Page 74 of Brushed and Buried
Adrian arches a brow. “And you? What’s your send-off plan? Pity poker night with the boys?”
Trevor smirks. “She told me to go wild, that it’s my last night as a free man. She even winked.”
“A playful wink or a threatening one?” Adrian asks with a grin.
Trevor chuckles. “Definitely playful, the kind that says she’ll be doing exactly what she wants too.”
“Jesus,” George mutters. “She’s probably going to tie up the masseuse.”
“She could,” Trevor says proudly. “That woman is terrifying in the best way.”
“You two are like the sex-positive Addams family,” Lance laughs.
Trevor raises his bottle. “Here’s to marrying a woman who wants you to get wrecked before she does.”
I’m still beside Adrian when I finally speak up with a smirk. “I guess we all have our kinks.”
Lance points at him. “Yeah, and apparently yours is watching us touch your boyfriend.”
Adrian blushes at the wordboyfriend. We haven’t talked about what we are, but I know what I feel about him as clear as day. I lift a brow and say nothing else. The room cracks up.
Trevor groans. “God, this group is so far past normal, and I love it here.”
I stand near the edge of the patio, the ocean humming beneath us, the last streaks of dusk clinging to the sky like breath on glass. He’s right beside me, shoulder to shoulder, not hiding behind me or pretending we’re separate. It means something.
The space he takes next to me isn’t borrowed. It’s his, and I don’t stop him from claiming it.
We’re not subtle, and we’re not pretending to be. Our arms brush every time we move. When he hands me a drink, his fingers linger a second too long. When I thank him, my hand ghosts along his wrist, barely there but enough.
There has always been tension, the kind you don’t name but everyone feels simmering beneath every glance and breath. Tonight, I let it show. I let it settle between us like smoke rising from something already burning.
The guys notice. Lance keeps sneaking glances and biting his lip like he’s holding back a grin wide enough to split his face. George watches Adrian the way someone watches a door they didn’t know was open, like something that felt impossible has finally clicked. Trevor says nothing. He crosses his arms, a slow, knowing smile tugging at his mouth, like he’s been waiting for me to finally choose my own happiness, and now that I have, he couldn’t be prouder.
No one asks, and we don’t explain. Still, I feel the heat, the pressure, the quiet pulsing awareness of what this means. It’s not just that Adrian is beside me now. It’s that I’m not stepping away. Not anymore.
Later, when the night winds down and we drift back to the suite Lance has claimed as groom HQ, the mood shifts. It becomes softer. The spacious room looks out on the beach from two balconies and is scattered with leftover florals, tux bags, and half-empty tequila bottles. The lights are dim and the music low. It’s that last-day-before energy, charged and slow.
I drop onto the couch and signal for Adrian to come. Color rises in his face. He probably thinks things are moving too fast, but I’m done waiting. I’ve done my part for ten years. No one is making us wait again.
He settles on the rug between my knees like he’s done it a hundred times before. His back presses into my leg with the easy familiarity of habit and claim.
Lance pops another beer and smiles lazily. “So, we’re just skipping over the part where our friend over here is officially in a relationship now?”
Trevor snorts. “Mate, that’s not news. Now we know they’ve had this thing going since high school.”
George sips his drink and gives me a look that clearly says,took you long enough.
Lance leans forward, suddenly curious. “So, all this time…you two were just waiting?”
Adrian’s voice is steady but softer underneath. “It feels like we were. It’s like everything life threw at us, we just kept moving through it…until it finally brought us back here.”
They don’t press; they don’t need to. The ghost of the missing years hangs in the air between us.
Trevor leans forward, bottle in hand, his voice quieter than before. “I just need to ask one thing. Mate, were you really okay with all of us…”
I don’t let him finish.
My fingers slide into Adrian’s hair, tilting his head back slowly. He kneels between my knees where he belongs. His lips are parted, his chest rising like he already knows what I’m about to say. His pupils are blown wide and dark.
