Page 34 of Wedding Bet

I swallowed. “I had fun, too.”

“It’s good to have a new friend. I don’t have enough of them.”

“Right,” I said.

And then suddenly there was a big, fat deflating feeling in my chest.

A new friend, he’d said.

A reminder that he didn’t want anything more—with anyone at all. He didn’t want a boyfriend.

You already knew this, Jamie.

I’d gotten a taste of what it was like to have Landry holding me close. Kissing me, fuckingpossessively, like he meant every last moment of it.

The image ofthatversion of Landry was now emblazoned on my heart.

Our frozen moments. Our snowglobe.

“So,” he said, “want to come to dinner with me and my colleagues tonight?”

8

LANDRY

Only one thought was pounding through my head.

I fucking want you.

My eyes were on Jamie as the clink of tiny glasses filled the air. I watched him toss back another round of cherry liqueur as I took my shot, too, feeling less and less in control of my desires as the night went on. We were just one of many groups packed into the small, dimly lit restaurant and bar, crowded into a rounded corner booth.

Well, there were two thoughts, at the very least.

I fucking want youandI’m really not allowed to have you.

Weddings did bad, bad things to me.

“You all know how todrink,” I told my colleagues, trying to peel my eyes away from Jamie before I did something stupid.

I was keeping pace with everyone’s drinking, but it was getting harder and harder.

It had been a long, long day of meetings, phone calls, and conferences, after sleeping zero the night before. Somewhere around the afternoon, my total lack of sleep had really started to catch up with me, and I was struggling to keep my exhaustion hidden.

“I agree. You know how to drinktoowell,” Jamie said.

“The same goes for you, Jamie,” I told him. “You’re a beast tonight.”

“Hey, it’s a wedding week and a vacation for me,” Jamie said. “I’m allowed to have a little fun.”

“You’re allowed to have as much fun as you’d like,” Elyna said, her blonde, slick ponytail glinting under the light. I’d been on many conference calls with Elyna in the past, discussing multiple marketing strategies for small companies, but it turned out she was even better in person. She was originally from France, whip-smart, and knew how to have a good time, too.

“Are you going to drag me up for another round of karaoke, Elyna?” Jamie asked her. “Or am I going to have to drag you?”

Elyna got a wild look in her eye, then turned to me. “I told you, Landry,” she said to me in her French accent. “I told you he’d be begging for more karaoke even though he wassoshy to get up there earlier tonight. This man is a good one.”

“He’s a lot less shy than he seems, that’s for sure,” I agreed with her. I was already dead tired, but as the alcohol hit my bloodstream, everything started to feel a little bit surreal.

I was hanging out in a ski resort with some of my most hardworking business collaborators, and somewhere along the course of the night, Jamie had started to fit right in.

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