"Twelve," Wyatt said. "Twelve very long years, for which we are now very enthusiastically making up for lost time."
Noah laughed. He'd grown to love Austin, but God, he missed his friends. "How did you two bridge that time?"
"Are we your case study?"
"Pretty much," Noah admitted. "Consider yourselves my role models."
"In a word, trust." Wyatt shrugged. "We had to learn how to trust each other again."
Noah considered that. "When I first saw her here--in town, I mean--I almost let her go. Hell, I thought I should let her go. I was the one who fucked her over, right? No sense in bringing back painful memories. She deserved more, and I--well, I didn't deserve anything at all."
Wyatt looked purposefully toward the bed. "And yet . . ."
"And yet . . . I couldn't make myself do it. I had to see her. Talk to her. I had to touch her, you know?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Even after all this time, I needed it. Wanted it." He shook his head, trying to order his scattered thoughts. "I still do."
"Does she?"
"She's wary. And we're working together now, which makes her even more leery. And she's very firmly put on the brakes."
Wyatt's brows rose. "You didn't mention the work part."
"Just one more complication in my screwed up life."
"What are you going to do?" Wyatt asked. A simple question, but it didn't have a simple answer.
"I don't know. She's right--we've changed. We're not the same people we were. And being together . . . there's so much baggage. Guilt on my side, anger on hers. It's . . . hell, it's just hard."
"And?"
Noah drew a deep breath. "You know what? Screw hard. I've gotten past hard more times than I can count. I want her. At the very least, I want the chance to see if we still fit. I want my shot."
"So take it."
"How?"
"I don't know," Wyatt admitted. "I guess you're going to have to get creative."
"Flowers," Griffin said. "Inundate her with flowers."
Kelsey pushed a lock of brown hair off her face as she rolled her large, blue eyes. "That is so not creative. The man needs real help." She was sitting cross-legged on the flagstones in her brother's backyard. Griffin and Noah sat across from her in the Adirondack chairs, and Wyatt stood off to her right, leaning against a post.
Griffin shrugged as he turned to face Noah more directly, revealing the extensive scars that marred the right side of his face. The result of a horrific childhood injury.
"Flowers are awesome," Kelsey agreed. "But he needs to step it up. Oh! I know. Edible flowers." She looked at the three men and nodded, clearly proud of herself.
"What?" Wyatt asked. "Like the stuff chefs put in salads?"
"No, no. It's a thing now. Cookies that look like flowers planted in dirt that's really a brownie. God, I'm hungry. Griff, do you have any chips?"
He waved an arm. "Whatever's in the pantry, it's yours."
"I shouldn't eat this late," she said, rising. "But since we're brainstorming, we need sustenance."
Noah had to laugh. Here he was in his mid-thirties hanging out in the middle of the night in his friend's backyard to brainstorm creative ways to get a girl. Had anyone asked him yesterday if that was even a remote possibility, he would have told them he was too old for that shit.