This was what Jeff got for running away from his problems.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry.” That fishhook felt like it had lodged in his throat. “When, uh, when did…?”
Carter cleared his throat. “November. Heart attack.”
Right before the holidays.Fuck.“That’s….” Heartbreaking. “I should’ve been here. He was important to me.” Youwere important to me.
“You were important to him too.”
Jeff had never doubted it. Mr. Rhodes always treated him like his own. Jeff wiped at his cheeks. None of this was going the way he’d envisioned it.
And he couldn’t stand there another second while Carter pretended he was okay or he’d lose his mind.
“Do you, uh, do you want a hug?” Jeff wanted a hug. Jeff wanted, like, thirty hugs.
Carter made a noise that might’ve been a laugh and stood up. A second later Jeff was—subsumed, surrounded on all sides by warm cotton and smooth skin. Carter had six inches on him, which saved the hug from being more awkward, since Jeff had no choice but to turn his face against Carter’s shoulder. He managed to get his own arms to cooperate enough to reciprocate, and he curled his fingers against Carter’s very broad back. He tried not to inhale, knowing it would ruin him, but he did it anyway. It was like going back in time. He couldn’t possibly smell the same, could he? Who still used the same deodorant at thirty-two as they did at seventeen?
It felt like they stood there for a long time. Jeff held on until he felt Carter start to relax, the tension melting away under his fingertips.
Then he pulled back. He was flirting with danger as it was. He was already fighting with his bandmates, contemplating major career changes, and running away from his problems to find himself, like some kind of rock-star cliché. He did not need to rediscover what it was like to be hopelessly in love with Carter Rhodes.
But God, he’d missed him.
He cleared his throat for what felt like the fortieth time, but before he could say anything, Carter spoke. “Look, obviously your life is complicated. We don’t ever have to talk about why you left, or why you didn’t….”Why you didn’t call me, why you didn’t answer my email, why we didn’t keep in touch.All these years later Jeff could still read the spaces Carter left for him to fill in. Carter exhaled gustily. “But it really is good to see you, and I could use another friend.”
There had to be a catch. Surely it couldn’t be that easy.
But it didn’t matter. Jeff needed this. He was here to find out who he was without his band, but no man was an island. Right? “Me too.” He licked his lips. “When’s the memorial? I’d like to come, if that’s okay.”
“It’s the twentieth.” Carter exhaled slowly. “His birthday.”
Fuck, of course. “What time?” He needed to be in Toronto by four for sound check and rehearsal, and the drive was three hours, but he could probably charter a flight. That would get him there in less than an hour.
“The public thing starts at one. But Mom and Dave and Brady and I are getting together at sunrise. You could join us.” He paused, and the hint of a smile returned to the corner of his mouth. “Assuming your stance on mornings has changed.”
Jeff allowed himself a small laugh. “It hasn’t. Didn’t stop me from being up with the dawn today, though.”
Carter glanced around, checking the location of the sun. The smile grew. “Forget to close the curtains?”
“I forgot how bright it can get with the water reflecting everything,” Jeff admitted ruefully.
“And the curtains in there suck.”
“And the curtainssuck,” he agreed. “Even if I’d closed them, I would’ve been flashing the fish. I was thinking I could go into town and buy something a little more substantial.”
“You want company?”
Jeff opened his mouth to make a smart retort, but it died on his lips. He didn’t think they were at a place where he could joke that curtain shopping was moving too fast. “You want to go curtain shopping?”
“More than I want to cut the grass,” Carter said wryly. “Which is the adulting task I’ll be forced to do if I go home. So you’d be doing me a favor, letting me tag along.”
That was kind of transparent, as far as excuses went, but Jeff wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. The foundations of his life were crumbling, but Carter was solid bedrock. He could start over from that. “All right,” he agreed. “But you’re driving.”
Carter rolled his eyes. “I always drive.”
They started toward his truck as Jeff let himself get sucked into an old argument. “In fairness, it’s not like I didn’toffer—”
“Beg, you mean.”
