wry look. “Anything for the happy couple. What about the Ferrari out front?”
“Not street legal, but we have some off-duty cops keeping a route empty through downtown.”
“Are you also using my credit card to pay them off?”
“Cash only. There can’t be a paper trail.”
I have a hazy memory of handing over my last hundred-dollar bill to the guy delivering my pizza. Don’t fall in love, I told him. That’s what I’m telling you. Don’t you dare.
Nothing like advice from a drunk.
The party has already hit a feverish pitch. Alcohol flows in amber pours and crystal glasses. In the center of the room Christopher stands in a crowd of men, all of them vying for his opinion, his attention. He’s a goddamn prince of the business world, and the funny thing is, he doesn’t particularly enjoy it. The numbers, that’s what he likes. Making them add up the way he wants. This part, the people part, this was my job. Even from twenty feet away I can tell he’s uncomfortable.
This is the part where I save him. Always, I saved him.
When we were friends.
Before we became, so briefly, lovers.
In that hairsbreadth of time when there were three of us. Instead of two.
His eyes meet mine, and relief flashes through him. An instant of relief too soon replaced by wariness. Well, that’s about what I deserve. I head toward him in slow, direct strides. Men and women move aside for me, curious about whether I’m going to congratulate my best friend. Or throw a punch. Tell the truth, I wasn’t sure which one it would be when I showed up.
Christopher doesn’t take a step back. Maybe he’s willing to take that punch.
Or maybe he knows me better than I do.
I put out my hand. “Congrats,” I tell him, my manner easy. “The best man won.”
A rumble of laughter. Everyone around us knows we fought over the woman he’s going to marry. What they don’t know is that we held her sweet body between our own, making her come with our fingers and tongues. They don’t know that I loved Christopher before I loved Harper.
He clasps my hand back, and he pulls in for a brief, impersonal bro hug. The warmth of his hand doesn’t make my stomach flip. Maybe the alcohol has made me permanently numb. “Nah,” he says, his tone as casual as mine. “I’ve never been the better man.”
The words are simple, meaningless. Empty, if you didn’t know there was an apology inside them, wrapped up so tight it can barely breathe—but there it is, from a man who never explains himself to anyone. People wander away, and then it’s the two of us.
“You came,” he says.
This close I can see the fine lines fanning from Christopher’s eyes, early for a man so young. He’ll look distinguished before he turns thirty. That comes from working late hours, always with something to prove. “Of course I came.”
“Of course? I figured Hugo would have to drag you here.”
Which is exactly what happened. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
That earns me a snort. “You don’t have to stay long. I’d leave early if I could.”
My mind flashes on a girl with honey-brown hair and endless Bambi eyes. I do want to leave early, but it’s not to go home. Not to drown myself in a bottle. I want to leave early and find her. “Is Harper having a bachelorette party?”
“Don’t worry. I made her promise not to paint tonight.”
Harper St. Claire has a penchant for using art as a medium for protest and society change. Which means there’s a decent chance she could end up arrested the night before her wedding. “Maybe she’s somewhere making a statement about the shackles of marriage, painting a life-sized Mary Tyler Moore across your brand-new building.”
“Don’t give her ideas,” he says darkly.
A rueful smile. “That’s about all I can do now.”
We stare at each other, marking the moment in time, from one second to two, passing over the space where we were best friends. It won’t ever be the same. Harper changed that. Even knowing that, I can’t resent her. Want her, love her. Go mad with goddamn jealousy. I can’t wish that she never showed up though. It would be as insincere as wishing away the sun.