27. River

27

RIVER

Grant strides into The Lazy Hammock a few nights later, eyes lasered in on me, I told you so written in them. Declan is by his side.

I turn to Owen at the bar in front of me, drinking a Tom Collins and chatting with TJ, who’s in San Francisco for a few days. “He’s going to gloat.”

“You think so?” Owen asks drily. “I suspect he’ll ask for a medal of commendation.”

TJ smirks, then knocks back some of his old-fashioned.

I stretch a hand across the bar, grab Owen’s and squeeze. “I’d give it to him. I’d so give it to him,” I say of Grant, even though I’m looking at the man I am smitten with.

Grant reaches the bar, holds out his arms wide, and says, “How about those San Francisco Hawks?”

At the mention of the local football team, Owen lifts a hand to high-five. “Well played.”

“Speaking of well played,” Declan cuts in as they take their seats at the bar, “how was your Friendsgiving? Anything interesting happen last weekend?”

As I get to work prepping their usuals, I answer breezily. “Oh you know. A little snow. A fire. A hot tub.”

Declan squeezes Grant’s shoulder. “You were Eros.”

Grant shakes his head. “Nah, we were just enablers, Deck. The real Eros is Mother Nature.”

TJ lifts his glass. “Or maybe the real Eros is these two guys seeing each other in a whole new light. Sometimes you just have to get out of town for that.”

Owen nods, lifts his glass. “To the power of Eros, aka the God of... Road Trips.”

I slide drinks to Grant and Declan, and they lift theirs too. “To the power of Paul Rudd.”

Grant knits his brow in question.

“Inside joke,” I say, then I lean across the bar and press a kiss to Owen’s lips.

When I break the kiss, I turn to Grant and Declan. “By the way, you told me so.”

“And I’ve never been so happy to hear that,” Grant says.

TJ lifts his glass once more, then looks somewhere in the distance, a faraway haze in his eyes.

Like he’s lost in time.