Everything Changes

Maybe there wasn’t a moment. Maybe it was in his head, but Anne broke it anyway with her laugh and a gesture at the chocolate all over her clothes and hands from where she’d gripped the bowl. He watched her lick it from her fingertips and there was no more denying it. He was an asshole.

“You have some just…there.” His thumb traced the corner of her mouth, which opened at his touch.

Fuck, her lips were soft. The tip of her tongue hovered and he wanted to slide his thumb into her mouth’s heat. He wanted to kiss away the sweetness on her mouth…but he didn’t.

She backed away, her eyes going over his shoulder, and Alex already knew what he’d see. “Jamie,” he said as though he hadn’t just been thinking dirty thoughts about his best friend’s wife. “How the fuck’ve you been?”

The dinner part went as well as anything involving the Kinneys could. Evelyn curled her lip at him but had been polite, at least. She was always polite in front of other people. Alex reminded himself he didn’t give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut what the old hag thought, or had ever thought, or ever would think.

He made sure to linger around Jamie and whisper in his ear when he saw her watching.

The look she gave him then was well worth the look on Jamie’s face, that sort of half-startled, half-lazy leer Alex bet Jamie didn’t even feel in his eyes and on his mouth. Leaning so close his lips brushed Jamie’s ear, Alex could smell the new cologne his friend wore. Underneath it, the scent of the same soap he’d used for years, that and fabric softener. In a blink they were back in junior high, wrestling over a copy of Mad Magazine on Jamie’s bed.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Kinney,” he made sure to say sweetly when Jamie’s family left. “Great to see you again.”

She was too much of a bitch to know he meant it. Once upon a time Jamie’s family had been his, too. At least he’d thought so then. He knew better now.

Anne went to bed early, and as soon as she did, Jamie was pulling open the cabinet to bring down a bottle of Jack so dusty his fingers left a mark on the glass. He put it on the table with a triumphant grin and brought out two shot glasses, too.

“Let’s drink.”

After leaving Singapore and making his way through Amsterdam, Germany and a few other countries, Alex and the hours on the clock still weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. Jet lag had nothing on the bone-deep level of exhaustion threatening to topple him, but the shower he’d taken before the Kinneys arrived had woken him, as had the company. He was too jazzed to sleep but too tired to make much sense of things.

“Hell, yes.” The first shot tore through his veins and slashed a sliver in his throat, making him cough so hard Jamie had to pound his back.

“Jeeze, man. Don’t die on me—you just got here.” Jamie looked down the hall to the bedrooms. Interesting, that he didn’t want his wife to know he was knocking back a couple shots with his friend. “Let’s go out on the deck.”

He took the bottle. Alex followed. Outside the chill breeze drifting off the lake felt good on his face with the fire from the liquor still burning its way to his gut. Alex shuffled in his pocket for the Marlboros he was going to quit one of these days. The lighter flared and he drew in smoke, deep, before easing it out through his nose. He looked up at the night sky.

Jamie eased into the space beside him, close enough the heat from his bare arm pressed at Alex’s through the fabric of the shirt that had been too fancy for the dinner party. There was plenty of room for the other man along the deck railing. Jamie didn’t need to stand so close.

Alex slung an arm around Jamie’s shoulders, pulling him closer and pinching Jamie’s bicep before shoving him a few steps away with a hip. “Your mom seemed glad to see me.”

Jamie laughed. He gripped the railing with big, strong hands. He’d grown since college, thicker through the shoulders and thighs. The arm Alex had pinched had nothing much to grab on it but solid muscle. He wasn’t much like the skinny kid who’d sat behind Alex in homeroom in junior high. Neither of them were.

“You know my mom,” Jamie said, which wasn’t an excuse for her but didn’t invite criticism, either.

What must it be like for Anne, Alex wondered as he drew in another long, slow breath of sweetly burning smoke and let it drift from his nostrils. Married to the golden boy? Evelyn must’ve tried her best to eat her alive.

“Thanks for letting me stay with you.” He ground the cigarette into an empty coffee can he swore had been there since Jamie’s grandpa had owned the place.

“No problem.” Jamie grinned and punched Alex on the shoulder. “Glad to have you back.”

That was what guys did to the ones they loved. Punched or pinched, gave them Indian rubs or knuckled their scalps. That’s what Alex and Jamie had always done. But now Jamie sidled closer again, his arm brushing Alex’s sleeve, and though he kept his gaze turned out to the night and the lake and the lights from Cedar Point Amusement Park across the water, there was no way he couldn’t know they were touching.

“I never thought I’d say it, but I’m glad to be back. At least for a while.”

Jamie’s shoulders hunched. The motion pressed his arm harder against Alex’s sleeve. Their hands were inches apart. All Alex had to do was spread his fingers wide, and he’d be able to touch Jamie’s hand. But that wasn’t what straight guys did. That wasn’t how they touched.

Jamie turned to look at him. “It’s been a long time, man.”

Since what? After the big fight in college they hadn’t talked for years, but then the wedding invitation had come. Alex hadn’t gone to Jamie’s wedding—he couldn’t, not after so much time. But it had opened the door. They’d talked sometimes on the phone after that and sent occasional e-mails that had become more frequent. But they hadn’t really seen each other in person since the night Alex had put Jamie through a glass table and spent the night sitting next to him in the E.R., holding his hand while a doctor who looked like Ed Grimley stitched him back together.

“Yeah. It has.”

Then Alex reminded himself he no longer gave a fuck what anyone thought, and he reached to pull Jamie closer to him for the hug he’d wanted to give him all along. Jamie came willingly enough, if awkwardly, his elbow knocking against the deck railing. Alex pressed his face into the side of Jamie’s neck, smelling his new cologne and the old soap, the familiar and strange scent of his oldest and best friend. He nuzzled closer for a second, not too long.

“You can hug me back, fucker,” he murmured into Jamie’s skin. “Anything above the waist isn’t gay.”

Jamie’s laugh sounded a little strangled, but his arms came up and held Alex tight, then tighter. He drew in a breath that pressed their bodies together. The breadth of Jamie’s shoulders and chest didn’t feel the same in an embrace as they did in a wrestling hold, and Alex held on a few more seconds. Almost too long, but then he pushed his friend away and added a one-two punch, left and right, to Jamie’s arms as the other man held up his hands to fend him off. They were back to being dudes again.

Alex put a few steps distance between them. Solid. There were places they weren’t meant to go. Not together, anyway. Not if he wanted to keep one of the few things in his life that had always meant something to him.

“How long you going to be around?” If Jamie noticed Alex’s retreat, he didn’t show it.

“As long as you can stand me. I’ve got some things lined up, people to talk to about stuff, but I don’t have anywhere to be for a while.” The first part was less true than the last. People to talk to equaled calling up old contacts and seeing if there was anything open for him.

“Nothing wrong with taking some time off, right? Can’t you afford it, Richie Rich?” Jamie tossed a few air punches his way. “If I could make a million by selling my company and retiring, I’d do it.”

“You wouldn’t, and you know it. Besides, a million doesn’t last long with tastes like mine.” Alex buffed his nails on his shirt, and they both laughed.

“You and your tastes. So, you still…?” Jamie’s voice got low and trailed off, but his eyes didn’t cut away.

Alex tensed. The last time they’d had this discussion it had ended badly, and they’d managed to avoid it ever since. Still, he was here and if it was going to make trouble he’d rather have it now. Get it over with. “Fuck guys? Yeah. Sometimes.”

Jamie had been holding his breath because now it blew out in a long, slow gust. “Do you have a…anyone…”

Alex watched his friend struggle for half a minute before figuring out what Jamie was trying to say. “You mean like a boyfriend?”

“Yeah.” The relief at not having to say it out loud was evident in Jamie’s voice, but Alex gave him points for at least trying.

“No. I don’t have a girlfriend, either,” Alex said, easily enough considering this was a conversation a long time in coming. “But lookit you, brother, all locked up in the bonds of holy matrimony and shit. How’s that treating you?”

Tension eased. Jamie turned to lean against the deck railing. The drinks had been forgotten, or put aside. “Great. Anne’s the best thing that ever happened to me. She’s perfect.”

Nobody was perfect, but even Alex wasn’t so much of an asshole that he was going to point that out. “Good for you.”

“She’s smoking fucking hot, for one thing,” Jamie said, all confidence that nobody could disagree. He looked at Alex. “Don’t you think?”

Alex knew him well enough to know he wasn’t looking for reassurance. Jamie moved through life with the indelible knowledge he was right. When he asked for confirmation it was not to reassure himself but others they were correct. Alex had lied a few times to Jamie just to make him happy, but he didn’t have to lie now.

“Yeah. She is.”

Jamie moved again while Alex stayed still. He turned back to look at the lake, then around again to face his friend, then paced a few steps back and forth. If anxious energy cast a light, Jamie would have been burning like a star.

“I’m really glad you came to stay, man. It’s been too fucking long, you know?”

Alex knew. But he wondered what, exactly, Jamie knew. “Are you gonna get all sappy on me?”