Page 1 of Spring Breakup
ChapterOne
Dean hated the evil-ex stereotype.It was reductive. He stayed friendly with his exes. Surface-level friendly, you know? He got invites to their weddings and followed their side-hustles on social media.
According to one ex who had psychoanalyzed him during their breakup, "surface level" was a good descriptor of most of his relationships, romantic and otherwise. Dean had been invited to her third child’s christening a few weeks ago. He’d sent a personalized jewelry box as a gift.
Of course, he’d heard about bad exes, cheaters and such, but he’d never cared enough to get too bent out of shape when his relationships fell apart, regardless of the reason. Sometimes he was down for a day or so. Sometimes he missed the person when they were gone, but it didn’t sucker punch him.
He’d never longed so deeply for someone that he had, say, been inspired to create art about them decades later. No way. He would leave intensity like that to his best friend, Leo.
And he would leave crying over a man on an airplane to Tyler Vlachos, who was cute as hell, even with red-rimmed eyes and a ridiculous shirt.
Dean didn’t know Tyler very well. They’d met once or twice. Surface-level acquaintances, you might say. But Dean was too nosy not to try to get to the bottom of the other man’s tears. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off Tyler for the last leg of their flight to Alaska.
“What’s wrong?” he asked Tyler when they’d made it to baggage claim after a very long flight. Rosie and Leo, their travel companions, were too wrapped up in each other to hear.
“What? Nothing,” Tyler said.
“Why did you cry for the last two hours, then?”
Tyler gave an exasperated sigh. “I’d planned to visit Alaska with my boyfriend Francis one day, and now I’m doing it without him.”
“Oh God, did he die?” Dean asked, horrified. “I’m so sorry.”
Tyler shook his head, his messy blond hair sticking to the stubble on his cheeks. “No. We broke up.”
“Oh.” Unease plucked at Dean’s chest. “When?”
Tyler’s eyebrows pinched in, and Dean tried not to feel bad about the third degree.
“Last week. He’s using this week to move out of my condo. He’ll probably nick half my stuff.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
The vacation was a trap.
“Leo!” Dean snapped. Leo jerked his head away from smelling Rosie’s hair and sauntered over, looking for all the world like an innocent man. “Why did you invite me on this last-minute spring break trip? Is it a pseudo-charity vacation for lost and broken boys?”
Dean should have been suspicious of the invite. He should have asked questions, but he’d assumed he would get some awesome sex with Rosie and Leo out of the deal, so he hadn’t been too fussed.
“What do you mean?” Leo asked, and Tyler’s pretty blue eyes ping-ponged between them.
“Did you invite Tyler on this vacation last week as well? After his breakup?”
“We decided to come to Alaska on a whim. We got a deal on the cabin since it’s the off-season here,” Leo said. Rosie approached and slipped her arm around Leo’s waist, giving Dean a don’t-mess-with-us glare. Most men would cower, but Dean didn’t appreciate getting played. Even by people as hot as Rosie and Leo.
“And you happened to invite two men who each recently went through breakups to the middle-of-nowhere Alaska? On a whim? It was just a coincidence?”
A pinwheel of emotions flew over Tyler’s face, and Dean tried very hard not to analyze each one.
“You’re going through a breakup too?” Tyler asked. He sounded way too fucking hopeful that they’d get to bond over that bullshit.
“Barely.” Dean waved his hand. That wasn’t important.
“You were with Viggo for a year,” Leo said.
Dean huffed. Viggo was fine. And Dean was more than fine.
“It has nothing to do with your breakups,” Rosie said, her voice as cold as the weather outside, so…frigid. “You’re our friends, and we wanted to spend time with you.”
