Page 72

“Woo-hoo, Happy New Year!”

“We’ve got over two hours left, love,” his very practical boyfriend reminded him.

Dalton and I hadn't been the only couple to surprise everybody last winter break. Austin had come home having won the affections of his parents’ long-lost college friend. Randall had shown up at Dalton’s house with the Lessand family for drinks and dessert on Christmas Day, after the two had provided that revelation to Austin's parents the day before.

Dalton had filled me in on that particular secret, but like ours, we didn’t need to hide it for very long.

Austin and Randall were in town for the holidays, and the two best friends wanted to make the most of their time together. Randall and I were along for the ride. Luckily, he was a fairly interesting, if somewhat quiet, guy, and we all got along pretty well.

We'd had dinner at the Three B’s, just the four of us, the night before New Year's Eve. Dalton and Austin really were best friends, I had realized. That had become clearer and clearer to me over the course of that year. Clearer than it had ever been before. My judgment may have been clouded there. Austin and Dalton had insisted at dinner that we needed to go to a club to celebrate the New Year, so we were spending New Year’s Eve in a crowded queer space, some of us dancing, all of us having a few drinks.

Austin was moving to the beat, but Randall seemed as happy to stand around, sip his drink and watch the festivities as I was. We all stood and watched for a time, but with Austin swaying and bouncing away next to me, it eventually dawned on me again to get my boyfriend’s attention.

“Dalton, babe,” I whisper-shouted in his ear. “I think Austin wants to dance.”

“You don’t mind?”

I shook my head no. “Randall and I will hold up this wall and be here when you get back!”

He kissed me, and the press of his lips, and his chest and his groin almost knocked me off my feet. A year later, and I still felt like I needed smelling salts every time the man touched me.

Austin and Dalton went and danced for a song or two, then the group returned to us.

“We should get going,” Austin said.

“Yeah,” Dalton agreed.

I was confused.

“We’re leaving?” I asked. I thought the two had wanted to count down the New Year at a club, a gay club, and they seemed to be having fun on the dance floor.

A much sweatier Dalton put his arm around me and smiled a goofy smile down at me, but it was Preston who answered.

“Fireworks at the beach at midnight, right, Turner?” he said.

“You want to go back? For the fireworks?”

“Fuck, yeah, we do!” Austin shouted, taking the glass his boyfriend held and sipping the cranberry-colored mixed drink. He shoved the glass in front of my boyfriend, who took a sip and smiled knowingly at his friend.

“Sex on the Beach,” Dalton shouted, and all eyes in our little group went to him. Some neighboring eyes may have been spying on us as well.

Dalton’s cheeks got an adorable pink glow to them. I felt bad for his embarrassment and for loving how charming he looked, staring at all of us who were staring back at him.

“Babe?”

“Um, the drink! It’s called Sex on the Beach. It’s really good. Here, try,” he said, handing the glass to me.

“I didn’t mean that we should all go back to the beach so we could …” Dalton attempted to explain, causing me to sputter a little as I was tasting a drink that was apparently called Sex on the Beach. I turned quickly to stop his ramblings with a kiss.

Within a few minutes, we all piled into rideshares and returned to the boardwalk.

We were dropped off behind my building, and I looked up at it from the back.

The year before, on Christmas Eve, Anita had called her attorney and insisted he get the At Home lawyers on the phone. Ms. Carrey was conferenced in and later that same day our attorney shared an affidavit she had signed regarding the transfer of ownership of One Hundred Four Breakwater Avenue.

Bypassing Dalton’s dad, our lawyer sent the document to the At Home attorney’s office along with a sternly worded letter to Chris that he needed to cease and desist addressing us directly relative to the building.

Leila, Dalton, and Brett sat Chris down before the New Year last year and told him in no uncertain terms that he had to stop obsessing over the shop. Mallory and I spent that time together in the store, and I expected Dalton and Brett to meet us there together to tell us how it had gone. Instead, my best friend walked in the front door alone. Mallory jumped up from the big comfy chair. I was standing behind the counter, leaning on it and scrolling mindlessly on my phone. I looked up, looking for Dalton behind his brother as Mallory asked, “How’d that go?”