Chris wheeled his suitcase into the elevator and rode down to the lobby. Ant had returned to his own room to pack up his belongings, and Chris figured he’d see him when they all convened to head out to the airport.

He spotted Riley and Brad near the doors. Brad looked happy, laughing and pushing at Riley’s shoulder. As Chris approached, Harry and Bret emerged from a restaurant, coffee cups in hand. They looked tired but content enough. Chris hoped they’d worked out their differences, and he’d soon be attending another wedding.

“Ready to go home, lovebirds?” Chris asked as he rolled his suitcase to a stop near Brad and Riley.

Brad pouted. “No! I want to honeymoon in Vegas forever.”

“Not me,” Riley said. “Not sure I’d survive it and your zest for life.”

“Is zest a euphemism for horniness?” Bret asked.

Everyone stared at him.

“What? An asexual can make sex jokes too, you know.”

Harry grinned and put his arm around him. “He totally threw me with his flirting at first, too. This man had my head spinning.”

Bret smirked and shrugged. Chris hadn’t seen this side of him before, but he was glad to see Bret becoming more comfortable around them.

“He had this notion we’d only be friends,” Bret said, “but I helped him see the error of his ways.”

Harry tipped his head to murmur, “And I thoroughly enjoyed my lesson.”

Bret’s ears grew red as Harry kissed his neck, but he smiled. Okay, they seemed to be feeling the love. Chris overheard Harry mumble something about setting up another photoshoot anytime Bret wanted, and he didn’t even want to know what that was about. Was it possible that these two had some sort of camera kink?

Chris almost laughed at the thought. If they did, good for them. If not, that was fine too. He was just happy to see them content with each other, whatever form their love life took.

“Where’s Ant, so I can stop feeling like an awkward fifth wheel?” Chris asked.

“I figured you two would be together this morning,” Bret said tentatively. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, we just split up to pack.”

“I have a text,” Harry said, holding up his phone. “It’s a group text. He got a call from his brother, but he’ll be right down.”

Chris checked his phone with a pout. “I didn’t get that.”

Harry handed over his phone. “Here, it looks like he replied to an old group text you weren’t on. From that weekend you went to the big sales conference in Chicago last month.”

Chris scanned the text, which was short and to the point. He’d be down in five. Then, unable to resist, he scrolled to the top of the group text stream.

The text exchange picked up later to hash out time and place, but Chris had read enough. His insides fluttered to see Ant asking about him, specifically, and everyone teasing him about it. How had he been so blind to Ant’s ongoing interest in him? If he was Ant, he might have written Chris off as an asshole.

He handed Harry the phone, then cuffed him in the arm.

“Ow, what?”

“How come you guys didn’t tell me Ant was so crazy about me, huh? I wasted so much time.”

“Aw, honey, we wanted to, but we valued our lives,” Brad said. “You were way too angry and upset at the time. But I hoped, eventually, maybe things would work themselves out.”

Chris huffed, knowing Brad was right. He’d needed the time and space to realize there might be more to the story with Ant. They could have told him all they wanted, and he never would have believed it before that weekend.

“I don’t deserve him,” Chris said.

“Yes, you do,” Riley said firmly, surprising Chris. Usually, it was Brad weighing in on relationships. But Riley had seen him through some tough — and awkward — situations. He shuddered to remember the time that he’d hooked up with a wannabe dom who didn’t know the first thing about BDSM. He’d tied Chris’s hands behind his back, which wasn’t so bad, but he’d spanked him far too hard, and when Chris asked him to stop, he didn’t. Chris knew enough about BDSM to know there were supposed to be safe words, but he didn’t have one. He yelled out red, but the asshole ignored him. He’d whipped out his dick, jerked off over Chris’s red ass, then left Chris there, still tied.

Riley had been the one to rescue him after Chris managed to knock his phone onto the floor and pick it up with his feet, then awkwardly call Riley with numb fingers behind his back. He still didn’t know how he’d managed it.

They mostly laughed about it afterward, but Riley had seen the miserable, frightened heap he’d been when he showed up to cut him lose from knots that were far too tight. After that, they’d created a buddy system, and Chris had become much more careful about who he hooked up with and where he took them, but it had turned him off casual hookups for the most part.

“You haven’t had the easiest run of luck,” Riley said, “but Ant’s a good guy. And you deserve that. Just believe in yourself half as much as you believed in me and Brad, and you’ll be good to go.”

Ant strolled up just then, smiling quizzically. “Good to go?”

“Yeah, the car’s here,” Brad said briskly, leading them outside.

Ant took Chris’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Ready to go home?”

“Now, I am,” he said, squeezing Ant’s hand, secure in the knowledge that they’d go home together, rather than the men who’d arrived so far apart.