Most times, she didn’t hear much from Anton’s side of the building. Not even when he had guests. Their master bedrooms were separated by their closets and bathrooms; their living rooms by closets and stairwells. But if she was on the stairs or in the entry way at the same time as someone in her brother’s duplex, voices carried. Not just the fact of them, but the individual tones.
So she knew if she opened her door just then, she’d find Victor Anthony talking to Anton in his entryway. And it would be ferocious cowardice and unnecessary delay to hover in her house until Vic departed. They were both headed to Nat and Evan’s party. Seeing him right there in her doorway was no different from seeing him in twenty minutes in the wine room of the snazzy restaurant.
Not different at all.
She glanced at the hall mirror. Not that she expected to look strikingly different from fifty seconds before, in her bathroom. But damn her if her expression would give away that she’d felt her heart spike and spark once she heard Vic’s voice through the wall.
Cool as the April evening breeze outside, she stepped onto the porch. “Hey, guys.”
“Gillian.” Anton surprised her with a hug. “Have fun tonight.”
“You sure you don’t want to come? Nat told me to ask you seven more times to be sure you know she means it.”
He retreated to his threshold. “She knows it’s not my thing.”
“She does,” Gill agreed. “And she apologized for Evan having a ridiculously large batch of friends and family.”
“I’ll forgive her, but if this marriage doesn’t work out, I expect her to marry an introvert only child next time.”
Vic’s laugh compelled her to look at him. Whatever kind of bulb they had in their porch lights was in lust with his skin.
Or maybe that was her nonsense eyeballs. Either way, ridiculous. What difference did it make if his shirt hugged his shoulders and the bulge of his biceps? She saw his forearms plenty when he took photos. The way they stretched all lean and strong out of his rolled up sleeves was nothing new.
She made her voice neutral and natural. “You want to get a lift over with me?”
No call for him to smolder and glint when he nodded. “Sure, sounds great.” He turned to Anton, who surprised her again by wrapping Vic into his arms.
She wasn’t eavesdropping. But this was her baby brother’s voice, the one she’d spent more of her life attending to than any other. The one she’d been parsing for decades, learning each nuance, careful to know all she could in her determination to never make life an iota harder for him than it already was.
So she picked up the fierce truth of it when he pressed his head to Vic’s and said, low and intent, “Never going to love you less, Ton.”
It was all she needed to forget every nuance of Victor’s musculature and his intent eyes and whatever ridiculousness her heart suggested when she thought about an extra twenty minutes in his company. Because never mind Cisco, never mind how Anton’s feelings for Vic fluctuated from brotherhood to beloved over the years; the bare fact was that the Tony Twins needed each other. And she couldn’t bear to disrupt the balance between them with her random, unnecessary ideas about getting Vic into her bed again.
He held her door. Before they set off, once they arrived, going into the bar.
She ignored him, much as she had during the drive—banal chitchat and some history of her friends’ various romances. Not a hint of that bright intent he’d sworn had met him at Anton’s before they set off.
So. What changed? Nothing with him, for damn sure. Not with Anton’s understanding and encouragement shoring him up. Making him fly faster towards the light that was Gillian. Hopefully not like a damn moth, about to be crisped beyond recognition, but willing to risk it if so.
He put a hand on her back as he ushered them inside, and she stepped away. Fast. Maybe to grab Natalie in a hug. Maybe.
Okay, he would regroup. And never mind Gillian being his favorite person in the room. In almost any room. He would get to know Evan and Theo and all them. See how that furthered his cause.
Or the cause of friendship and so on. Anton assured him it was fine, so he wasn’t going to move past the superficial bonhomie that marked his friendships with everyone but the Bellamy siblings.
Lots of mingling, lots of drinks, lots of appetizers and laughter and more mingling. And then Evan gave a loud whistle and everyone gathered round where he and Natalie had positioned themselves in front of a table holding a pile of bright postcards and little mesh bags.
He ended up across from Gillian, who took one look at the table and tilted her eyes at a grinning Natalie. If he’d had his camera … the Nikon D850 would do such sharp and luminescent work of the light and lines before him.
She narrowed her eyes even more his way, as if she could tell how he was committing her to an indelible image in his mind’s eye.
Evan said something quiet to one of his coworkers, then turned to the crowd. “So, first off, thanks everyone for coming out to party with us tonight. We are pretty excited about next weekend, but experience—also known as too many married siblings—taught me that Nat and I won’t have much of a chance to just hang out with people during all the pomp and circumstance.”
“That’s for graduations. You’re thinking of the Mendelssohn. A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Natalie interrupted.
He kissed her cheek. “So right, as always. And even though it won’t be midsummer, marrying Natalie is definitely a dream come true.”
Everyone went aww and cooed and made other such expected approving noises.
“You’re such a sap. Is it too late to call this whole thing off?”
Evan’s emphatic reply was echoed by Natalie’s friends—Serena, Rachel, and Gillian the loudest of all.
She shrugged. “Fine, then. We’ll get married. Finish your speech.” Her pretended nonchalance was adorable, and Vic couldn’t stop imaging having such easy banter between him and Gill. Or noting the way Natalie and Evan touched all the time. Not lewdly, just constant connection, communicating with each other above and beyond the way they did with their crowd of guests. He’d like that, too.
Evan’s whole face was playful and smug. “So, way back in the murky mists of time—a dark and depressing time, from all I’m told—some foolhardy person ghosted on Natalie.”
Serena tossed an ice cube towards Evan. “She was with him for years!”
“And I forgive her that terrible lapse in judgement,” he said. Then jumped a little, squinting over at his betrothed, who raised eyebrows at him. “Ouch. Okay, okay, point is, all these extraordinary and brilliant and mindful and beautiful and talented and—ouch! Woman, I’m complimenting your best friends, you are supposed to be putty in my noble hands!”
Natalie snorted. Vic envied the way she expressed every emotion she felt around Evan, like there was nothing she could think or feel that would impede their connection.
“So the four of them got together, and came up with the most prescient and foolproof plan to predict their future loves. They made a game board—Serena’s masterful artwork at its best, as y’all can see.” He held up one of the postcards, which Vic could now make out as a grid with pictures in each cell.
“When did you start saying ‘y’all,’ bro?”
“Best gender-neutral pronoun in existence,” Nat told one of her soon-to-be in-laws.
“And lots of time talking to a lot of Texans,” Evan added. “Point is, they made this game board and everyone took turns rolling dice to find out about their perfect match.”
Evan’s smug look echoed across to Dillon and Theo and their partners. All those happy couples, and Gillian the only one not in a relationship. Vic glanced at her, but she showed no evidence of minding how goo-eyed all the couples were.
“One of the many ways I swept Natalie off her feet—shut it, Brad—was with my prodigious poetical talent. Not to make any of you singletons here swoon, but I’ve written one to share with you all tonight.”
Nat leaned in to whisper to him. His cheeks tinged red. All the smug was on her face, now.
He cleared his throat. “Anyhow. Raise your glasses to toast to the end of our single days.” His voice took on even more of a bounce as he recited.
“Since no other guy was quite nice,
Nat took a big chance on the dice.
Each roll did reveal
A man so ideal—
When she met me, she didn’t think twice.”
Vic joined in the laughter and cheers, suddenly glad that despite his awkwardness and hesitation about crossing the work-friend divide, he was spending time with all these people. He joined in the effort to pass the cards and bags out to everyone in the room. People gathered in clusters, occasionally hooting about some of the options on the fortune telling grid. At least, most of the guests were—leaving just Gillian, Natalie, Serena, and Rachel, together with their partners, standing around the table.
And him.
Before he could think of retreat, Dillon handed him a card and bag. “Don’t want you to miss out on your ideal.”
“Ah, the ever-generous Rocket Man,” Gill said.
Dillon was the blushing one while his wife said, “You can say that again.”
“Okay, y’all might need to explain a bit more to me.” Vic studied the card, first clocking the picture of the rocket ship, and then reading its column heading: SEXYTIMES. Oh. Maybe he didn’t need an explanation after all. He opened the mesh bag and found a six-sided die, a condom, and confetti shaped like shamrocks and horseshoes.
Lifting his chin, he caught Gillian’s eye. And bit his cheek at the uneasy look on her face.
“So, I gather Dillon was the rocket. Also, what, blue eyes, and … the computer for the job?”
“Pencil,” Dillon corrected. “And one sibling, but I don’t have a dog or a motorcycle so the thing’s not perfect.”
Serena nudged him.
“Not perfect at predicting me, I mean. But it’s right that we’re perfect for each other.”
“Damn straight,” Serena said.
“What are you?” Vic asked Evan.
“Dollar sign, of course, since I’m a banker. Black hair. Five siblings.”
“And a tiger, for sure,” added Natalie.
He growled. Then they kissed. And they kept kissing.
Rachel poked Nat’s shoulder. “Did you put condoms in these to make fun of us?”
Theo grinned. “A good precaution for all the other lightning bolts like me out there.” Vic must have looked confused, because he added, “Much as we love Cassandra, she wasn’t really part of the plan.”
“Nothing about you was part of the plan,” Rachel grumbled, but Vic photographed couples for a living; he knew a tight connection when he saw it.
And that left him blinking at Gillian again. Wondering if she could see his wishes in his expression. Wondering what she’d rolled in their game. Wondering if there was any chance he fit the bill.