Page 32 of Inevitable

Turning back around, he found Bas studying him with a small, knowing smile on his lips.

“What?” Ezra scowled.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about. He doesn’t swing that way.”

Ezra fixed his gaze on his linked fingers. “I wasn’t worried. It’s none of my business, and I don’t care.”

“Don’t you, though?”

“No.”

Bas shrugged. “Well, suit yourself.”

There was a moment of silence. Ezra fought the need to glance back toward the bar. Not to see if the bartender was still flirting with Drew. He didn’t care about that. Not at all. He just really needed that drink as quickly as possible.

“You can sleep with Drew, you know?”

Ezra’s jaw clenched.

“I don’t mind,” Bas continued. “To be fair, I’d even prefer it. Drew is different with you. You give him something he needs.”

“And what is that?”

Bas looked toward where Drew was still standing. “He doesn’t like hookups,” he said. “He’s not the type. You’re not a hookup.”

“That’s precisely what I am,” Ezra scoffed.

“If you think that, you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

Ezra started to argue, but that was the exact moment Drew came back and slid three beers on the table in front of them.

“What?” he asked, looking from Bas to Ezra.

“What what?” Bas asked innocently.

Drew studied them for another moment before he shook his head. “You looked… never mind.”

He took a seat, but before he did, he squeezed Ezra’s shoulder. The move was made almost as if in passing. Like Drew touching Ezra was a completely normal, everyday thing he did.

Ezra closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them, he found Bas looking at him with a knowing expression.

Ezra looked away first.

11

“Are you almost done?” Drew pressed the phone between his shoulder and ear as he packed his stuff.

The three of them had been hanging out after work for two weeks now. Every evening, Drew finished work with anticipation simmering in his belly. The first few days—as shitty as it had made him feel—Drew had been sure Bas would bail on them, but he hadn’t. Instead, they spent their evenings together. All three of them. And God help him, it felt right. Too right. Like all the holes that had always been in his life were suddenly being filled.

He couldn’t think about it too much. He was afraid to jinx it. Hope could be a wonderful thing but also a destructive force, and Drew had been building sandcastles for years already, only to watch them collapse in front of his eyes time and time again.

“I’ll be done here in twenty,” Ezra’s voice said over the street noise. “I just need to close up, and then I’ll be on my way.”

“Do you want me to pick you up?”

“Nah, traffic’s crazy right now. It’ll be quicker if I just take the T.”

“All right. I’ll see you soon, then. I’ll pick up dinner.”