Page 1 of Once Upon An Ever After
Chapter One
Dawson Frost only became aware that he was sitting far too close to the man at his side when his soon to be brother-in-law glanced at the place where Dawson’s thigh touched his best friend’s and then quirked an eyebrow in his direction.
Dawson hadn’t noticed that despite the large sofa, he and Beau had sat so close that they were pressed together from hip to knee. He hadn’t noticed because at some point during the course of their friendship, he had stopped jumping away each and every time Beau Beaumont touched him. At some point, he had begun to let himself simply accept the warmth and intimacy the other man offered so easily and which he hadn’t realized he needed so badly.
He liked Beau. He liked him a lot. He had liked Beau from the first moment they met nearly a year ago now, though it felt at times as if he had known Beau much, much longer.
Last December, at the holiday party his family’s company hosted, he had met two men who would change his life in ways he never could have imagined. The first had been Felix Michaelson, who sat across from him now as his eldest brother’s fiancé. The party planner had wrapped Gibson Frost around his little finger and inserted himself into the middle of the entire Frost family. He hadn’t come alone, however, and his assistant, Beau, had been dragged into the Frost family orbit that night as well.
Beau and Dawson had hit it off immediately at the holiday party. They’d spent the night talking and laughing, getting to know one another and realizing just how much they had in common. The rest, as they say, was history. They’d been inseparable ever since.
In the last year they had become more than just friends. They had become each other’s sounding board and confidant, two halves that made each other whole. Beau was the best friend Dawson had ever known but it wasjustfriendship no matter what anyone else thought.
He wasn’t stupid. Far from it. He knew what Felix Michaelson was thinking when he raised that pointed eyebrow and caught Dawson’s steely gaze. He knew what that knowing little smirk thought it understood, but Felix was wrong just like everyone else in the family that seemed to think he and Beau were sleeping together.
They weren’t.
Of course they weren’t!
The whole idea was ridiculous.
It was ridiculous because Dawson wasn’t gay.
He understood why people made assumptions about him. After all, he was a Frost. His family lived in the public eye due to the wealth they had accumulated over the generations. He knew that with status and privilege came press and he had spent most of his life living with the knowledge that everyone had a camera in their hand and any single one of them could, and quite possibly was, watching him when he was in public.
He’d never done anything much worth the attention though. It was the rest of his family who were the interesting ones. Dawson was boring by comparison so he’d never had to worry about being in the tabloids the way the others had.
Gibson, his oldest brother, had been forced into the spotlight when their parents died in a tragic car accident. He’d vaulted into the CEO position at Frost Financial when he was barely old enough to be considered an adult and he’d spent years as a devoted workaholic trying to prove he deserved the title. He’d been so set on making their father proud that he’d never taken the time to create a personal life for himself… until Felix Michaelson walked into his office.
The media had enjoyed running the news that the eldest Frost brother was dating his party planner, but it was the engagement just before Valentine’s Day and the plans to marry by the end of the year that had truly sent the tabloids into overdrive. Every day there was a new story obsessing over wedding details as if Gibson and Felix were royalty or something.
It was crazy but it was what they’d all become accustomed to, because before Gibson had made headlines it had been Branson Frost filling the news pages with his wild shenanigans.
As the middle brother, Bran had been a teen when their parents died and he’d done what all teens did when faced with pain and anger. He had rebelled against everyone and everything. He had partied his way around the world. He’d used alcohol, drugs and meaningless sex with as many women and men as he could find to fill the hole the loss of their parents left inside of him.
Only recently had he begun to come to terms with the man he’d been and the one he wanted to become. A large part of the changes Bran had made in his life were due to his loving and committed relationship with Julian Holland. Bran worked at Frost Financial now and he went home to his boyfriend each night like the normal, respectable man that he had promised to become.
Without Bran’s antics to fill the gossip columns, the press had turned to the other family members.
Roman Frost, the long-sought recluse of the family, had spent years avoiding the press who tried to capture a photo of him since he’d been the sole survivor of the car accident that took his brother and sister-in-law’s lives that fateful night. He’d refused to go out in public for years, hiding himself and his scars away, but even Roman had finally dealt with his pain and found a way to be happy. His live-in boyfriend, Ash Beaumont, was the key reason for the changes in Dawson’s uncle’s life and if anyone thought their age difference was newsworthy they forgot all about it once they had the chance to see the two of them together.
That only left Dawson and he knew people expected certain things of him because his last name was Frost. One of them was that he would have the classic silvery blue eyes that all the Frost men sported. Another was that he must be a math whiz since he worked at Frost Financial with his brothers. But mostly, the thing he knew was on people’s minds now that everyone else in the Frost family had paired off, was when it would be Dawson’s turn to settle down… and who he would choose to give his heart to.
Half of Knight’s Port thought he must be gay, like his oldest brother Gibson. The other half thought he was bisexual, like Branson and Roman. Not one person believed for a second that Dawson was straight, not even the members of his own family, which was annoying as hell.
It had always been that way. For as long as Dawson could remember, people had made assumptions about his sexuality. It wasn’t something that he’d ever really discussed with his brothers but he’d known since he was a teenager that they presumed right along with everyone else. It had never been a problem he felt the need to confront because they’d never overtly suggested that his friendships with anyone, of either sex, were more than just that, friendship.
Not until Beau.
Beau with his big, slightly crooked but always present smile. Beau with that messy tumble of shoulder-length bronzed hair he was constantly pushing behind his ears. Beau with his thousand-dollar cognac-colored eyes. Beau with his dramatic reactions and too loud laughs and over the top hand gestures whenever he spoke was the same Beau who quietly listened when Dawson spoke and thoughtfully gave advice when he asked for it and was always, always there for him when he needed someone.
Beau was one of a kind. It was a fact Dawson had known since the night they met. It was one of the things Dawson loved most about him. And he wasn’t the kind of straight man that couldn’t admit he loved another man. He did love Beau.
He loved the man that was the best friend he’d ever known. He loved the kindest man he’d ever met. And of course he loved the only person on the planet that seemed to know and accept him just as he was, flaws and all.
But it wasn’t a romantic kind of love.
At least, that was what Dawson had been telling himself.
