The Real Baxter (The Baxter Chronicles 1)

I obviously couldn’t rely on him to tell me how to say the right thing now. I had to wing it.

Fuck.

“Congratulations,” I choked out. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you.”

“So…when did this happen? Did you set a date?”

Gray paced toward the roses. “No date yet, but we’ve talked about this for years. At first, it was in passing. Like a joke. Recently, it’s something we acknowledged we both want. I thought about asking him when we were in Europe on the final leg of Zero’s tour, but I didn’t want to take anything away from his achievement. And I didn’t want to share a personal piece of our history with his band. I wanted it to be ours. If that makes sense.”

“Sure,” I agreed. What-the-fuck-ever, I thought.

“But I couldn’t stop thinking about it and last night…I popped the question.”

“And Justin said yes.”

Gray grinned. “Yeah, and I’m hoping that you’ll say yes too.”

“To what?”

“I want you to be my best man.”

Fuck.

Me.

Spear through the heart.

I didn’t have words for a full awkward minute, which was okay because Gray was still talking. But I could barely hear him. Or anything. Not the birds, the traffic…nothing. Blood rushed to my head, thumping at my temples ominously and drowning out every other word. I got the gist of his speech through his tone. He was excited. Truly happy.

So I smiled as convincingly as possible and did my best to ignore the spike of pain in my gut.

Side note—aging kinda sucked. I woke up some mornings with weird maladies, like the knuckles on my left hand hurting for no reason. I worked out with a trainer, didn’t do any manual labor, and jerked off with my right hand…so it made no sense. Sometimes my back ached or a food I’d loved forever tasted awful out of the blue. Go figure.

However, there were a few perks to getting older too. Good ones.

The biggest and best was that I literally gave zero shits about anyone’s opinion about my personal life. Or anything, honestly. If you liked tomatoes and wanted to list all the benefits of eating or growing them…I wouldn’t tell me, ’cause I didn’t give a fuck. Or when that sexy stuntman Hal fired earlier went on and on about traffic in London…no fucks given.

Okay, I wasn’t sure why Mr. Stuntman had popped into my mind, but the point was…I’d learned not to sweat the small stuff. Better still, I’d learned to pause before reacting and when to listen closely to the people I loved and respected.

And I loved Gray.

So I swallowed my pride and the grapefruit-sized ball of emotion lodged in my throat and set my hand on his shoulder. I even managed to curl my lips in a mostly sincere smile.

“I’d be honored,” I whispered.

Gray went still. His eyes welled and his mouth twisted as if struggling with his own emotional turmoil. And suddenly, we were us again. Just us.

Years melted away and we were those same two young men who’d met at a random Hollywood party, who’d fallen in love, who’d built a life, raised a son.

Best friends, partners…lovers.

But we weren’t lovers anymore. We were just friends.

And though it was tricky business loving someone who loved someone else, I credited my forty-eight years on the planet with lending me a moment of grace when he pulled me into his arms and crushed me against his chest. I let myself, my ego, my anger, my heartache drift far enough from my body to allow his happiness to rule the moment.

Later, when I was alone, I’d regroup, process Gray’s news, and come up with a strategy to deal with it. I’d pose the age-old question to myself: What would Baxter do? Then I’d act accordingly.

But first, I was going to get drunk.

Scratch that. First, I had to do adult shit.

I needed to make an appearance in my office, check the carpool schedule to make sure I wasn’t responsible for picking up Oliver from school, and call Charlie. I didn’t look forward to that last one at all.

Then again, Gray had indicated that Char already heard his news, so maybe our father-son chat would be no more than a formality. Thankfully, I knew Oliver wouldn’t care. He was only twelve—too young to remember when Gray and I were a couple. And he loved Justin.

Charlie…nope. This wasn’t gonna be easy. For one of us. I wasn’t sure who yet.

I sighed, swiping my fingers through my hair as I stepped into the inner office of the executive suite lobby at Rourke Studios.

“Oh, thank God! You’re here.” Trish jumped up from behind her desk and hurried to my side.

Trish was a friendly redhead with green eyes who favored bright-colored dresses and chunky retro jewelry. She’d been my secretary and right-hand person since I’d opened my studio thirteen years ago. She looked out for me and took care of things I couldn’t or didn’t want to do.