Chapter 5

I've been useless the entire day and it's all Beau's fault. Stupid rock-hard body on display at the gym. Then naked as the day he was born in the shower. What the fuck was all that ribbing anyway? Jesus. Can't a guy try to hide his chubby from his straight best friend? Shit.

I'm so useless, in fact, that my boss sends me home early. It's only eight o'clock when I open the door to my apartment and walk smack into a wall of nostalgia. My mouth waters at the scents coming from the kitchen—the earthiness of garlic, the smokiness of bacon, the brine of fresh seafood.

"Beau?" I drop my work bag on the floor and fling my coat over the back of a chair.

"In here!"

"Are you making shrimp and grits?" My nose hones in on the pot simmering on the stovetop. "Oh my god." I grab the fork sitting on the counter and stab a piece of shrimp, but before I get it into my mouth, Beau snatches it from me.

"What are you? A heathen? Let me plate it up first."

I let out a whimper as he drops the shrimp back into the pot and nudges me out of the way. "But… but…" I haven't had good shrimp and grits since the last time I went home, which was at least ten months ago. I don't really cook, even if I had time for it, and I know better than to order anything Southern up here. Besides, it's my favorite.

"Put your tongue back in your mouth, dude. This'll only take me a minute, sheesh." He pushes me out of the kitchen and toward the dining table that he's already set.

A bottle of red is breathing in a decanter. He dug out placemats and cloth napkins from somewhere deep in the bowels of my kitchen. All we need is a candle and a single red rose to turn this from any old dinner into something distinctly romantic. My heart lurches in my chest as I grip the back of a chair.

It's just dinner. Beau likes to cook. He's thanking you for letting him crash on the couch.The extremely logical, analytical part of my brain understands that this doesn't mean anything. But the part that's been in love with Beau since forever has already taken the seed of the idea and planned a fucking wedding around it.

I don't trust myself as I sink gingerly into the chair. I feel like I'm standing precariously on a cliff that I've managed to avoid my whole life. And now, out of the blue, I'm closer than I've ever been to falling over the edge.

Beau sets my plate down and rotates it until it's perfectly angled. Then he settles in across the table from me, face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. God, I love him so fucking much. It's torture. I hate it. But there's nothing I can do except suck it up and live in the hurt. It's only for a little while. Just until Beau's finished licking his wounds and goes back to Georgia. Then I can keep on pretending I'm not in love with my straight best friend.

He lifts his glass of wine. "Should we toast to something?"

I reach for my wine and hold it up. All of a sudden, my heart is in my throat and a swell of emotions threatens to overwhelm me. "To friendship."

Beau stares at me, his eyes as familiar to me as my own. The fan of his dark lashes and the striations of blue and white and navy that make up his irises. I've always been able to read his thoughts, know his feelings, anticipate his next words with nothing but a glance into those eyes.

But there's something there right now, something weighty and potent that I've never seen before. I don't recognize it and I don't understand it, but it makes my breath hitch in my chest.

"To friendship," Beau repeats, voice low and a little hoarse. He taps his glass against mine, then blinks.

It's like he's snipped the line that was strung taut between us. I gasp silently, reeling, while he drops his gaze, his lashes obscuring him from me.

"Beau?" I need him to lift his head. I need him to look at me, to re-establish our connection.

Instead, he busies himself with his napkin and wine glass and fork. "Yeah?"

A tumult of words gets caught in my throat, all of the things that I can't say out loud. "I'm glad you're here," I finally say softly.

He pauses, shoulders rising and falling for a second that stretches into eternity. When he finally meets my gaze, there's a sadness in his eyes that makes my heart hurt. "Thanks, G."

I wish I could walk around the table and pull him into a hug. I wish I could hold him and kiss him until the pain goes away. I wish for so many goddamn things, but all I can really have is this. This friendship. This evening. This dinner.