Page 6 of Just Forever

“You’d think. I’m not sure you’re supposed to leave your own birthday party while it’s still going on.”

Ryker purses his lips sourly. “We should start a new tradition.”

“You’ll manage.”

“Okay. Can I have a preview of my present instead?”

I pat him on the cheek and push myself off the wall I’ve been leaning against. “Patience is a virtue. Or so I hear.”

“That’s just the kind of bullshit people say to make themselves feel better in a crap situation.” He sounds adorably annoyed and just the right amount of desperate and needy.

We’ve been together for two years by now, and somewhere in the back of my mind I have this voice of reason that keeps telling me things won’t stay like this. That the butterflies will calm down and the need to be near him will become less overwhelming. So far it all just seems to get more intense, as if the more I get to know him, the more firmly we anchor ourselves to each other.

“Meet me in the back,” Ryker says. The look he gives me isn’t subtle at all. Heat flares in my chest.

I’d tease and argue, but who are we kidding? I don’t have it in me to refuse.

“Five min—” I start to say, but then there’s a loud shout and Ryker is engulfed in what is probably supposed to be a hug but looks more like an attack when Soren throws himself at my boyfriend. I’m pretty sure he passed drunk about three drinks ago, but that’s never stopped Soren. He manages to wrap Hayes into the same hug he’s currently giving Ryker and is also reaching out for me, but I take a quick step back.

I’m not a small person. At least when it comes to height. I’m pretty much as tall as Ryker and his teammates. But as tall as I am, compared to Ryker and his hockey buddies, I’m downright skinny. Not by normal people standards. By those, I’m aggressively average in every way. Not disgustingly in shape, but not so scrawny a gust of wind would knock me over or anything. Ryker, Soren, and Hayes fall decidedly under the disgustingly in shape category, which means they’d probably accidentally squash me if I got stuck in the middle of that hockey player sandwich.

“You wound me, Lake,” Soren calls.

“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

I smile when I look at them. Soren was drafted last year and plays in the AHL. The three of them have packed schedules with training and travel and games, so they don’t get to see each other that often anymore, but they’re also the kind of friends where the distance hardly seems to matter, and when they see each other every few months, it’s as if no time has passed at all.

The party continues after that and grows increasingly raucous until we’re kicked out somewhere around one a.m.

Ryker’s eyes burn as he looks at me up and down. All subtlety has flown out the window, but I’m buzzed enough that I don’tcare too much. I just want to get him naked somewhere in private as quickly as humanly possible.

I’m just getting my hopes up when Soren squeezes between me and Ryker and throws his arms over both our shoulders.

“We’ll continue this at my folks’ place. They’re out of town on a cruise, and they have a pool. Party!” He shouts the last word right into my ear, and I wince at the volume, even though I’m laughing at the antics.

“I’m sure your parents will love that,” I say. I’m not a hundred percent sure if I’m trying to persuade him that it’s a bad idea because I’m selfish and want Ryker all to myself, or if I’m just being my boring, reasonable self, who is always inclined to focus on the worst-case scenario.

Soren doesn’t care either way. “They’ve been meaning to renovate. My brother-in-law’s in construction, and he’s bound to want to suck up to them.”

Okay then.

Soren moves on to the next group of people, and Hayes sighs right behind us. “I better go keep an eye on him, or he’ll start inviting complete strangers to come with us.”

Ryker turns to me. “Quick. Pretend you’ve come down with something, so we have to leave right the fuck now.”

It’s tempting. Tempting to the point where I’m already pondering which disease I’ve suddenly contracted. I’m a medical student. I know all the best ones. But then my gaze lands on Soren and Hayes, and my shoulders slump because I already know I’m going to be a good boyfriend about this.

“You only get to see them a couple of times a year,” I say. “You see me every day.”

“No, I don’t.”

I’m not going to lie, the grumbling is adorable.

“You do now,” I say.

We were in a long-distance relationship for a year while I was finishing my senior year of college and Ryker was in Hartford and then in New York. It was really hard to go from seeing each other whenever we felt like it to only seeing each other once a week and sometimes not even that.

“Come on,” I say. “We’ll make an appearance. An hour. And if we can’t sneak out, I’ll pretend I’m having a stroke, and you can heroically carry me out the door.”

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