Just as I spotted Stephanie, Meredith appeared in front of me. I was always cordial to her, because how could I not be? She and Tonya banged the hell out of each other down the hall every night when they weren’t mooning over each other in front of Netflix in the living room. She also always greeted me like a long-lost friend. Kisses on the cheek, a big hug, and a huge smile when I hugged her back.
“You came!”
“Well, how could I not after you laid out an outfit for me?” I asked dryly. “Thanks for the shirt.”
“Tonya picked it out.” Meredith’s voice tended to lower when she said Tonya’s name. I couldn’t tell if that meant T-Bone’s very name was enough to turn her on, or if it was some effect of new relationship giddiness. I wouldn’t know, considering I’d never had a relationship last longer than a couple of months. Women I spent time with tended to catch on quick that my feelings were . . . elsewhere. “She has good taste.”
“Always has,” I agreed. “Where is she?”
“I think she and Ray are holding down the bar, which is awesome.” Meredith rolled her shoulders, glancing around the thickening crowd. “I have a feeling I’ll need a refuge soon. Playing hostess is tiring. I expected way fewer people. When Oli suggested I invite the whole staff of QFindr, I didn’t think they’d all seriously come.”
“Guess that means they really like your brothers,” I suggested mildly, looking around. “Or they’re just here for the food and booze.”
Meredith snorted out a laugh. “Maybe both.”
Stephanie sidled up to us, eyes locked on me. “Hey.”
“Hi there.” I slid my hands into the pockets of my pants, acting cool. We played the weirdest games, if that was even what this was anymore. The sex came easily. Everything else? Us shuffling our feet like two school kids at a dance when we weren’t pissed at each other. “Where’re the grooms-to-be? I brought them a card.”
Meredith gave me another of those enormous smiles and a half hug. For a second, I saw Stephanie’s face change. A microcentimeter eyebrow raise, dark eyes dropping to Meredith’s grasp on me, and she stood up straighter. I ruffled Mere’s hair like she was my kid sister, she made a horrified sound and latched on to Steph instead, and everyone relaxed.
Weird. Fucking. Games.
Steph had to know Meredith’s interest in me went as far as her interest in Chris—a friend, or something closer to a family member, to people now in her life. And yet Stephanie’s first instinct had been territorial. I could see her checking herself now, squeezing Mere and comparing their similar dresses, snickering about Mere’s dress being Versace, but . . . I’d seen it. And man oh man, if it didn’t pump me the fuck up to know she got those irrational moments of possessiveness too.
“Mere,” I said calmly. “Where’s Oli and Caleb?”
“Oh sorry. They’re upstairs messing with the computer. Apparently a work thing came up.” Mere shook her head. “At their fucking engagement party.”
“Work never stops.” I nodded at her and started to retreat. “I’ll catch you—”
“I’ll go with you,” Stephanie said. “I haven’t said congratulations yet.”
We turned from Meredith to walk the weird spiral staircase up to the second floor, and I refrained from touching Stephanie.
“You look gorgeous,” she noted casually. “As usual.”
I snorted. “Thanks.”
“You just need to accept that you’re a beautiful man and quit scoffing every time someone brings it up.”
“I’m not being fake modest. I just know I’m no Raymond.”
Stephanie grabbed my wrist, frowning. “You’re not. You’re Angel. And you’re beautiful.”
Don’t kiss her, León. Don’t fucking touch her.
“Thanks, nena.”
She smiled, and we found Oli and Caleb hunched over an iMac in a big glass office. Their house was like some shit out of a movie. I couldn’t believe it was real, let alone that people I was vaguely acquainted with lived here.
“Knock, knock,” I said, looking between them. “I’m not staying long, but I wanted to say congrats and give you a cheap card I picked up from Rite Aid.”
Caleb straightened, grinning like someone had brought him a box of treasure, and walked over to shake my hand. I immediately liked him more. Maybe it was old fashioned, and too much of my grandfather in me, but I loved a strong handshake.
“Thank you for coming. I’m so glad to see you.”
I nodded, watching as Stephanie hugged him, then gave Oli a half hug as he kept glaring at the screen. “Hello you two,” he said, finally spinning away to stand. He looked Stephanie over, then me, one dark brow arched. “I’m not sure I appreciate how many devastatingly sexy couples there are at my engagement party.” I opened my mouth to correct him, but Oli kept talking. “Soon-to-be husband, we need uglier friends.”
Caleb flushed a little at the title and smoothed the lapels of his jacket down. I immediately noticed a shiny black band on his ring finger. If that was his engagement ring, I liked them even more. “There’s no such thing as ugly, darling,” he said to Oli. “People just look differently.”
Oli gave him a dull look, but I couldn’t help a smile. I never got the chance to interact with Caleb much, but I had the feeling he and I would be on the same page about a lot of shit. I had a hard time sitting with the Meres and Jaces and Charleses of the world, hearing about their sex lives in gory detail, but Caleb was all right.
I waved my envelope at him, and he snagged it, beaming. Inside was a card that said: Congratulations. Shit just got real.
Caleb’s smile widened, and he showed it to Oli, who laughed delightedly.
“Thank you both.”
“Oh, that was—” Stephanie halted when I gave her the I put your name on the card, estúpida look. “Angel picked it out.”
“I was thinking about giving you a $5 Amazon gift card, but times are hard.”
“Oh, we didn’t want gifts,” Caleb said quickly. “No awkward registry or anything. I hate presents.”
Oli made a handjob motion. Stephanie winked. “I’ll send you a fun link later for a new purchase you can make yourself.”
“Oh really.” Oli rubbed his chin. “Is it from my favorite store? That sells my favorite machine?”
“Yup. There’s a new model.” Stephanie’s grin turned naughty. “I’m saving up for it.”
I looked between them, mystified, but judging by the splotches of color on Caleb’s face, they were talking about something sex related. Of course.
“Put it on your registry,” Oli advised. “If you two ever decide to make shit get rea—”
Caleb’s eyes widened. He laughed awkwardly and abruptly enough for Oli to catch on and clam up. Caleb was definitely my dude. The quiet ones were always the most observant.
“I was joking,” Oli said quickly. “I just like teasing them about being together because they’re very aesthetically pleasing.” He gave us his cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. “And I’ll save the fucking-machine talk for later. For when me and Steph and Jace can discuss the pros and cons . . .”
He said other words, but my mind was stuck on fucking machine, and now my gaze was stuck on Steph.
I had an absolute obsession with making women come. It was partially why we’d delved into all the sex-toy talk after she’d dragged me into that store. Just listening to the matter-of-fact discussion she’d had with the sales person about intensity of orgasms depending on which type of toy, and which could make her gush, had destroyed me. I’d stared at her, and fantasized about seeing her bring herself to that state, for hours afterward.
Now, I was fantasizing about her and a fucking machine. There were entire porn subcategories dedicated to people being plowed to kingdom come with those things, and as weird as it was, it did it for me. Watching a woman lose her mind as she was fucked relentlessly by a dildo, or even imagining a woman using it on me . . . Not just any woman of course. Just this one.
I cleared my throat and snapped back to reality just as a random dude walked into the room. I had no idea who the hell he was, but he looked like an older and douchier Tom Hardy.
“Scott.” Stephanie did a double take, looking between the Hardy look-alike and Oli. “Wow. You two know each other?”
Dirty thoughts were cleared away, and I hyper-focused on the new guy. He was bulkier than me, but strong, and wearing a suit that looked like it’d been tailored just for him. His silver hair was slicked back, and he had on fucking cuff links, but his expression was the picture of awkward. Half-hearted smile as his gaze flicked between us like a panicked animal. This was not a guy who loved small talk.
“Scott DeFrancis is my brother-in-law . . . twice removed?” Oli tilted his head, and I saw the internal trigonometry at having to figure out his own familial relations. “Basically, he’s the brother of my sister-in-law. My own brother wants nothing to do with me, but oddly enough his in-laws think I’m great. Very active on the QFindr social media pages.”
“Got it.” Stephanie was still eyeing Scott like he’d just wandered in off the street. Then she glanced at me, but she had a weird look on her face, and that weirdness spelled reluctance. She did not want me to meet this person. “Scott is my boss. He’s the, um, DeFrancis of Berger & DeFrancis.”
“Uh-huh.”
I stared at her hard, waiting for her to introduce me, and watched that panic grow. What the fuck? There was absolutely no way Stephanie was banging her boss. She had too much integrity. And besides that, she’d often complained about the inequity of salaries, and how her fellow paralegals and the legal assistants irritated her by obsessing for years over her not having a boyfriend or girlfriend. She’d never once said anything to imply . . .
But it wasn’t my business. She did not belong to me.
I pasted on a half-assed smile and held out my hand. He had a limp, damp handshake.
“I’m Angel León. Nice to meet you, man.”
Scott nodded, cocked his head, and then awareness sparked. “Oh, you’re Stephanie’s fiancé.”
I stared. “What?”
Beside me, Stephanie’s face was flaming. She seemed close to exploding right there in the glass-encased office as Caleb and Oli looked between us in confusion. They, wisely, didn’t speak.
“Stephanie’s fiancé,” Scott awkwardly clarified. “We don’t, uh, well, that is, I don’t talk about personal things with my employees, but—” Holy fuck, would he ever get a sentence out? Stephanie appeared ready to melt into a puddle of humiliation on the floor. “She said she couldn’t come to the company retreat in Lake George next weekend because she had plans with her fiancé. Angel.”
The effort to not crack a smile was monumental. This was stupid. I knew it was stupid. She’d thrown my name in the fray at work to keep them off her back. It had nothing to do with some actual desire to ever be engaged to me. But even so . . .
I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and pulled her in with a shit-eating smile. “Gotcha.”
Across from us, Oli was also turning red from an obvious effort not to laugh. Caleb looked like he wanted to die from secondhand embarrassment.
“Um . . .” Stephanie shuffled besides me. “Right . . .”
“But you know what, Scott?” I dug my fingers into Stephanie’s arm. “Those plans may dry up. Is it too late for her to go along?”
Oli had taken a sip of his drink and choked. Stephanie gave me a hateful glare. I kept smiling at Scott.
“No, not at all. We’re going to have cabins, do team-building activities, and there will even be a hike.” Scott listed these activities as if in theory they were awesome, but his voice barely made it to semi pleased to be participating. “There are a lot of couples going, so you’re more than welcome to attend. We still have one room available.”
This time it was Stephanie who brightened like her wattage had suddenly received a boost. “Well, we might just take that into consideration, Scott. My Angelito loves outdoorsy stuff.”
I kept my mouth sealed into a smile even as I saw this plan backfiring. Caleb took pity on us and whisked Scott into a conversation about what type of law he practiced (immigration law), before going off on a glowing review of Clive Baptiste, their QFindr attorney, and the recent legal efforts to obtain subpoenas for the social media accounts that had participated in doxing them.
As awkward as I felt with Stephanie glued to my side while she practically vibrated with the need to kick me in the nuts, I paid attention long enough to glean some details. Apparently, the legal process was slow but steady, and it could take a year or two to confirm the identities of the people behind the cyber threats, since they had to wait for subpoenas from various social media and email platforms. However, Caleb and Oli seemed confident that their suspect would eventually be caught. Considering the doxing had caused Meredith to be physically assaulted, I fucking hoped so. Even though everyone seemed chill, I had not missed the not-so-discreet armed guards by the door when I’d entered the loft.
“Hey, Angel, I forgot Raymond wanted to talk to you,” Stephanie piped up about five minutes in. “If you guys will excuse us . . .”
She dragged me away from the office, halted by the stairs, and then made a beeline for what I could only assume was Caleb and Oli’s bedroom. She shoved me inside with enough force to make me stumble, and shut the door behind her.
“What the fuck, Sharky?”
“What?”
“What?” Her voice reached a higher pitch. “Why did you say I’d go on that stupid retreat! Have you missed the parts where I complain your ears off about how my coworkers are irritating to work with, let alone be on a three-day retreat with?”
“I did not, but . . . I also didn’t miss the parts where your primary complaints were related to them always clucking their tongues about how you’re single. And now . . .” I smirked, “you’re not anymore. Apparently you’re engaged.”
That blush covered her face again. The desire to kiss her nearly consumed me. I had to shift my attention away from her and surveyed the bedroom.
“Angel, I only said that because—”
“I’m not stupid. You said it because of all their annoying questions about your love life.” I studiously avoided meeting her eyes and kept visually snooping. “I don’t think you actually enjoy pretending to be mine.”
Stephanie made a sound beside me, but I ignored her. That comment was supposed to have been dropped in a lighthearted manner, but my chest had hollowed out as soon as I’d said it. So I avoided meeting her eyes and studied the elegant but understated bedroom before noticing a device in the corner. A device that could only be . . .
“Holy shit, is that the fucking machine?”
I moved closer without thinking, eyeballing the apparatus. It was aggressively . . . mechanical. It kind of looked like a tripod for a camera, but with a big dildo attached to it. I didn’t touch it, but I could easily see how it could be adjusted for height and different positions. The visualization instantly turned to me adjusting it for Stephanie.
“Fresco,” she murmured, coming up behind me. “It’s so easy to tell when your mind has gone down into the gutter.”
“How could it not?” I licked my lips as she put her hands on my shoulders. “So, you’re saving up for one, huh?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Let’s get engaged for real and put it on a registry like Oli said.”
She burst out laughing in my ear and wrapped her arms around me, hugging me to her chest. “Seriously, papi. I’m sorry I put you in a lie without telling you. I really was sick of them always giving me sad looks and worrying about the status of my womb and ring finger.”
“They want you to have kids?” I made a skeptical face even as I stared at the dildo. “For what?”
“Right?” Stephanie squeezed me tighter. “This is why I used your name. You get me.”
Uh-huh. Not because she liked me. Nah, couldn’t be that.
“Go on the retreat.” I turned away from the machine so I could look at her. “I know you only like being around us or your new friends, people who get you, but trust me—you’ll benefit from going along.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“You know you have to play those games to get ahead sometimes, Steph. We talk about this shit all the time with Ray and Tonya. How they are physically unable to be fake and go with the motions, but you can. You’re charming. Schmooze them into kissing your ass and giving you a raise.”
Groaning, she said, “I guess that’s true. But . . .” She bit the side of her lip, searching my face. “Would you go with me?”
“Uh . . . I dunno . . .”
“Please?” Her hand tightened on me. “It’s going to be blazing this weekend, and Lake George will be nice. It’s cooler there, and you’ll get to do outdoorsy stuff.”
“While pretending to be your fiancé.” At her nod, I said, “And you don’t think that will muddy the waters? The we’re-no-longer-fucking waters?”
“No. Why would it? Just . . . be there with me, and we’ll act like how we always act.” She smiled, as if any of this made any sense. “People always assume we’re together, anyway.”
I wanted to shake her. I really did. But I could deny her nothing, so I nodded. “Let me see if I can switch my day on Saturday.”
She drew me into a hug. “Thank you, Angel.”
I hugged her back, even though this was going to be a mess.