Page 58 of Catch Me If You Can

He laughs and runs a hand through his hair before gently resting it on my shoulder. “For what it’s worth... this has been the best weekend I’ve had in a long long time.”

I nod, eyes drifting to his lips. It feels like one of those moments where you lean in, consequences be damned.

But I don’t. Not when everything inside me is still tangled. It would just make it even more complicated…more than it already is.

Instead, I grab my phone from the nightstand and pull up Sarah’s Instagram.

“She posted a story,” I say.

Caleb leans in.

There she is, glamorous as always. A floor-length baby blue dress hugs her small frame, blonde hair cascading in waves over her shoulders. She stands beneath a golden archway, smiling like she owns the damn world, holding onto a champagne glass.

“Cheers to Heather and Rachel!” Caleb reads aloud.

“She tagged the venue.”

“That’s not far from here,” he says, already pulling up the address on Google Maps.

We look at each other.

“I guess we’re crashing a wedding,” Caleb says with a shrug.

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caleb

“I’m all of a sudden feeling kind of creepy for doing this,” Nathaniel calls through the bathroom door, laughing.

We had ducked into a nearby men’s clothing store and managed to snag everything we needed to fake formalwear: dress pants, crisp white shirts, and black ties. Good enough for wedding crashers. Weddings go all night so there’s a pretty good chance that tonight is the night. We’ll be seeing Sarah in a couple of hours.

I cinch my tie and adjust the collar in the mirror in the bedroom area. “Sarah’s going to be flattered, if anything. You know how she eats this kind of attention up.”

“Very true,” he calls back.

I run a comb through my locks, my strands falling into my face the way I know she likes it. Or—used to like it.

But now... now I like it because of the wayhelikes it. The way Nathaniel tugs on my hair when he laughs, when he moans,when he clutches at me like he’s trying to anchor himself to something real.

Yeah, I’m never cutting it again.

My phone buzzes.

Dad.Shit.

“Hey, dad,” I answer, already dreading this.

“Son. How’s it going? Is there a congratulations in order yet?”

My throat tightens. “Uh... not yet. Dad, I—”

How the hell do I say this?Sorry, dad. The engagement was a half-baked idea. Turns out I’m bisexual and I’m pretty sure I’m madly-obsessed-with-Nathaniel-Philips.

He cuts me off. “Caleb, enough. You said you were going to do something. Do it. Be a man who follows through.”

My chest tightens.

“You better get to her now and get it done. You hear me?Get. It. Done.”

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