A very petite elderly Greek man currently has his hands uncomfortably close to my package.

I shift awkwardly from one leg to the other but he grabs my thigh.

“Please stay still,” he mutters, in a thick accent that’s made more indecipherable by the fact that he has a mouth full of straight pins.

Luke grins over at me. “I know, man, it’s hard not to enjoy it, but keep the wood in check, okay?” he teases.

“Speak for yourself,” I grin back. “At least I have a fiancee. I’m guessing this is probably the most action you’ve had in months?”

“He’s got you there,” Trent laughs. It’s probably the first time he’s cracked a smile all morning — the man is a bundle of nerves.

“Okay, okay,” Luke chuckles, putting his hands up in surrender. “I admit, I’m single. Did you hear that, Demitri?” He grins down at the tailor crouched at his feet. The man just shakes his head and sighs, though I see the ghost of a smile cross over his dour face.

“Okay, guys, let’s not sexually harass my tailor,” Trent chides. “This is the man who keeps me in suits all year. I don’t want to get on his bad side.”

“Demitri doesn’t have a bad side,” Luke says. “Right, Demitri?”

“Hmph.” The elderly man grunts, but this time a real smile passes his lips. “I’ll show you my bad side if you don’t stop moving. You like wedding short pants?”

“No, no short pants,” Luke says, pretending to be horrified. “Sorry, I promise to behave.”

The three of us are standing in the back room of Trent’s tailor, in a tiny hole-in-the-wall shop in downtown Chicago. The sign outside was so small and discreet I had almost missed it, but I guess when you’re the secret weapon of wealthy CEOs like Trent, you don’t need flashy advertising. We’ve got glasses of scotch and three men paying more attention to our inseams than seems appropriate.

The tuxedos Trent has picked out are a dark charcoal grey — not that different than the blazer and skirt Celia was wearing the first night I went home with her, I muse. The thought is enough to start a wave of blood to my cock and I force myself to think of baseball and porcupines and my Aunt Evangeline before Demitri’s assistant gets a handful more than he expected.

It’s hard though, to keep my mind from wandering back to Celia.

Sex with her had been so much more than I’d bargained for. I’m used to being with beautiful women but what I’m not used to is the way I feel so out of control with her. The way I feel like I can’t get enough of her.

At breakfast today, when she’d been talking about her fantasy of public sex, it had been all I could do not to throw her down on the table and take her right there, in front of that prissy old couple sitting next to us. I’m pretty sure that old fart would have enjoyed the show anyway.

The way her cheeks had gone so pink when she talked about it just made me even harder — I could just picture that flush spreading all the way down her neck, and across her tits. Her nipples would be hard. I bet her pussy was even wet.

Baseball. Porcupines. Cheek pinching from Aunt Evangeline.

“Keep still,” Demitri’s assistant hisses again.

“Sorry,” I mutter.

As if Luke can read my thoughts, he catches my eye in one of the floor length wood framed mirrors.

“Celia’s great, by the way,” he says.

“Yeah, she is, isn’t she?”

“Oh yeah,” Trent says. “You really snagged a winner there, buddy.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

“You know,” Luke says, a grin on his face. “She might actually be too good for you. Sure you’re not punching above your weight? Ivy league, lawyer — let me guess, she’s probably got some ritzy Upper West Side apartment?”

Luke’s ribbing sends a wave of discomfort through me.

“It’s not that ritzy,” I say defensively.

Trent laughs. “You going to quit working once you’re married? Be a kept man or what?”

“Har har,” I say. My hands are balling into tight fists at my sides. I know they’re just ribbing me — my family doesn’t actually discuss stuff that really bothers us, so if they’re actually teasing me about this stuff out loud, it’s because they don’t really believe it.

But it strikes a nerve. Celia is miles above me — beautiful, successful, perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Just one of those women that really has her shit together.

And who am I? The bartender. The guy who brought her drinks, poured her glasses of cab franc that cost more than my hourly wage.

I look in the mirror, at the suit I’m wearing. It looks good on me — even I have to admit that — but I feel like a fraud. I don’t do monkey suits. I’m strictly a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy.

When Demitri and the other two tailors are finally finished with us, they leave us alone in the back room while they go to find the ties and pocket squares Trent picked out. We sit down on the rich leather wingback chairs with our scotches.

Luke lifts his glass in a toast. “To the Whittaker brothers,” he says. “Finally being back together. An unstoppable force of wit, charm, brains, and devastating good looks.”

“I’ll toast to that,” Trent says, clinking his glass to Luke’s and looking expectantly at me.

“Me too.” I add my glass and knock it against each of theirs in turn. We each sip and the lingering tension I’ve been feeling actually starts to ebb further away.

These are my brothers. The people who’ve known me since birth, who taught me how to ride a bike and got me my first fake ID. The people who cared for Mom with me when Dad died, who drank beer with me in the basement rec room while we ate leftover funeral lasagna and watched old home movies.

The people who I let down, who had to fire me from the business they were working so hard to build.

I look back and forth between Trent and Luke. I don’t see a trace of the old anger there, the disappointment. They seem genuinely happy to have me back here with them.

Maybe this rift has been all in my head. Sure we had a falling out years ago, but maybe they’ve moved past it. Maybe I’m the only one who’s still clinging to the memory, to the old wounds. Maybe it’s time to move on.

Trent leans back against the cognac-colored leather and surveys the room.

“I can’t believe I’m getting married in two days,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Believe it,” Luke says cheerfully.

“Hey,” I say, taking a sip of my scotch and steeling myself. “Thanks for including me in all this. I know we haven’t kept in touch much, but it means a lot to me to be here with you guys.”

Trent smiles, but there’s something dark in his eyes. “You can thank Mom for that. She was the one who insisted I call you. To be honest, I was skeptical about involving you … but you know, meeting Celia and seeing how much you’ve grown up, now I’m glad I did. You’ve really surprised me, Jace.”

I swallow down another big mouthful of scotch, letting it hit the back of my throat and savoring the burn as it goes down.

So this was Mom’s idea. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised — she was the one always urging me to keep in better touch with Trent and Luke.

And Celia. Of course this came back to Celia. The kind of guy who could snag her as a fiancee — well, that guy had to have his shit together.

Luke is nodding in agreement with what Trent said. “Seriously, man. I really think we misjudged you. We just assumed you were fucking around in New York, but it turns out you’ve been building a real life there. Good for you. Like I said earlier, we absolutely love Celia.”

“Yeah,” I say, swallowing. “Right. Cheers to that.” I down the last of my scotch and am saved from saying anything further by Demitri and his associates coming back into the room with an armful of bright yellow ties and silk pocket squares.

But for the rest of the afternoon, I can’t shake the nagging sense that this isn’t going to end well.

I can only hope Celia is having a better time at her spa afternoon with the girls.