Chapter 10

Iwoke to the furtive sounds of a man sneaking out of the room. They were sounds I was intimately familiar with, but it took me a moment to assign these particular furtive sounds to Oscar Overton.

"Coward," I muttered with a sleepy grumble.

He grunted in surprise. "I'm a coward for needing better coffee than this in-room shit? So be it. Do you even know what time it is in China?"

I turned over and stretched, idly noticing the warm imprint from his body on the sheets next to me. "Bedtime, I presume."

It took me another moment to realize Oscar didn't look at all nervous or embarrassed. His wallet and phone were on the other side of the room, where he'd placed them last night, and I mentally reassessed my appraisal of the situation.

Had he truly been planning on returning here with coffee?

Oscar rubbed a finger under his eye to clear out the sleep dust. "Exactly. And I'm supposed to get up and stay awake for the next twenty hours, so I'm going to need something better than a stale pod and instant creamer. James told me they have a good dark roast in the lobby. Stay here, and I'll bring you some."

He didn't wait for my response. Instead, he stepped through the open door and let it close behind him with a soft snick.

I took the opportunity to reach a hand over to the warm spot beside me and run the back of my fingers across the rumpled sheets. Memories of the night before hung like soft clouds in my head as I struggled to wake up. Oscar's sweet teasing. My rambling attempt to lull him into slumber. The feel of his skin under my fingers and the light scratch of his leg hair against mine.

The knowledge that just for a little while, he'd been here with me, in my arms and in my bed.

I blew out a breath and sat up, pushing the sappy thoughts from my mind. Nobody, including myself, wanted a lovestruck daydreamer mooning over someone who was supposed to be safely in the friend zone.

After a quick visit to the bathroom and rifling through my bag for a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, I opened the curtains and allowed the summer sun to stream in. Giant hydrangeas dotted the grassy area in front of my room, their blossoms nodding in the breeze off the water, and in the distance, seagulls called to one another with raucous joy.

The perfect day for a wedding.

Oscar let himself back in the room with a key he must have grabbed off the table. "One skinny mocha latte with nonfat whip," he said cheerfully.

I stared at him, trying not to puff up in pleasant surprise that he'd remembered my coffee of choice, which I must have mentioned in a random message months ago. "They had that in the lobby?"

"No," he said with a laugh, thrusting a paper coffee cup at me before sitting in one of the chairs positioned at a round table in the corner of the room. "It's drip coffee with cream and sugar. Suck it up."

I took the cup happily and cradled it in my hands while he opened a paper bag and pulled out several pastries to set on paper napkins.

Oscar as a willing, morning-after breakfast companion was throwing me off-balance. "Thank you. I, ah… didn't expect this."

"No, you expected me to sneak the fuck out when it bears mentioning you were the one who snuck out last time. Though if we're talking about surprises…" He tilted his head at me and grinned. "I didn't take you for someone so slow to wake up. You always seem chipper and perky, I figured you were a morning person."

"God no. Definitely not. I work nights half the time."

Oscar eyed me over his cup as I took the other chair at the table. "Working nights and weekends must cut into your dating time. Do you ever wonder if that's partly responsible for your relationship…"

"Failure?" I finished with a laugh. "I'd like to say yes, but I'd be lying."

I took a croissant from a napkin he held out and bit into it, purposely avoiding engaging with him about my relationships or lack thereof. Unfortunately, he didn't take the hint. If anything, he looked at me even more intently.

"I think," I began slowly, "it's that after everything with Jared, I've learned to be fairly up-front about what I want. I mean, I don't talk about marriage the first time I meet a guy?—"

Oscar raised a teasing eyebrow, and I blushed.

"That was different. You and I were at a wedding, and we couldn't help talking about it," I insisted. "I don't put it out there quite that way ordinarily. But happily ever afters are literally what I do all day, so the minute someone asks about work or hobbies, the conversation veers in that direction."

I nibbled my croissant as Oscar nodded thoughtfully.

"In a way, it's great because some guys self-select, and it's better to know immediately, not two years later," I went on. I gave Oscar a look. "Jared's big pronouncement when he broke up with me was that I'd fallen prey to the ‘heteronormative status quo' by hoping for a traditional marriage instead of an open long-term relationship like, and I quote, ‘normal guys.'"

Oscar busied himself with his coffee cup. His eyes stayed trained on the plastic lid as he flipped the flap opening back and forth. "I believe I asked you for Louis's address. You may add Jared's address to that request…"

"Uh-huh." I laughed. "Still not happening. The thing is, other guys say they're open to the idea of commitment when they really aren't?—"

"Like certain assholes named Louis who show a blatant disregard of a key component of how you make your living," he bit out. "You don't fuck with a man's career when he obviously puts his blood, sweat, and tears into it."

Oscar's angry defense warmed me through. "Right. And there are other guys who have the wrong idea about romance altogether. They think it's childish and overly simplistic when it's not." I thought back to a scene from last night's rehearsal dinner. "When Roman gave a toast for Scotty last night, I saw my friend Brant reach over to squeeze his wife's hand like he knew exactly what Roman was talking about because he felt the same way. Brant and his wife shared this look, and I had to take a picture of it, to capture it, because it was…" I sighed. "It was magic. And I know their life isn't sunshine and rainbows all day. They have a baby, so it's probably mostly dirty diapers and interrupted sleep. They probably argue about whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher. But when they look back at that picture I took, they'll remember why it's worthwhile. They'll remember that moment—how it felt to love and be loved so deeply they didn't need words to express it. I've made it my mission to capture those moments for other people… and I want them for myself."

Oscar reached for my hand and brought it up to his lips. The move surprised me.

"You're a romantic," he said with a tinge of gravel in his voice. "Nothing wrong with that. At the risk of repeating myself: never compromise on being loved, Hugh. You deserve to be cherished. You deserve the fairy tale."

I felt my face heat at the soft press of his lips on my skin. "And what about you?" I asked with more heat than I expected. "Don't you deserve it too?"

The tension in Oscar's jaw took me by surprise. I knew it was a touchy subject, but I hadn't known it would make him angry.

"There's a difference between deserving and wanting," he gritted out.

For all that Oscar remained a mystery in some ways, in other ways, the man was an open book.

And he was a truly terrible liar.

Instead of calling him on this lie, though, and telling Oscar he doth protest too much, I came at it from another angle. "Hmm. Back when we first met, you said you hadn't given up on love, it had given up on you. So… how'd that happen? Why didn't your relationships work out? Clearly, you weren't dating commitment-phobic men." I made a sweeping motion, encompassing the resort owned by James and Sawyer and the wedding for Roman and Scotty.

He threw up one hand and plastered on a fake-ass smile. "Oscar happened, darling. That's the common denominator. I don't know how to do relationships."

I laughed. "Nope. I reject that. I reject your whole idea that only talented people can find love. You said last night that maybe you've never put your heart out there, but maybe you were being self-protective. Maybe the circumstances weren't right?—"

He lifted a sculpted eyebrow. "Never right? With any of the men I've dated? I must be a rare and precious flower indeed. Wait until I tell Boone."

I felt a familiar pinch in my chest at the name. Oscar sometimes talked about his childhood sweetheart like Boone was a mythical creature. Like, if Oscar hadn't been able to make his relationship with Boone work, he should have known better than to try it with anyone else. To me, Boone sounded more like a man who hadn't cared enough about Oscar to build a future with him. A cowboy unwilling to bend.

"You said Boone was the closest you came to love," I asked cautiously. "Did he… break your heart?" Is that why you hold yourself back now?

Oscar looked genuinely perplexed. "Why would you ask that? I told you yesterday, it wasn't?—"

"Because he was your childhood sweetheart," I blurted. "You grew up together. He knew you before you were… Oscar Overton." I said the name the way Rafa once said it, like Oscar was a luxury brand and not a human being.

"I see." He nodded slowly. "There's some truth to that. There was a time I considered him my first love. He was definitely the first man I tried to picture a future with. He's the one I have the most history with. And I suppose there have been moments where I've thought, if neither of us got married, perhaps we'd spend our sunset years rocking together on his porch?—"

The coffee sat heavy on my stomach. "You?" I demanded. "On a ranch?—?"

"I grew up on a ranch, you remember. Admittedly, only as the housekeeper's son, but I do still know how to ride a horse."

"—in Texas?—"

"Boone's ranch is in Wyoming," he corrected.

"—at least a thousand miles from Leandro in SoHo, the only man you'll trust to cut your hair?—"

Oscar smiled. "Well, I do have a plane."

"—and the cell reception must be terrible?—"

"That wasn't as much of a consideration until I started texting certain people all day and night."

"—and you'd be miserable."

"Not miserable," he argued. He considered this for a moment, then added, "Probably. But in any case, it's a moot point. Boone has Richard now. Don't ask me how in the world a grumpy rancher ended up falling for a rich daddy's boy, but the pissant prima donna was apparently born for ranch life. He's rescuing animals or some such." He rolled his eyes good-humoredly. "They're madly in love. Whereas, to answer your question, Boone and I were not."

"Oh."

"As I pointed out—and you seem to have forgotten, perhaps due to some sort of orgasm-induced delirium—it was after meeting you that I recognized I'd never really been in love. At least not the sweeping, cinematic sort. Boone and I wanted different things out of life, and we wanted them more than we wanted each other." Oscar shook his head. "The man actually came to New York and, if gossip is to be believed, made a spectacle of himself trying to win Richard's hand." He shuddered delicately. "Making a public declaration of affection when he wasn't sure of Richard's answer? God, I would never."

"Because you've never really been in love," I repeated, starting to feel the beginnings of a strange kind of hope. Twice now, he'd implied it wasn't until meeting me that he'd begun to realize what love was. What could he possibly mean by that?

"Precisely."

"And because you haven't, you therefore lack the capacity. The talent," I went on. "Do I have that right?"

He shrugged. "More or less."

"Huh. I have to say, Oscar, you're maybe the smartest man I've ever met…"

He shrugged modestly. "Yes, well…"

"Which is why I'm shocked that your rationale is the most asinine thing I've ever heard."

The accusation seemed to surprise him. "My rationale is the result of years of trying and failing, a never-ending stream of painful disappointments, Hugh, not just for myself but for anyone who had the misfortune of trying to be in a relationship with me. I didn't come to it lightly. And if it's all the same to you, I'd like to change the subject because I really don't want my bad attitude on relationships to rub off on you." His expression softened. "I like that you're a romantic. It's sweet."

I kicked him in the shin. "Don't be condescending," I said with a laugh. "It's unattractive."

His eyes danced. "Why don't I make it up to you in the shower? James and Sawyer were very generous in their bathroom renovations, and I'm not sure you got the chance to appreciate it as thoroughly as you could have last night."

I let him change the tone of our conversation. Flirty and fun Oscar was as enjoyable as serious and vulnerable Oscar in a different way, and because I knew Oscar well, I recognized that pushing him further would only make him dig his heels in. I'd earn myself a one-way ticket to alone-town tonight when I wanted to enjoy every minute of our limited time together. There would be plenty of time for me to overthink this later.

After exchanging sloppy, wet blowjobs in the shower, we dressed and ventured outside to find the rest of the wedding guests. The ceremony wasn't scheduled until sunset, but most of the grooms' family and friends were already making their way out to the beach to enjoy the day together. As soon as I noticed a group of guests playing a lawn game with colorful balls, I grabbed my camera and headed over to capture some shots.

The weather was perfect, deep blue sky with a light breeze. The sound of birds overlaid the faint titter of talking and laughing from the people on the beach. Several men took turns modeling their Speedos before chasing each other into the water with loud whoops.

"You love this," Oscar said after a little while. He'd left a conversation with one of the grooms to bring me a cold bottle of water. I thanked him and set it down in the grass while I flicked through the stills on my camera screen. Shade from a nearby pitch pine tree made it possible to find the best shots.

"Definitely. The light today is incredible."

He looked over my shoulder at the photos as I scrolled through them.

"Why do you have so many of the same shots?" he murmured, the warm air from his breath floating across the skin behind my ear and making me shiver.

"I have to take hundreds of shots to get just the right one, and even then, it doesn't always happen." I deleted a few test shots from the drive and flipped through more.

"How do you know when you have the right one?"

I turned to see a divot of concentration between his eyes as he squinted at the tiny screen.

"It's a gut feeling. I mean, I could tell you about all the usual qualities: the right lighting, interesting composition, movement, richness of detail… but there are elements I can't really put into words. Something evocative. Magnetic. Whatever it is that makes you keep coming back to look at it again. To sit with it and wonder." I glanced back at him. "Have you ever felt that way?"

He met my eyes. I could see the thoughts tumbling behind his expression in a way that made me wish I could pull my camera up and capture it.

"There's a museum in a little town in southeastern France… I can't remember the name of the place… but it has a portrait of an old man from the 1600s. I kept wandering back to it over and over to try and figure out what it was about it that caught my eye." Oscar shrugged. "I never did figure it out."

I nodded. "It's common with artwork. And with people." I studied him—his windblown hair, his golden tan, the tiredness in his eyes that I didn't think had anything to do with inadequate sleep—and wished that I could read his mind. "We use the word ‘charisma' to describe people who have an unexplainable magnetism. What's really happening is a set of subtle cues that are so nuanced they're hard to define. Some of them we know—composition symmetry, affinity to the subject, unique details that draw the eye to learn more. But some are undefinable. And we just have to trust that our gut knows things we don't."

Oscar's eyes glanced back down at the camera screen. "So many wasted images."

I let out a soft laugh. "So many opportunities to learn and adjust and get it right. So much practice. Any one of these might have been the magical shot… but how would I have known if I hadn't captured them?"

He pursed his lips. "You wouldn't be turning my innocent curiosity into a metaphor on relationships so you could drive home a lesson here, would you?"

I feigned innocence. "Me? I was just answering a question."

Oscar poked my side with one slim finger. "Right."

"If you happen to feel that there's a metaphor there and that it's applicable to another set of circumstances in your life, I can't be held responsible."

"It's not applicable," he said staunchly.

"You never see the discards, Oscar." I gestured with the camera. "You never see all the shots that weren't quite right."

He huffed out a laugh. "Stop."

"They're like… well, they're like ex-boyfriends littering the darkroom floor of your life."

His laugh got louder, and he shoved my shoulder before stepping away. "You're a pain in the ass."

"You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take, Oscar Overton," I teased. "I just came up with that line. Feel free to put it on a motivational poster."

He put his fingers in his ear and backed away. "Lalalala. Your metaphors are terrible. One out of ten. Irredeemable."

"If at first you don't succeed…" I called after him.

Oscar waved and kept on walking toward the beach, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

Brant walked up, looking with a smile between me and Oscar's retreating form. "I didn't realize you had friends in the wedding party. Glad I asked you to come work it with me."

"I did Wells and Conor's wedding last year in New York. That's where I met Oscar and some of the other guys."

"Oscar's the ex, right? Or… wait… was he James's ex or Wells's ex?"

"Both," I said without adding that he'd also dated Roman.

We stood together watching Oscar make his way down the beach to where Wells was talking to a woman in a bright blue sundress. Despite the pretty dress fluttering in the breeze, my eyes kept returning to Oscar's plain salmon-colored shorts and white T-shirt, which probably cost more than my whole wardrobe. Beneath them, I knew he sported faded Speedo tan lines, probably from his weeks in the Maldives or some yacht party he'd been to. It was a reminder that Oscar lived in a world I would never inhabit, and seeing it in the flesh—literally—was far more powerful than any text or snapshot ever could be.

"So, I'm thinking of arranging the wedding party over on the jetty," Brant said. He stretched out his arm to point out a spot further down the beach, blocking my view of Oscar.

I blinked as the spell I'd been under broke. "Yeah? That sounds amazing. Show me."

Brant and I tromped off down the beach, planning out shots, and by the time we got back, it was time for Oscar and the rest of the wedding party to get dressed for the main event. I tried not to read anything into the way he didn't meet my eyes on the beach, or in Roman's suite, or even during the gorgeous sunset ceremony, but it was difficult not to notice… and not to feel a little hurt by it.

Maybe he's thinking about things, I told myself. Maybe he's recognizing the truth of what you've been trying to tell him.

But at the reception, when the drinks were flowing and music floated across the soft summer air toward the ocean, I finally glimpsed what was going on in Oscar's brain.

When it was time for the best man speech, Oscar stood. The twinkle lights hanging around the large white event canopy on the lawn gave his skin a luminous glow that reminded me of watching him at the beach that afternoon.

His knife clinked against the clear glass of his water goblet until the crowd quieted. He looked around the dinner tables filled with guests and smiled. Something about his demeanor wasn't quite as assured and confident as usual, though I knew he'd given toasts like this a million times.

He swallowed and began. "I had a whole speech prepared. Some of you may not know this, but I've given best man speeches a time or two before."

Several men chuckled under their breath while Roman's eyes danced with humor. "Always hire the most experienced man for the job," he called out. "That's just good business."

Oscar laughed, which relaxed his entire body. I felt my own breath release.

"True, Roman. True." He looked around at the expectant faces, several of them pink from slight sunburns from earlier in the day, but his gaze skipped over me. "Every time I'm invited to be the best man, my first thought is how incredibly honored I am. My second thought is usually: what the hell am I going to say that I haven't already said? Despite the many times I've asked, not one groom has said it would be okay for me to reuse a best man speech. Shame that. I've given some real doozies over the years."

He paused as the crowd laughed. "Thankfully, a recent conversation with a dear friend helped give me a new angle on love and marriage." He looked down at his champagne flute for a moment, his expression turning somber.

"Sometimes we don't know why things work—they just do. If you'd told me that my serious, responsible friend Roman would hijack a horse-drawn carriage on Park Avenue just to pick up the hottie behind the reins…" The crowd laughed again. "I would have asked you how many drinks you'd had tonight. But sometimes the unexpected happens. Sometimes you need to roll with it."

His eyes skipped to mine for the briefest flash of a moment, and my heart skidded in my chest.

"Sometimes you need to keep trying, keep putting yourself out there. Because some people are simply meant to fall in love, and you never know when the lightning bolt will strike. And maybe, just maybe, magic will happen when you least expect it. I'm thrilled that the magic happened for Roman and Scotty and that we're all here tonight to help them celebrate it. To the happy couple!"

The crowd cheered and toasted. Glasses clinked, and laughter swelled as Oscar made a funny face at Roman before being enveloped in Roman's big bear hug.

That night, when the reception finally began winding down, Oscar held out his hand to me, and I took it. We walked back to the room without saying a word. No more metaphors, no more jokes, no more heartfelt discussions. By unspoken agreement, we both seemed to recognize that we'd talked enough, thought enough, and wanted to spend the rest of the weekend in each other's beds and bodies.

When we came together in the dim light of my hotel room, Oscar's movements were slow and sultry. I couldn't tell if they were muted by the free-flowing wine and cocktails at the reception or if there was something about this sweet summer night that had taken the restless edge off him. I might have even dared to hope that I was right earlier. That maybe my clumsy attempt at a metaphor had gotten through to him. Whatever it was, I wanted to bathe in the feeling, sip every ounce of need from his skin, and do my very best not to use a single cell in my brain to worry about any of it.

Afterward, we settled with our heads on a single pillow, and I felt closer to Oscar than I'd ever felt to another human being. The night had cooled enough to slide open the terrace door and listen to the low, rhythmic tumble of the waves in the distance.

I want this forever, I thought as I drifted off to sleep. And despite telling myself that it wasn't possible over and over and over, some small sliver of my heart still wanted to believe that it was.

That was my last conscious thought before falling asleep. But when I awoke to an empty bed and sheets already cold, I knew this time it wasn't because Oscar had simply gone to grab coffee.

The small sliver of hope shriveled up and floated away on the summer breeze coming in from the open door.