Page 19 of Played
I clap him on the back. “Good. You?”
Smiling, he pulls his cell out of his pocket. “Fucking aces, buddy. You wanna see the twins?”
Not particularly, but the enthusiasm in his voice stops me from saying that. A few seconds later, he pulls up a fuck-ton of pictures of two cute babies, each with a shock of white-blond hair.
“They’re adorable. How old are they now?”
He’s still beaming, scrolling through picture after picture. “Coming up on six months. You know they change so much every day at this age. Makes me really want to reevaluate my life and the hours I’m putting in, you know?” He comes to a stop at a picture of him and his husband, Rick, each proudly holding a baby in their arms.
Thinking of my own workaholic brothers and the change in them, I agree. “Yeah. Marriage and kids will do that to you, I hear.”
“Fuck. I must be boring you stiff.” He slips his phone back into his pocket and offers an apologetic shrug.
He wasn’t boring me, per se. We’re just at very different stages of our life. It wasn’t always this way. Up until about three years ago, he was terminally single, like me. But then he met Rick. They were married within the year and promptly found a surrogate who delivered them twin daughters. “Not at all.”
“Tell me what’s going on with you,” he says, graciously changing the subject.
“No husband and kids on the horizon quite yet,” I assure him.
He throws his head back and laughs like I told the funniest joke in the world. A joke I don’t get. “Yeah, right.” He wipes an actual tear from the corner of his eye.
“Why is that so funny?”
It must be the sharp tone of my voice that turns his smile into a perplexed frown. “You? The eternal bachelor? Married with kids?”
I bristle, feeling defensive for reasons I don’t understand. Never in my life have I been insulted by anyone’s assumption that I’m not the settling down kind of guy. In fact, I cultivate it, so why the hell am I getting so pissy with Sean? It has to be spending time with my nephew. Adorable little jerk. “It could happen,” I insist.
Sean’s demeanor changes entirely. Either he’s remembered Jamestech is a primary shareholder in his company, or he’s genuinely worried he hurt my feelings. Probably both. He’s a nice guy, and I have no idea why I’m so rattled this afternoon. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that…” He winces rather than finishing the sentence.
“Just what?”
He blows out a breath. “You remember that summer we went on a few dates?”
I remember it was a scorching hot July, and he was working in New York for a few months. My recollection of that time is that we had some fun and there were no hard feelings when he had to head back to Philly. We’ve stayed friends ever since. “Yeah.”
“I asked you if you wanted to come see me in Philly, and you almost had a fucking stroke. I’ve never seen anyone ask for a check so quickly in my whole goddamn life.”
“We agreed it was a casual thing though,” I say. “Didn’t we?”
He winces again. “You offered casual, and I was so fucking smitten, I agreed.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You were smitten? Really? Did you, a thirty-six-year-old man with a Harvard degree, really use the word smitten?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You have no idea of the fucking tornado you are, do you, Mason James? You blow into people’s lives and turn them upside down before moving on like nothing happened.”
What the fuck? “I truly don’t understand what you’re saying. You never said you wanted more. We stayed friends all these years, and you never…” I pinch the bridge of my nose, feeling a tension headache building.
Sean places a hand on my shoulder. “Yeah, I wanted more. But you made it very clear that more wasn’t on the table. AndI’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m sorry if I have. You were one hundred percent up front about what you wanted, and I went into it knowing exactly what I was getting myself into. I welcomed the tornado with open arms, well aware I was headed for nothing but heartbreak.” He follows that up with a smile.
He’s messing with me, surely. “If I broke your heart, then why are we still friends?”
His eyes twinkle. “The same reason most of your exes remain your friends, Mason. You’re impossible to dislike. And sometimes I suppose it’s for the occasionalbenefitthat comes with being your friend.”
“Benefit?”
“Like when we went to the cryptocurrency conference in Vegas.”
When we won ten thousand dollars playing poker, got fall-down drunk, and still managed to fuck all night? That conference in Vegas?
