Page 35 of Double Dared
I wasn’t the only guest Taylor had invited from his outer circles. Kate was there, too, as was her friend. I resolved not to be hurt by this. Why should I? I’d known all along that I was messing with a straight guy, and now the show was over. He had no reason not to go after Kate if there was chemistry there. No obligation to me was stopping him anymore.
I could still be his friend and still enjoy having conversations with him, joking, going places. I didn’t need him to be my lover.
I just needed to put two truths together and reach a positive outcome.
It was Jason who spotted me first. He lifted the spatula and waved at me, his striped apron marking him as the chef behind the grill. He wore a big grin on his face when he looked at me, and he waved me over with his other hand.
I hadn’t realized I was held in such a high regard, though Taylor had promised that these guys weren’t the typical frat bros I’d try to stay away from. Jason bent down and pulled out a beer from the cooler just as I reached him. “Here you go,” he said, opening the bottle swiftly for me. “So good that you came.”
“I was worried I’d be the only one from the outside,” I admitted.
Jason waved his hand to dismiss that silly belief. “We’re not a secretive brotherhood. Except for the initiation. All that candlewax. You don’t want to know.”
“I think I do,” I said, my eyes probably sparking with curiosity.
“I’m just messing with you,” Jason said.
I laughed and tipped my bottle toward my lips, saying before I drank, “I don’t think you are.”
Jason zipped his lips tightly together, then focused on the grill. The place was designed for gatherings, so I guessed they rented it for the day. The grill was a large, brick one with a tall chimney and two separate sides. One was for vegetables, where I saw quite a few potatoes, bell peppers, and eggplants roasting, and the other side was for the meats, where sausages and burgers sizzled and dripped juice over the glowing coals.
Bennet was zipping back and forth around the grill, checking in with Jason if he needed help, then arranging the salads and sauces in the tote bags they’d dragged all the way up here.
I asked Jason a few questions about the grill. It was mandatory. But I ran out of questions pretty soon, then settled into mildly awkward silence. My gaze occasionally swept over the tables and benches and the grassy field around us, and I would see Taylor with Kate and Kate’s friend. When Taylor finally noticed me, he grinned and held his gaze on me for a longmoment. He made a gesture for me to wait where I was; he would come over.
“I gotta ask,” Jason said. “I’ll die if I don’t.”
“Shoot,” I said, wary already but hiding it well.
“You and Taylor,” Jason said. “None of it makes sense.”
“Sure it does,” I said. “Have you met Taylor?”
Jason threw his head back and laughed.
“He’s a walking, talking contradiction,” I said.
Jason still laughed, but the look he gave me was far softer than it had any right to be. He held it on my face, waiting, scanning for something. “He’s a lot to take in.”
I reproached myself for a naughty thought that crossed my mind. That wouldn’t be a problem I had to deal with. “He’s interesting.”
“Fake-hiding a fake relationship just seems like a very convoluted strategy only Taylor would try to pull off,” Jason said.
“To be fair to him, it was my idea,” I said. “For, er, other reasons. Making an ex jealous, to be exact. So, in stupid ideas, we’re really matched pretty evenly.”
Jason laughed, flipping a burger with the spatula and turning over potato wedges with a pair of tongs.
“Ah, I love a farce,” I said after swallowing a mouthful of beer.
Taylor waded through the crowd of friends, acquaintances, and possibly past and future lovers, chatting up everyone in passing, asking questions, keeping that awesome smile on his face, and finally came to the grill, where I had been waitingfor him. “Got a drink? Good,” he said, looking at my beer hand. “So glad you made it.”
“I said I would,” I reminded him.
He finally closed the last of the distance and pulled me into a hug that surprised me so much that I barely had the time to hug him back before he was stepping away. His gaze moved over my face for a second or two, taking something in, and he nodded his approval. “You look very elegant.”
“I smell like wood and smoke,” I said. My shirt had already soaked it up, as had my hair. I could feel it on my skin, or could imagine it, at least.
“You always smell like wood,” Taylor said.
