studied Anne’s efforts and listened to her describe what she’d done so far. He could do this, help her out. Prove right off the bat that no matter what stories Jamie had told, Alex wasn’t all bad. He might be a rascal, but he could bake a kick-ass brownie.
Another smile, as charming as he could make it. Once on a trip out West he’d gone to a prairie dog farm, where the little rodents would take a peanut from your hand if you sat very, very still. He felt a little something like that now, like she was some skittish, pretty creature he ought to do his best to tame.
“Want to know the trick?”
“Of making brownies?” Her face showed him she was expecting another sort of trick, maybe one on her, and Alex pricked his mental Mrs. Kinney doll with another set of pins.
“Want me to show you?”
Butter, chocolate. A low flame. He didn’t really need magic, just patience. In another few minutes the batter was finished and ready for tasting.
He tasted, and so did she. He grinned at her. “Brownies fit for a queen.”
“Or James’ mother.”
“Even her.”
Her first real smile had been worth waiting for. It was easy to see why Jamie had fallen for her. He was very glad to see she didn’t look scared of him any more.
She was a better wife than he was a friend, though, because she cleared her throat and moved back, just an inch or so, but enough to matter. “I should go shower. Your room’s ready, I just have to get some clean towels.”
Alex had been with women who’d have made that an invitation, but not even his ego let him think she was coming on to him. “I don’t want you to go to a lot of trouble.”
“It’s not any trouble, Alex.”
His name slipped out of her mouth, casual, an afterthought. Her smile had connected them but saying his name sewed them up tight together. He wanted to hear her say it again. It had been…
“Perfect,” he said, not meaning the towels or her effort, though she didn’t know it.
Maybe there wasn’t a moment. Maybe it was in his head, but Anne broke it anyway with her laugh and a gesture at the chocolate all over her clothes and hands from where she’d gripped the bowl. He watched her lick it from her fingertips and there was no more denying it. He was an asshole.
“You have some just…there.” His thumb traced the corner of her mouth, which opened at his touch.
Fuck, her lips were soft. The tip of her tongue hovered and he wanted to slide his thumb into her mouth’s heat. He wanted to kiss away the sweetness on her mouth…but he didn’t.
She backed away, her eyes going over his shoulder, and Alex already knew what he’d see. “Jamie,” he said as though he hadn’t just been thinking dirty thoughts about his best friend’s wife. “How the fuck’ve you been?”
The dinner part went as well as anything involving the Kinneys could. Evelyn curled her lip at him but had been polite, at least. She was always polite in front of other people. Alex reminded himself he didn’t give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut what the old hag thought, or had ever thought, or ever would think.
He made sure to linger around Jamie and whisper in his ear when he saw her watching.
The look she gave him then was well worth the look on Jamie’s face, that sort of half-startled, half-lazy leer Alex bet Jamie didn’t even feel in his eyes and on his mouth. Leaning so close his lips brushed Jamie’s ear, Alex could smell the new cologne his friend wore. Underneath it, the scent of the same soap he’d used for years, that and fabric softener. In a blink they were back in junior high, wrestling over a copy of Mad Magazine on Jamie’s bed.
“Goodbye, Mrs. Kinney,” he made sure to say sweetly when Jamie’s family left. “Great to see you again.”
She was too much of a bitch to know he meant it. Once upon a time Jamie’s family had been his, too. At least he’d thought so then. He knew better now.
Anne went to bed early, and as soon as she did, Jamie was pulling open the cabinet to bring down a bottle of Jack so dusty his fingers left a mark on the glass. He put it on the table with a triumphant grin and brought out two shot glasses, too.
“Let’s drink.”
After leaving Singapore and making his way through Amsterdam, Germany and a few other countries, Alex and the hours on the clock still weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. Jet lag had nothing on the bone-deep level of exhaustion threatening to topple him, but the shower he’d taken before the Kinneys arrived had woken him, as had the company. He was too jazzed to sleep but too tired to make much sense of things.
“Hell, yes.” The first shot tore through his veins and slashed a sliver in his throat, making him cough so hard Jamie had to pound his back.
“Jeeze, man. Don’t die on me—you just got here.” Jamie looked down the hall to the bedrooms. Interesting, that he didn’t want his wife to know he was knocking back a couple shots with his friend. “Let’s go out on the deck.”
He took the bottle. Alex followed. Outside the chill breeze drifting off the lake felt good on his face with the fire from the liquor still burning its way to his gut. Alex shuffled in his pocket for the Marlboros he was going to quit one of these days. The lighter flared and he drew in smoke, deep, before easing it out through his nose. He looked up at the night sky.
Jamie eased into the space beside him, close enough the heat from his bare arm pressed at Alex’s through the fabric of the shirt that had been too fancy for the dinner party. There was plenty of room for the other man along the deck railing. Jamie didn’t need to stand so close.
Alex slung an arm around Jamie’s shoulders, pulling him closer and pinching Jamie’s bicep before shoving him a few steps away with a hip. “Your mom seemed glad to see me.”
Jamie laughed. He gripped the railing with big, strong hands. He’d grown since college, thicker through the shoulders and thighs. The arm Alex had pinched had nothing much to grab on it but solid muscle. He wasn’t much like the skinny kid who’d sat behind Alex in homeroom in junior high. Neither of them were.
“You know my mom,” Jamie said, which wasn’t an excuse for her but didn’t invite criticism, either.
What must it be like for Anne, Alex wondered as he drew in another long, slow breath of sweetly burning smoke and let it drift from his nostrils. Married to the golden boy? Evelyn must’ve tried her best to eat her alive.
“Thanks for letting me stay with you.” He ground the cigarette into an empty coffee can he swore had been there since Jamie’s grandpa had owned the place.
“No problem.” Jamie grinned and punched Alex on the shoulder. “Glad to have you back.”
That was what guys did to the ones they loved. Punched or pinched, gave them Indian rubs or knuckled their scalps. That’s what Alex and Jamie had always done. But now Jamie sidled closer again, his arm brushing Alex’s sleeve, and though he kept his gaze turned out to the night and the lake and the lights from Cedar Point Amusement Park across the water, there was no way he couldn’t know
