“Just here for a few weeks for work,” Evan says, and I see his knuckles go white in the handshake a second before they’re pulled together in a violent, back-slapping hug that’s over as soon as it starts. I swear Silas’s smile goes wider, like he’s baring his teeth. He cocks a hip against the pie table.
I… this got weird. They hate each other. Right?
Yes. Definitely. I would know. Neither one of them likes me either, and I don’t like them, so we’re even.
Except, of course, I dislike Silas and would be fine with never seeing him again, and I’d happily launch Evan into the sun. Twice.
“Still doing logistics for Homeland Security?” Silas asks, and perfectly casual except there’s an edge to his voice that’s bright and sharp, like waves crashing against rocks.
“Nah, I went corporate,” Evan says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Energy sector.”
They keep talking, but it feels more like I’m watching two wolves snarl at each other, ready to fight for territory. I wish they would leave. I want them both gone—Silas to somewhere else, Evan to, ideally, outer space—and...
Evan glances over at me, and maybe I’m reading into it, but it’s somehow dismissive and possessive all at once. He thinks I still have feelings.
I want to punch him. I want to throttle him.
I… have an insane idea. It comes to me on a tidal wave of rage and adrenaline. It’s a better idea than punching or murder.
I reach out and put one hand on Silas’s shoulder before I can think better of it.
“Hey, babe,” I say, and move my mouth into a smile. “I didn’t know you knew Evan.”
Both heads swing toward me, faces frozen. Silas doesn’t react for a long moment, smile firmly in place, blue eyes staring me down with an unnerving friendliness, but Evan does. Evan’s smile disappears and he looks from me to Silas and my heart jumps into my throat and in that moment, I feel powerful.
Evan and I were together for eighteen months. I know what jealousy looks like on his face. I smile right into it, heart thudding with the adrenaline high. I can feel a trickle of sweat on the back of my neck.
“This is Silas,” I tell Evan, like he doesn’t know. “He’s my…”
My pulse is beating and skipping like the tracks under a runaway train and my face is hot and my breathing is shallow and fast and there’s a word that I want to use, a good word, the right word and I can’t think of it, not to save my life.
“ —lover,” I finish.
Both men just stare at me.