The words blurred on the report in front of Jasper. He’d stayed at the office to avoid going home. That was a first. He usually rushed back to Annie. Now he was sitting in the construction trailer on the job site, long after the sun had gone down. Everyone else had left.
This might be his life now. If she was ready to move on, he’d be stuck trying to forget her, and he couldn’t imagine that.
The door creaked and then shut again. “You are not an easy man to find.”
At the sound of the familiar voice, Jasper looked up. “Matthew?”
David Matthew Hunter. The one who got away. The one who made him question…then understand…who he was and what he needed. It was as if thinking about him had conjured him up.
Jasper’s gaze wandered all over the guy. He looked the same, all put together and in charge in his fancy suit. His face was perfect and almost model pretty. The outer package was 100 percent Tall, Dark, and Smoking Hot, but Matthew was so much more than that underneath. He was charming and smart, sexy and fun.
Attraction had sparked between them from the start. Jasper initially wrote it off as friendship, or even a fling, but his feelings ran much deeper. And then on one snowy evening, he stopped fighting it.
“I actually go by Dave now.” He shrugged. “At some point I had to stop blaming my father’s notoriety for my lack of drive. I stepped up.”
Jasper’s brain remained locked in a daze that kept everything around him hazy and unclear. “Okay.”
“This is impressive,” he said as he walked around the makeshift office, staring at the plans on the walls. He rested a hand on a stack of files before turning around to face Jasper again. “When we were together, you talked about running your own company. It didn’t take you long.”
“I’m surprised you’re back in DC.” That fact got stuck in Jasper’s head and he couldn’t seem to kick it out. Jasper couldn’t get over seeing Matthew—Dave, he reminded himself—in person again.
It was easier to focus on that than the confident, seductive way Dave walked. He’d never been cocky but always moved in a manner that commanded attention. He was the guy people naturally gravitated to and wanted as a friend. People accepted and admired him. Almost everyone who met him loved him within a day, Jasper included.
The coincidence of Annie talking about Dave and him magically appearing the next day threw Jasper for a loop. It was just so improbable. Life didn’t work that way.
He finally came to a stop in front of Jasper’s desk. “I made partner and moved back to the DC office.”
“But didn’t bother to call and tell me.” Jasper regretted the comment as soon as it was out there. They hadn’t talked since the night their relationship ended. It hit Jasper that Dave probably wanted to pretend “they” were never a they.
Dave let out a long exhale as he sat on the corner of Jasper’s desk. “We didn’t exactly end on a great note.”
“About that…” While he was blowing up the rest of his life, Jasper figured he might as well handle this loose end, too. “Back then…I…”
Dave shook his head. “It took me a long time, but I get it.”
Jasper wasn’t sure what that meant. “What do you get?”
“You’re bisexual and back then you couldn’t handle knowing that. You never saw yourself that way or thought your family would accept it.” One of Dave’s eyebrows lifted. “Or do you still not accept it?”
“I guess the description fits. Point is, now I understand that who I’m attracted to doesn’t depend on gender.” Accepting that much about himself had taken a long time and lot of support from friends and from Annie. “I finally get that being with a woman doesn’t change that.”
Dave nodded. “Impressive.”
“Yeah, well. Coming to terms with my sexuality took a long time…and I lost you in the process.”
Jasper lived his life differently now. He insisted on being open, which was why the fight with Annie sucked so hard. She’d hid things from him, sure, but he also didn’t make it easy for her to talk to him. He’d promised he always would.
Some of the light in Dave’s eyes faded. “I’m still sorry.”
That didn’t make any sense to Jasper. “What for?”
“I bolted. You kept saying you weren’t gay or bi back then, that I was this strange aberration. Something you needed to hide—”
Jasper stood up. “That was garbage and shitty for me to do to you. It was all about my own baggage, and nothing to do with you. This really is my apology to make.”
“No, hear me out.” Dave held up a hand, then dropped it. “What I’m saying is that I knew you were struggling and why, but I gave up on us. Then, later, when you tried to contact me, I was pissed that you didn’t stop me from leaving you. I wouldn’t even pick up the phone.”
“I hurt you.” Jasper stood just inches away now. The loss still thumped loud and clear. The regret never went away.
He hated how such an important relationship had ended in an awful, hate-filled mess. Now that Dave was here, Jasper’s emotions took off on a wild roller-coaster ride he couldn’t stop.
Regardless of the fight, he loved Annie. She was the love of his life…but so was the man he knew as Matthew. Back then at least. Jasper shook his head, trying to reason through it all. But when he glanced up again he looked into Dave’s dark eyes and sensed that other than the name, the man hadn’t changed at all—the humor, the intelligence, the easy comfort of spending days and nights together.
“This time I’m the one who hurt you and I didn’t mean to.” Dave looked at his hands.
Jasper’s mind blanked. The words didn’t make any sense. “What are you talking about?”
“Annie—”
The buzzing in Jasper’s mind nearly blocked out his ability to think. “How do you know about Annie?”
“Wait…do you mean…Didn’t she tell you I was in town?” All the life drained from Dave’s face. He jumped up and moved back, putting the desk between them. “Oh, shit.”
For the second time in twenty-four hours Jasper had been thrown into a conversation that confused the hell out of him. He thought about what Annie had said and Dave’s move and…damn.
All the pieces fit together. The parts of his life that he viewed as separate suddenly connected. He could hear them click.
“You’re the client?” The chances were so slim but somehow he knew it was true. “You’re the one who has her talking about threesomes?”
“What?” Dave held up both hands then. “Wait a second. I never said that.”
“What the hell did you say to her?”
“I definitely didn’t suggest sex. Jasper, you have to believe me.” Dave kept shaking his head. “I wanted to meet her because some of our old friends told me about you guys, about her. They liked her, which had me intrigued. She had a good reputation as an agent, so I hired her—”
“To get close to her.” What the hell had he walked into?
“Not sexually. She didn’t even know what I’d been to you until a few days ago. When I finally admitted it, she stopped taking my calls.”
Dave talked like meeting Annie was this separate thing that happened over there. As if their new connection had no impact on today and didn’t threaten to destroy the thing that mattered most to Jasper.
Jasper couldn’t process what any of this meant. “This whole situation is so messed up.”
“Annie knows who I am—or was—to you. That’s what I was apologizing for. I told her that I came back to town, hoping you might be available and…shit.” Dave’s voice sputtered out.
Jasper stood there, staring at the man who once meant everything to him and thinking about the woman he wanted for his future. He spent his adulthood thinking he was bi but maybe he was something else. Poly, possibly. It was all happening too fast for him to assess.
Annie and Dave were different in so many ways. Dave came from this completely functional and supportive family. Dave’s issues with his dad came from the insecurities inside him, but his dad always encouraged him. Then there was Annie, with her fractured upbringing and messed-up understanding of commitment.
But in many ways, it made sense to Jasper that he loved them both. They were both smart and dedicated. When they saw something, they went after it. Annie was a survivor and Dave thrived in everything he did. They both made him laugh. Both drove him wild in the bedroom.
And right now, Jasper wanted to strangle both of them for dealing in half-truths and turning his life upside down.
Maybe she had wanted to satisfy his fantasies. It wouldn’t be the first time. But they’d never figure out what she really wanted without her in the room, no matter how scary it was for Jasper to put Dave and Annie together right now.
“You’re coming home with me,” Jasper said, sounding more sure than he felt.
Dave winced. “Not a great idea. I definitely spooked her.”
“You shook her up.” Jasper was just starting to get why. It sounded like he wasn’t the only one who could imagine a life with two people. “She talked about the three of us having sex together. Does that sound spooked to you?”
“Have you two ever…?”
“Never.”
Dave blew out a long breath. “Now I’m spooked.”
Chalk it up to the uncertainty or the fight with Annie, but Jasper felt a kick of something around Dave. The good times ran through his head. The attraction. The longing.
“Did you really come back to town for me?” It wasn’t the question he meant to ask, but he needed to know.
Dave smiled. “Don’t get cocky. I came for a pretty lucrative job opportunity.” He paused. “Which I took because I hoped for a second shot with you.”
Suddenly, Jasper felt like he could handle this mess of emotions.
“Buckle in,” he said. “I think this is about to get even messier.”