Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Sure.”
“But I’m old now.”
I gasped, and he cracked a grin that made my knees weak. “You are not old,” I assured him, adding a scowl for good measure. It was hard to do with the warm glint in his eyes.
“Fine, older,” he teased me. “Is that better?”
“Yes.”
“All I mean is, I have the friends now I plan to die with.” Lifting his arm, he gestured back in the house. “I am going to expend no energy at all forging a new relationship with David Shapiro. I could give a crap.”
“I get that.”
“It’s like all these people who find long-lost family on these DNA sites. Maybe for some it’s a great thing, but I’m thinking that for most of us it’s just more folks you have to remember to send a Christmas card to every year.”
I smiled at him.
“At my age, my pool of family and friends is set.”
“I get that.”
“I mean, if Chaz or Pat got mad at me, I would move heaven and earth to figure out what I did, and you can bet money that I’d make it right. And like with Dane. It took years to forge that friendship with your brother. I wouldn’t give that up for the world, but you know what, I know he wouldn’t either.”
I wanted to hug him, but he was on a roll now.
“And Aaron Sutter and me—Jesus—who saw that coming?”
Certainly not me, but I was continually impressed by both my husband and my ex and now dear friend, that the two of them had created a bond together.
“But it’s really hard for me to stand in that house and have a conversation with someone who fell out of my life years ago.”
I nodded.
“When I saw him at the school that time, I was really happy to see him. I thought how great it would be to reconnect with an old friend. We’d both been living our lives, getting married, having kids, and now it was the perfect time to rebuild that bridge.”
I was right earlier; Sam had been hurt by David snubbing him.
“But then when that familiar bullshit came up, the whole caring about you being a man and finding out it was a concern of his, I was blindsided. I didn’t think true friends would ever care about something so stupid.”
I took hold of his hand.
“I mean, Jory, before anyone else, there was Chaz and Pat, and when I told them it was you, their worry wasn’t that you were a guy or that I was bisexual, but that you were too young for me. Do you remember that? Them thinking you were gonna ditch me for some younger model and leave me crying in my cornflakes?”
I snorted out a laugh over the memory and his wording.
“I mean, come on, you fuckin’ love me.”
“Yes, I do,” I assured him.
“And you loved me then.”
“Yes, I did,” I said, knowing I was very lucky to have him.
“But after the panic over our age difference went away, guess what? Chaz and Pat were all in with us, and so were their wives.”
These were bedrock friendships he was talking about now.
“I just… I can’t get over that David turned his back on me for who I decided to love. It still, to this day, blows my mind.”
“Of course.”
“Not that I think about this, because once I realized he was blowing me off, I forgot about him. I mean, there were so many other things going on. I didn’t have time to care about anyone who didn’t give a shit about me.”
I knew that. Sam had so many balls in the air at one time that if he couldn’t count on you, if you couldn’t commit to being his friend once he offered the friendship, that was it. Sam dwelled on his family, his friends, the people who worked for him, and of course, like all of us, on the mistakes he made. But other than that, he didn’t have the bandwidth to care.
“I just wanna go,” he groused at me.
“And you’re hungry.”
“Fuck yes I’m hungry,” he very nearly whined.
“You could eat something here and––”
“But that would extend our time here, and I just wanna go.”
“Plus, you want pie,” I teased him.
“Yes, I want pie.”
He was adorable, but really, when Sam Kage was hungry, he became another person. And not one that you wanted to be around. His patience dwindled quickly to nothing.
“Okay, baby, let’s go,” I whispered, smiling up at him.
He grabbed me and hugged me, and I loved it, as always, because being the one Sam Kage clutched to his heart was my absolute joy.
Inside, David was quick to smile when we crossed the room to him and his wife.
“So I’d love to get your number so we could––”
“Oh no, we’re good,” Sam told him, giving Kenzie a nod. “I know we’re all so busy, and it’s hard enough to carve out time for our families between work and everything else. But it was nice to see you, and again, so sorry for your loss.”