Thick as Thieves (Aster Valley 4)

He held up a hand and turned tear-filled eyes at me. “Please. Please let me go. I just need… I just need to think, okay?”

I shook my head and held my hands out. “Please stay here and think with me. Please.”

He bit his lip before choking out the word “Can’t.”

And then he was gone.

I stared after him, torn between forcing the issue and letting him have the time he needed to process what had just happened between us. When his SUV pulled out of the driveway, I realized it was too late anyway. He was gone, and I was left here without a vehicle.

I shuffled back to the bedroom and crawled between the sheets. At least here I could smell him and remember what it was like to hold him in my arms and connect with him on a whole new level, even if that one stolen moment was all I would ever get of him.

10

JULIAN

The ride across the mountain to Rockley Lodge was a blur. When I got to Tiller and Mikey’s place, I stormed through the front door and made my way directly to the kitchen.

This wasn’t the first time I’d cried in Mikey’s big, beautiful kitchen, and I was fairly sure it wouldn’t be the last.

“What the fuck?” Tiller said as soon as he saw me barreling toward him. Sam and Truman were already there at the kitchen island, and both stood up quickly as if ready to respond to an emergency.

And it was an emergency.

“I kissed him,” I howled through sucking breaths. I could barely see through my tears, and I felt like I couldn’t get enough oxygen. “I fucked up and I called his bluff and I kissed him and then… and then… oh my god.”

Tiller held me in a tight hug, shushing me and running strong hands up and down my back. “It’s okay. Slow down and catch your breath.” I felt him turn his head away. “Mikey, what’s happening?”

“It sounds like they fucked.”

I choked and sputtered, accidentally inhaling a string hanging from Tiller’s Riggers hoodie. “No, Jesus. Well, maybe. Kind of? Not really.”

“Clear as mud,” Sam said, sitting back down at the counter and reaching for a snack from a tray of appetizers. I remembered we were supposed to join them for dinner later because Mikey wanted to test recipes for a new cookbook of his.

I pushed off Tiller and swiped at my eyes. “I ruined everything. He’s going to hate me. He was supposed—” I hiccuped. “—supposed to get married a few days ago, and I kissed him and…”

Mikey leaned forward with nosey eyeballs. “And…?”

“We… we…” I made a vaguely obscene gesture at the front of my pants.

Sam nodded solemnly. “They made martinis in one of those fancy shakers.”

I blinked at him and shook my head. He held up a finger. “Wait. No. They… shook a cup of dice before throwing them in a rowdy game of Yahtzee.”

Truman leaned around Sam’s wide form. Regrettably, I had to admit his teasing grin was kind of endearing. “I think they tossed birdseed out for the pigeons.”

Mikey studied me. “I still think they fucked.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I hate all of you.”

Tiller reached out and put his arm around me, pulling me close to his side and dropping a kiss on my head. “We love you. And so does Parker. Even if you touched his… martini shaker, I’m pretty sure you two can work it out and get past it.”

“How?” I asked, moving away from Tiller’s embrace to help myself to a glass of white wine. “How do you just get past seducing your straight best friend?”

“I don’t know if he’s totally straight,” Tiller said. “You know he tried kissing me years ago.”

The wine soured in my gut. “That was a joke. A prank.”

“Not exactly. He had feelings for you, Jules, but he didn’t know if he could be what you needed, and he didn’t want to fuck things up between you two. So he tried it on with me first.”

Mikey turned his judgy squint on his husband. “And?”

“And nothing.” He laughed as if it was no big deal. As if it wasn’t the biggest deal. “I didn’t pass muster. I let down the entire male gender. Apparently the experience was enough to turn him off men forever.”

“Until today,” Mikey added with a little bit of smug satisfaction.

I blew out a breath and collapsed on a barstool. “He’s confused. He doesn’t know what he wants.”

Tiller eyed me. “You sure about that? Because I can’t imagine he’d let himself go there if he wasn’t sure.”

Sam stood up to get another beer out of the fridge. “Presumably he got hard, yeah?”

My face heated. Even thinking about Parker getting hard for me made my stomach squirm. “Yeah, but who doesn’t get hard when someone rubs them off?”