They made chitchat until their waitress, a girl in her late teens with a nametag that read Tammy, came over. It turned out she was the older sister of the girl Chase’s daughter was best friends with.

“Oh hey, Mr. Williamson,” she said cheerfully as she noted down their drinks. Then she noticed Koby and went crimson. “Oh, um, I’ll be right back with your order,” she mumbled, then scuttled away.

“What was that about?” Chase asked with a grin.

“Aww,” Kris said, clutching his hands to his chest. “I think the little duckling has a crush.” He fluttered his eyes at Koby and wriggled his eyebrows.

“Wait, was that Tammy Miller?” Hale asked, his eyes going wide. “Her cousin is Jason Miller. Y’all hear about that? He’s qualified as an astronaut over at NASA in Houston. How insane is that?”

Kris felt like that was pretty damned impressive as far as he was concerned and Chase seemed to agree. But Koby just hummed and began discussing pancake options. Maybe as an artist, he just wasn’t all that interested in science. But Kris had to admit, surrounded by cheesy fifties-style rockets and little green men from Mars, there was a childish side of him that was fascinated.

“I’m so sorry we’re late, y’all!” Gabe’s voice carried over the din of the restaurant. “We were grabbing a few things.”

Kris and the others looked over to see him and his friend Caspian pause as one of the other servers dashed around them. They were both on the smaller side so didn’t take up much room, but both looked uncomfortable getting in the way of the staff.

Now it was getting closer to lunchtime, the place was pretty packed. Kids were squawking and crying and people competed to have conversations over one another. Kris liked the bustling vibe. He felt connected with people in a way he hadn’t since he’d worked his last shift at the bar. He was surprised how much he’d missed it.

Then he noticed that both the newcomers were also holding bags full of stuff.

“Okay,” Kris said probably a little harsher than he meant to. But he hated feeling out of the loop when his life was already so up in the air anyway. “Have I missed something? Are we going out afterwards?”

Five faces turned to him as Gabe and Cas took their seats. “What do you mean?” Chase asked.

Kris bit his lip and waved his hand at the party. “You’ve all got bags. Was I supposed to bring something?”

To add to his paranoia, the guys all exchanged smiles with each other. But Chase leaned forward and gripped Kris’s hand before he could cross his arms. “Now we’re all here, we have a surprise for you.”

The other guys nodded and reached under their seats to pick up their bag. Gabe hadn’t put his down, so he rose and walked back to Kris’s end of the table. “Chase said you lost everything in the fire,” he said. His voice caught just a fraction. Kris didn’t know Gabe all that well yet, but his emotion still caught Kris by surprise.

“Um,” said Kris, hesitant to take the bag. “I don’t know. It’s more that I can’t get up to my apartment. I’m hoping there’s some things that are salvageable.”

Koby gave Kris a lopsided smile. “Stop being so tough for one second and just let us be nice, you drama queen,” he said fondly.

“We went through our wardrobes,” said Hale, also holding out the bag he had brought. “We can’t have you looking like your brother, can we? He’s so painfully heterosexual.”

That got a chorus of laughs from the table. But Kris was too stunned to laugh. He watched as five bags of clothes were placed in front of him, taking up the whole end of the table. He could see all kinds of vests and shirts and shorts and even belts and hats. Despite biting his lip hard, he couldn’t stop the tears from pooling in his eyes.

“Oh,” he said softly, reaching out to touch one of the tops in the nearest bag. “Y’all. You didn’t have to.”

Gabe hugged him from behind. He smelled comfortingly of warm earth and flowers. “But we wanted to,” he said, then kissed Kris’s cheek. “You of all people should not be fashion deprived in a crisis.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to call this fashion,” Kris teased with a laugh, picking up a dorky T-shirt that had probably belonged to Hale. That got a laugh from the table. “But, fuck. Y’all are going to make me cry, aren’t you? Just when I went and put all this mascara on.” The table laughed. “Um, thank you. Even if all these bags mean I have to get an Uber home, that’s really kind of you.”

“You’re such a brat,” Chase bemoaned. But he grinned and nudged Kris’s foot with his own.

Kris wasn’t quite sure how to process all this kindness. Hale was the only person he’d known for any length of time. The rest of the guys were either new friends or people he was only just getting to know. Yet they had just given him all this stuff? There had to be a whole wardrobe full of possessions here.

He was too shy to go through the bags in front of them, but he could even make out the soles of some shoes in a couple of the bags. The particular brand of makeup remover he liked was poking from Koby’s bag and Gabe’s had a damn houseplant nestled in it. Kris chewed his lip and blinked back the tears that were still threatening to fall.

He was one lucky little snowflake.

Before anyone noticed him wiping his eyes, Cas’s phone pinged. He had left it on the table, so everyone heard it. “Ohh,” said Gabe in a conspiratorial tone as he hurried to sit back in his seat. “Who’s that, Caspian Grey?”

Cas’s cheeks went pink as he snatched up the phone, as if someone might swipe it off him. “No one,” he mumbled.

“Has Cas got a boy?” Hale asked in a singsong voice.

Kris both appreciated Hale steering the conversation away from him as well as how well he was already getting on with everyone. Cas and Gabe both knew Koby as they all moved in the same artsy circles and had stalls at the farmer’s market every Saturday together. But although Hale might have met some of them in passing before, this was essentially their first time all hanging out. Kris was glad Hale was fitting in just fine.

“Is it Mr. Mysterious Text Friend?” Gabe asked, clearly goading Cas. Cas scowled at Gabe, who just grinned cheekily back at him.

“None of your business,” Cas said, opening the message he’d received as close to his chest as possible while still being able to read it.

“Kris has a mysterious boy as well,” Chase announced to the group.

Kris spluttered on the water he was sipping as once again all five faces turned to him. For fuck’s sake, he’d just gotten himself out of the spotlight. “No,” he said firmly. “No, I haven’t got a boy.”

“Look how red he is,” Hale cried gleefully. Kris glanced around to see if Tammy the waitress might be about to rescue him. But sadly, she looked to be taking a large order from a kid’s birthday party.

“Oh, Kris,” drawled Koby. “Come now, fess up. Who is he?”

“The guy you’re living with?” Chase asked.

Kris gritted his teeth and busied himself putting all the bags of clothes on the floor around his feet. He wasn’t kidding. He was going to have to grab a cab back to Remi’s.

“You’re living with a guy?” Cas asked. He was probably relieved the attention had been drawn away from him.

“It’s nothing,” Kris insisted. “My brother’s friend had a spare room that he’s opened up to me while I don’t have a place.”

Hale slapped his hands on the table. “Not Remi Washington?” he asked, devilment in his eyes.

Fuck. Kris had forgotten how perceptive Hale could be. Kris might have mentioned his crush on his brother’s best friend once or twice when they were back in school together. Damn Hale for remembering.

Kris neatened up his knife and fork. “Okay, so what if it is?” he asked.

“You were crazy for him!” Hale cried back triumphantly.

“So there is a man,” added Chase with a grin.

“One who is still very much straight,” Kris said pointedly.

He had to give his friends credit. They gave him sympathetic nods and changed the subject to what food they were going to have. Chase congratulated Gabe on securing his first landscaping job the day before at a retirement center. They all knew there was no point pining over a straight guy.

Except…

Koby leaned over to murmur in Kris’s ear. “Are you sure he’s straight?” he asked.

Kris glanced at him and tried to keep his expression neutral. “All evidence seems to say so,” he said.

Koby licked his lips, tugging briefly on the piercing at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe you should double-check. Just to be sure,” he suggested. There was a wicked edge to his tone. He winked then turned to join in discussing ornamental garden features with Cas and Gabe.

Thankfully, Tammy finally came back with their drinks, full of apologies for the delay in their service, eager to take their order now.

Kris didn’t want to give Koby’s words space in his head. But they were there now, taking root and refusing to be moved.

Would it really hurt to see if Remi was even just a little bit queer? Fuck, Kris’s cock twitched in his jeans just thinking about it. He knew what he’d felt the past couple of days. There were definitely moments when the air hung between them like charged electricity.

Almost like those seconds before a kiss might happen.

Kris shook his head and did his best to push the train of thought from his mind for the rest of brunch. There was no sense dwelling on it now. He could just wait until Remi came back from work tomorrow morning.

Until then, there was nothing he could do but wonder.