Chapter 23

Riley knocked once, then barged into Knox’s rooms without waiting. They used to do that all the time. But now that Griff, Knox, and Logan were having sex basically nonstop with their new women, they’d instituted a full-five-second house rule about waiting after knocking.

“I need your camera. The good camera.”

Knox looked up from where he was kicked back in a low-slung chrome-and-black leather chair. His laptop was on the side table, and his tablet and phone were on his lap. In other words, he’d caught Knox at a low-tech moment. “You wouldn’t know what to do with my lenses if I flanked you with the ghosts of Ansel Adams and Richard Avedon.”

“Don’t be an ass. I won’t break anything. Just let me use it for an hour.”

He tapped his fingertip against his chin. Gave Riley a way-too-calculating look for this simple request. They shared soccer equipment, ties, suits, so this request shouldn’t have been a big, hairy deal. “Why?”

Damn it. “Why do you care?” Riley shot back.

“Because it’s my camera. If you’re going to take dick pics with it, I’m going to demand a full sterilization sequence before you return it.”

That twisted a smile onto his lips. That Knox wouldn’t object in general to him taking dirty pictures, but just wanted an extra cleaning? Knox might be engaged, but he still had the filthy mind of the hound dog he’d been just a few months ago.

Riley held out his hands, palms up. “For fuck’s sake. I want to take some photos for the Naked Men blog. Period.”

Knox rose out of his chair. Rummaged in the closet. “It isn’t your turn to blog. You’re off the hook for another three weeks.”

“I’m motivated. So sue me.”

“Motivated about what?” Knox handed over a padded bag big enough to hold a picnic. He’d been right that Riley didn’t know what to do with half of the lenses. The kick-ass flash was all he needed. Or knew how to use.

“Does it matter?”

Knox stuck his hands in the big front pocket of his blue-and-black Baja hoodie. “Since you’ve been stomping around this house like an elephant with a splinter in his ass for the past week, yeah, it does. The only thing you’ve been motivated to do is go to work, go to the gym, and avoid all of us.”

“Then you should be jumping for joy at my change in attitude.”

“I would be—if I trusted it.”

The problem with living with your best friends? They saw right through you.

Riley walked out and headed down the wooden stairs. If Knox truly wanted to have this conversation, he’d have to work for it and follow him down four flights to the basement. They had good art, stuff they’d had fun picking out on various trips, in the first-floor hallway. But the walls of the stairway were their glory walls. Framed magazine articles from whenever they got mentioned. Not from their trip to Italy, of course. There wasn’t anything to glorify about the time when they’d been branded ACSs. Griff had a couple of medals on the wall. Josh had the first dollar he ever made on his food truck. And a picture of the receipt from when he won ten thousand dollars on a slot machine in Vegas.

Riley always, always paused on the third-floor landing to glance at the photos of the five of them from the last, epically historic election. One photo included all of them, dead serious, hands over hearts right under their I Voted stickers. Next to it was a shot of them all two months later. In tuxes, after making the rounds at three Inaugural Balls and two after-parties, they’d posed in front of the Capitol at two a.m., shaking champagne bottles and spraying each other while laughing their asses off.

It was the perfect juxtaposition. When life got real—bad or good—the ACSs stuck together. Slogged through it, celebrated through it, swore and worked and joked through it. But no matter what, they stayed together.

Tonight, Riley didn’t pause.

Didn’t even turn his head to catch a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. It was a reminder—one he didn’t need—that he’d been shutting his friends out all week. Which was stupid. Childish. Fucking pouting, to put a name to it.

But for once? Riley didn’t want to hear what they had to say. He’d been down this road time and again. One of them would act so unjustifiably stupidly that they’d all pile on to argue sense into his head. He knew the drill. Hell, he’d led the charge a time or two. Talked Griff out of getting a tattoo of the Coast Guard seal because it wasn’t worth risking an infection—or regret, twenty years down the line. Talked Josh out of buying a motorcycle because, hello, when medical staff called them “donorcycles,” it was worth thinking again.

He’d never been the one ganged up on, though.

And he damn well wasn’t about to start now.

The guys all liked Summer. She’d be a part of their lives no matter what because of Chloe and Griff’s marriage. None of that mattered, though, as much as the fact that he’d dropped his defenses, relinquished his control, and Summer had trampled all over the trust he’d handed her.

So, no. Riley wasn’t up for a group powwow. No slaps on the back. He’d keep his distance until everybody moved on.

Their thudded footsteps drew Logan and Griffin out at the landings. Griff was still in sweaty workout clothes. “What’s with the running?”

Riley just kept going.

Logan fell into line, from the sound of the footsteps in triplicate behind him. “Did Knox get us a stupid fun surprise again? Is there a limo downstairs waiting to take us to Dulles?”

“Because the last trip turned out so well,” Riley snarled.

“It did for me,” Griff said in a way-the-fuck-too-happy tone. “I’m willing to roll the dice again.”

Oh, right. Because he wasn’t the one with a vicious headache, a hand that throbbed every time he put it down to unzip his pants, and a trampled heart. “Real sensitive, G-Man.”

Logan snorted as they all rounded into the kitchen, where Josh was messing around with something steamy and bubbling at the stove. “We’re guys. Since when do we worry about being sensitive?”

“I’ll give you fifty bucks to lead off your toast at his wedding with that,” Josh said.

Riley bit back a smirk. He wasn’t supposed to be entertained. He was supposed to be shaking off this weird friend caboose he’d picked up. Josh tossed him a bottle of water. He tried to catch it, realized that meant dropping the camera bag due to his being one-handed, and managed to miss the bottle and bobble the bag to a not-so-gentle stop on the counter. Shit.

“Wait—I get to make a toast?” Logan sounded pleased. Like he’d been offered the chance to spin the wheel on The Price Is Right. “Does that mean you picked a best man, Griff?”

“I thought I’d make you draw straws.”

Knox glared at him. Well, first he glared at Riley for the camera bag near-drop, and then he shot the same evil look at Griffin. “Logan’s automatically out, ’cause he’s standing up for me. And you know that out of all of us, I’m the one most capable of throwing you a bachelor party that will be spoken of as legendary. I’m just saying, Monaco isn’t out of the question…”

Were they really standing in their kitchen trying to outdo each other as best-man material? The kitchen where they’d once lined up five girls across the island to do body shots on Cinco de Mayo? The kitchen where they’d put a field dressing on a deep gash on Logan’s arm from jousting with the wrought-iron citronella candle spears, and then went back outside and kept going?

Putting the bag over his shoulder this time, Riley grabbed the water off the floor and pushed through the basement door. Halfway down the steps, a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Way to ruin the moment, Ness.”

Hard to twist out of a grip with your broken hand pressed against your chest and one foot in the air. “What moment?”

Griffin’s fingers flexed tighter. “The one where I ask you to be my best man.”

Holy crap. Riley put his foot back on the step. Turned halfway to look at the guy who, a decade ago, had put that same hand on the same shoulder and shoved it back into its socket. “I can’t fund a bachelor party where you get to channel James Bond at a European casino.”

“Doesn’t matter. The best man gets me prepared to move on to the next phase of life. I can’t think of anyone who is more prepared. For everything. All the time. I need you there, next to me, Ry. So I don’t forget the ring. Forget to fasten my cummerbund. Whatever. Will you do it?”

He wanted to say yes. Of course. It was a huge honor. But he couldn’t do it for the reasons Griffin had listed. He’d be a fraud.

“You don’t want me.”

Hurt clouded Griffin’s eyes like a storm rolling in over the ocean. “Really? You’re playing hard to get?”

“Dude, I’m not playing games. I’m the last person you can count on right now, though.” He ran the rest of the way down and kept walking through the game room. “I’m not in control. I’m sure as fuck not prepared for anything. I can’t be the best man that you need.”

“Damn it, will you just stop and talk to us?”

Literally, Riley would rather have walked on hot coals than be surrounded by his friends, his blood brothers. “No, thanks.”

Logan vaulted over the leather sofa to cut him off. “Enough.”

“Get out of my way.”

“Hell, no. We’ve all been trying to get in your way for days. You’ve been avoiding us better than coyotes hiding from the border patrol. When the truth is, you’re the only one standing in your way.”

Damn it. There was the same stench of inevitability about this as sitting in the dentist chair with an achy tooth. You knew it’d suck. You knew you couldn’t escape.

“Fine.” He—and the camera bag—dropped onto the sofa. Crossing his broken hand up to his collarbone, Riley demanded, “Spit it out. Take a load off your mind. Then let me be.”

“First of all, don’t shit all over Griff’s request.”

Logan was right. It wasn’t fair. Riley shifted to look at Griff, who’d plopped down next to him. “I love you like a brother, man. I’d be so proud to stand up for you. I’m honored you asked. But I don’t fit that description you gave of a best man. Not anymore.”

“For Christ’s sake, Ry, that was a description of you. You’re who I want next to me. Period. Because you’ve always had my back. Are you really going to stop doing that on the biggest day of my life?”

“No.” Never. “But I’m a mess. And I don’t know when I’ll get myself back together. You deserve better.”

“He could’ve had better. He could’ve had me.” Knox cocked an eyebrow. “But Griff picked you. So don’t let him down.”

Logan paced back and forth in front of the coffee table. He threw his arm toward Riley with every pointed sentence. “You’re not out of control. You took one day off for a concussion. Your only concession to it has been taking an Uber to work instead of driving. You’re putting in full days at the office. You’re walking, against doctor’s orders, on the treadmill for way the hell too long. All that says is that you’re stubborn and stupid—but you are not out of control.”

“I lost control the day I lost my heart to Summer,” he burst out. “It went against all my better judgment to fall for her. To trust her. And look where it got us. Almost killed by a reliably forecast rainstorm.”

Josh shook his head as he folded himself, cross-legged, onto the floor. “Shit happens. Hell, nature happens. Not your fault.”

“Not being ready for it was my fault. If that tree had landed an inch higher, Summer might’ve lost her leg. Or bled out before I could get help.”

“But she didn’t.” Knox sat on the coffee table, right in front of him. “And you did get help. You took the shitty cards life dealt you on that one day, and you didn’t fold. You played out the hand. That’s all any of us can strive for.”

Why were they giving him so much credit? For doing nothing?

Logan threw out another arm. Riley kind of hoped he pulled something. It was getting annoying as fuck. “Yeah, you’ve been a pain in the ass since it happened. But that’s just moping. Totally normal. All these bad things bombarded you, and you didn’t lose control.”

“When will you stop worrying about a future that you can’t control? Realize that you can only control how you respond to what happens next?” Griff kept his gaze fixed on him, not letting him squirm out of the conversation or the awkward, probing question.

Riley couldn’t control the future. But he could prevent the worst of it from happening. It was what he strove for every day in his job. “I could’ve prevented her from getting hurt.”

“If you caught the weather forecast?” Knox jerked a shoulder. “Maybe. Or maybe we’d have left on time and gotten into a bad accident on the way to the airport, and her leg would still be messed up.”

Riiiiight. The damned butterfly effect. Their argument was meaningless. “I can’t trust her. I can’t trust her to take care of herself. Do you know how terrifying that is?”

Josh laughed. Caught himself, but then laughed again. “She’s stayed alive for twenty-seven years, man. Including through being freaking shot multiple times, and driving on the D.C. Beltway. I’d say you can trust Summer to take care of herself well enough.”

“It doesn’t make it any less terrifying,” he said in a near-whisper.

“This all goes back to our accident, doesn’t it?” Griff leaned forward, planting his arms on his thighs. “You couldn’t have saved Santos. You didn’t cause the crash. And no matter how much survival lore you’ve picked up since then, none of it would’ve done squat to improve our circumstances over those three days. There was no food to be found. There was no way to signal for help. You’ve got to let it go.”

Riley stood. Walked back to the gated entrance to the temperature-controlled wine cave. Thought about how awesome it would be to lock himself in there and drink…not all 172 bottles. Just…enough to distract him from missing Summer.

He came back to pound his good fist against the felt of the pool table. “I love her. I love her so much that it scares me. I’m so scared of losing her.”

“But you have lost her.” Knox scooped up the cue ball. Rolled it down the table into a perfect break that scattered the balls to all four corners. “That tree didn’t take Summer away from you. You walked away all by yourself.”

Well…shit.

They all made fun of Knox for being a card-carrying member of Mensa. But it couldn’t be denied that he was the smartest of all of them.

Case in point.

His fear of losing control, of losing Summer, was the very thing tearing them apart.

Yeah, Riley was still mad at her. Yes, their accident could have been wholly preventable. But not everything was. And whatever life threw at him, it’d be easier to get through with her than without her.

God, he was an idiot.

Riley swallowed hard. Swallowed his pride. Swallowed his goddamned fear. Swung around to do the hand pump/back thump combo with Griff. “Yes, I’ll be your best man. How about Mardi Gras in New Orleans for your bachelor party?”

“Sounds…legendary.”

“It does,” Knox agreed—grudgingly.

Riley snatched up the camera bag. “I still need your camera. Maybe you guys would help me. I was going to do a blog post on survival. Photograph all my gear to show how easy it is to take a few key things with you whenever you go on a trip. But I think now I’ll take pics of all of it and email the Boys Club tomorrow. Ask if they want a big-ass donation.”

“That’s another great plan.” Logan clapped him on the back, too. “See, you’re back on track.”

“I’ve got a ways to go. But I have to thank you all for not letting me give up on myself.”

Josh walked to the minifridge in the corner and pulled out a handful of longnecks. “Hey, as long as we’re giving Ry the third degree about his life choices…did you tell your parents you’re not taking the job?”

“No.”

“Tell your boss?”

Riley headed down the hallway to the storage room. Like he needed to stick around for this bullshit. “No.”

“Pussy.” But Josh handed him a beer as he said it, which softened the verbal blow.

“Hey, it’s been a rough week. But I’m going to turn everything around, start fresh, tomorrow.”

It’d be a busy day. He needed to make a plan.

Some things never changed.

Hopefully, some things were about to change.