You’d think that would make the humiliation fade, wouldn’t you? But it didn’t. I felt just as stupid as before he’d said it because I’d put myself out there and he’d said no, and I hadn’t really thought of how to react if that happened. Like, okay, yeah, I’d told myself I’d suck his dick and pretend it never happened, but I hadn’t really thought it’d come to that. Huh. Turned out my self-esteem wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. So now here I was, sitting in front of Miller, and dinner, knowing that while I’d been planning some kind of future, he’d been planning his escape. The last thing in the world I felt like doing was giving him, or anyone, a blow job. Hell, Henry Cavill could have burst throughthe front door offering to give me one, and I’d have to take a rain check.
I swallowed around the sudden lump in my throat, waves of hot and cold washing over me, and said, “Oh. Congratulations.”
Because what the fuck else was there to say?
Three hours later,I was sitting in the living room in the dark when I heard a car pull up and then, moments later, the scrape of a key in the lock of the front door.
“Shit,” Wilder said. “Why is it so dark? Did the power go out? Is that why Harlan’s wandering around outside with a flashlight? Did he do something to our fuse box?” And then, “Danny, you home?”
“I’m in here.”
A dark shape loomed in the doorway, and then the lights flickered on. Wilder squinted at me. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“Why are you half-naked and covered in baby oil?”
“Because the asshole fiancé came home and broke up the bachelorette party,” he said. “It was wild. They had this screaming fight because he thought she was gonna sleep with the strippers, and she said the only reason he said that was because he slept with the strippers at his bachelor party, and I booked it out of there without cleaning up when they started throwing shit at each other. Barely had time to put pants on.” He tilted his head and looked at me. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“Miller’s leaving,” I said, and I hated how just saying it had my throat getting tight. The edges of the world got blurry for a second, and I had to blink to clear my vision. “He’s moving to New York.”
Wilder didn’t ask any questions. He just put down the backpack he’d been carrying, dropped his ass onto the couch next to me, and slung an oily arm around my shoulder. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“Dude, you’re getting oil all over the couch.”
He stank of the stuff. “Not the worst thing that’s happened to this couch, is it?”
I snorted. “Asshole.”
He hummed in agreement but didn’t move, and I didn’t tell him to. I just leaned into him. The moment was nice, but the hug itself was sort of gross. It was part sweat and part baby oil, with a portion of glitter thrown in for good measure, all mixed together with tequila.
“Man, you fucking stink of tequila,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “The bride was doing body shots off me. Also—” He wriggled and dug a hand into his sweatpants. “I think there’s a dollar bill stuck in my ass crack.”
“Fuck, Wilder. Why are we even friends?”
He tugged the bill out and flicked it onto the floor. It landed with the sort of splat a bill should never make. “Because I’m awesome.”
Yeah, that was actually why. We’d been friends since school, even though Wilder had always been more popular than me. He was that rare high school combination of popular and genuinely decent. He was still genuinely decent, even though his popularity around town had sure taken some big hits since then.
“So tell me what the deal is with Miller,” he said. “Do I have to go beat him up?”
“No, it was just bad timing, I guess,” I said. “I told him I wanted us to be official, and he told me he was taking a job in New York.”
Wilder winced. “Ouch.”
“Yup.”
Wilder leaned over and grabbed the backpack he’d discarded on the floor and fished around in it before producing half a bottle of tequila. “Drink?”
“Why do you have that?”
He gave me an easy grin. “It fell in my bag while the bride and groom were having their screaming match, and it didn’t seem like the right time to ask if they wanted it back.” He waggled the bottle at me.
“Don’t you have work in the morning?”
He shrugged. “Eh.”
I took the bottle off him and tucked it down between the couch cushions. “No getting drunk tonight if you have to climb on roofs tomorrow.”
