Page 82 of Stealing Home

A huff of breath came through the phone. “Hello to you too.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing. The insurance company made an offer.” Something in his voice made Gavin pause.

“That explains the paperwork. It doesn’t explain why you’re getting on a plane.”

Ethan sighed. “I told you there’s a deadline.”

It was like pulling teeth to get anything real from him, and Gavin’s jaw tightened for a moment. “Overnight delivery is a thing. You didn’t need to fly here.”

“I didn’t want to do this through the mail.”

Gavin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why?”

Ethan didn’t answer right away, and in the silence, Gavin heard the muted thunk of a weighted glass on a hard surface. He could picture Ethan in the kitchen of the house they’d rented after the fire, pouring the bourbon he’d started drinking more often during those last months. Gavin had no idea whether he still lived there.

“We handled everything else that mattered through an attorney for the last year,” Ethan said. “It didn’t seem right for the last piece of the company to be handled that way too.”

The last piece of the company. The last piece of them.

Gavin rubbed his thumb along the edge of his phone. “Send the entire agreement to me tonight. I’ll have my lawyer look it over in the morning.”

“And you’ll meet me?”

He should have told Ethan to go through their attorneys. He could sign the papers without having to sit across from the man he had once planned to grow old with.

Instead, he said, “Four o’clock. There’s a coffee shop in Liberty Station.” He wasn’t going to reschedule his job to make things easy or convenient for him.

“I can come to your apartment,” Ethan offered.

“No.” The answer was out of Gavin’s mouth before Ethan finished the sentence.

Another short silence followed, then Ethan cleared his throat. “The coffee shop is fine.”

“I’ll text you the address.”

“Thank you.”

Gavin made a noncommittal noise and ended the call. He hadn’t asked Ethan how he was. Ethan hadn’t asked him either. Once, they’d known every unimportant detail of each other’s days. Now Gavin didn’t even know where he lived.

He opened the text thread with Dom and stared at the screen, thumb hovering over the keyboard. Ethan is flying in tomorrow. Five words. He typed them out. All he had to do was hit send before he could overthink it.

There was no reason five words should feel like a confession. One date, even one that had ended with Dom on the kitchen island and Gavin’s hand halfway down his stomach, did not mean he needed to tell Dom everything. They didn’t owe each other that yet. But keeping this meeting from Dom felt like hiding something from a man who should have a place in the conversation.

Gavin didn’t understand that. He’d never believed in the kind of instant love people wrote into books and movies, where two people met and somehow recognized the other half of their soul in each other. Love wasn’t supposed to arrive fully formed. It was supposed to take time and shared mornings. Arguments and apologies, and enough ordinary days stacked together until the other person was necessary for survival.

It was too new and too soon for this to be love, and one afternoon shouldn’t have been enough to change that. It definitely shouldn’t have been enough to make Gavin picture a future where he found his place beside Dom and Lucia. But it felt more serious than it could possibly be, and Gavin had no idea what to do with that. He deleted the words. He would meet Ethan, find out what he really wanted, and tell Dom afterward. If there was anything worth telling. Gavin wasn’t hiding anything. He was waiting for facts.

That explanation sounded reasonable as long as he didn’t examine why he needed one.

The following afternoon, Gavin arrived at the coffee shop fifteen minutes early. He had spent the morning replacing water-damaged cabinets in a client’s laundry room and checking his phone every time it buzzed against the top of his toolbox. His lawyer had reviewed the agreement before noon and confirmed the key settlement details. The carrier had nearly doubled the portion assigned to business interruption and replaced equipment, and the release matched the ownership agreement Gavin and Ethan signed before dissolving the company.

He could sign without putting himself at risk, and the final piece of his previous life would be complete.

At three fifty-eight, Gavin got out of the truck and crossed the lot. A bell chimed above the door when he stepped inside, and the afternoon heat gave way to cool air scented with dark-roasted coffee and something sweet from the pastry case. Sunlight poured through tall windows and spread across white walls, mismatched wooden tables, and the pale tile floor. Exposed brick and thick ceiling beams kept the room from feeling too polished, while black pendant lights hung above customers bent over laptops.

Gavin spotted Ethan almost immediately. He sat alone at a small table in the far corner with his back to the wall. A leather folio lay squarely in front of him beside a to-go cup containing, Gavin was sure, coffee with exactly one splash of cream and one sugar. He wore a pale-blue button-down with the sleeves folded precisely to his elbows, and his attention was fixed on the front door.