If asked later, Logan would swear up and down that he had not, in fact, jumped out of his skin. He also hadn’t whirled around with all the grace of an unhinged ballerina. And he certainly, certainly had not made a shrill squeaking noise that’d made all the dogs within a five-mile radius sniff the air.

“Ellis,” he yelped when he’d regained control of his vocal chords. “Uh . . . uh.”

“So you do recognize me.” A wry smile slid onto Ellis’s face. “I wasn’t sure.”

For a bewildering moment, Logan honestly considered just getting into his car and gunning it. His watch was ticking in his head, and his desire to avoid this particular conversation hadn’t lessened. It was only the thought of hot coffee spraying across his leather seats that checked him. And Ellis’s eyes, admittedly; they were beautiful from a distance but downright captivating up close . . .

Logan tore his gaze away and swallowed. Uh-oh.

Ellis gave him a quizzical look. “You okay?”

“Um, yeah,” Logan answered with all the majesty of a cow giving birth. Seriously, man, get it together. Is this your first time talking to another person? He tried again. “Sorry, I ran off like that. I didn’t see you.”

“Really?” Ellis’s smile sharpened. “You sure left in a hurry for someone who didn’t see me.”

Well, fuck. It seemed Ellis still wasn’t the sort to mince words.

“Uh, sorry, man. I just realized I’m late for work.” It wasn’t a total lie, but his voice took on the high-pitched, whiny quality it got when he was being dishonest. “I gotta get going.”

He reached for his door handle slowly, as if a sudden movement might make Ellis strike.

He hesitated, however, when Ellis’s expression turned mournful. “Dude, seriously? It’s been four years since we’ve seen each other. You can’t spare a minute for an old friend?”

Logan’s heart did a strange lurching somersault in his chest. His sisters’ voices rang in his ears: “Logan Allen Vanderveer, where are your manners? You’re acting like the guy is going to bite you.”

Well, if memory serves, he very well might.

That thought threatened to give him another flashback. He shook it off. Maybe he should lay off the caffeine after all.

“Right, sorry.” He gave himself another mental shake. “How have you been since I last saw you? That was what, sophomore year? Where are you working these days?”

Logan’s eyes slid down to assess Ellis’s garb. A paint-splattered black shirt—not stylistically splattered either. Accidentally splattered. Logan could tell the difference—ripped jeans, and red high-top sneakers. If this was how Ellis dressed on a Monday morning, he probably hadn’t gone the corporate route like Logan had. Logan had to admit, though: it was a good look for him. Especially now that he’d gotten all . . . muscle-y. Muscular. Whatever.

Ellis caught his eye, which was lingering somewhere around the sliver of underwear visible just above Ellis’s jeans, and raised an eyebrow challengingly. “Did you just give me a once-over?”

Heat crept up Logan’s neck. “No.”

Ellis’s other eyebrow joined the first.

“Well, yeah, I did. Sorry. Um, that’s really embarrassing.”

Ellis grinned. “Can’t be more embarrassing than that stuffy suit you’re wearing.”

That broke Logan from his self-consciousness. “Excuse me? I’ll have you know this suit is designer.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s some real special thread with the name of someone super impressive on the label.” Ellis looked him up and down, not bothering to hide it. Logan couldn’t even protest, considering he’d just done the same thing. “All teasing aside, you look good. For a suit.”

Logan willed himself not to fidget. “Yeah, same to you.”

“I guess a lot has changed since college.” Ellis opened his mouth only to close it again. It looked like he was on the verge of saying something else but couldn’t quite articulate it.

Logan got the distinct impression that he didn’t want to find out what that was. Every minute around Ellis was threatening to launch him down an offshoot of Memory Lane he’d just as soon cordon off. He was tempted to mention how late he was again, but if that hadn’t been a good enough excuse before, it probably wasn’t now. He needed to come up with something else.

“Uh, listen, Ellis . . .” An idea flitted into his head, courtesy of G-Dawg. He gestured to the cups in the backseat. “It’s been great running into you, but you caught me in the middle of a coffee run. The guys in my office get really cranky if they don’t have their caffeine. If I’m late, it’s my ass.”

Ellis’s lips twitched up at the corners, and Logan immediately regretted his word choice. “I understand. I should have guessed from your clothes that you’d ended up in an office job.”

“Yup. Good ol’ capitalism. My company is pretty strict about tardiness, so . . .”

“Right. I’d hate for anything to happen to your ass.”

Logan almost wished he had one of his coffees in hand just so he could take a sip and then spit it out. He had no idea how to respond to that. It must have been evident on his face, because Ellis snorted and looked down at his high-tops. Then he glanced up at Logan with his head still lowered and flashed an impish smile.

The gesture, which was probably second nature to Ellis, hit Logan square in the chest. It was so familiar to him that it sent him hurtling back in time. Another memory played in front of his eyes as vividly as if he were there again.

Logan brushed a strand of unruly brown hair away from Ellis’s face. “You have, like, the longest eyelashes ever.”

“Dude, I know I’m gay, but you don’t have to be so gay about it.” Ellis’s smile belied his pleasure at the comment.

Logan leaned in. Ellis met him halfway, and moments before their lips touched, Ellis whispered, “I could stay like this forever.”

Logan actually felt his blood pressure skyrocket. He needed to get out of here. “So yeah, I’ve gotta go. It was nice running into you.” The platitudes sounded empty even to him.

Ellis’s mirth dropped off his face and was replaced with disappointment. It didn’t take an expert to figure out why. There was an unspoken invitation hovering in the air. The one all old friends proffered up when they encountered each other: We should hang out some time. Catch up. If Logan had any decency, he’d extend the courtesy, whether he meant it or not.

His lips remained firmly sealed together.

Silence fell between them. When Logan gave no indication that he was going to say more, Ellis sighed. “It was good seeing you again, Logan.” He turned around like he intended to head back into Starbucks. “I mean it. I’ve missed you.”

Shit. Was he really going to let him walk away? Guilt seized Logan’s chest and squeezed. He called after him before he could think it through: “We should get coffee some time. If you want. We could, um, talk.”

Ellis stopped short and looked over his shoulder at him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Logan felt both instant relief and anxiety. Hopefully Ellis spoke Adult. A coffee invitation actually meant something akin to, Let’s say we’re going to meet up and then never call each other. Logan made fake coffee plans once a month at his job. Hollow gesture or not, extending the invitation made him feel better about what a jerk he was being.

Ellis spun around. “That sounds great.” There was nothing in his tone or his face to indicate whether he understood Logan’s real intentions.

“Awesome. I’ll catch you later.”

With that, Logan got into his car, slammed the door shut, and drove off with a Fast and Furious-style tire squeal. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he hit a red light, and it all whooshed out of him at once. He deflated against his steering wheel like a flat tire.

Jesus. He hadn’t felt that awkward since his junior prom. And he’d showed up to that wearing a powder blue-tux. With ruffles. Talk about bad memories.

He turned in his seat and craned his neck back the way he’d come. His drinks—which he’d admittedly forgotten about in his haste—had slid across the bench seat to the other side of the car, but miraculously hadn’t spilled. Should have buckled them in after all. The Starbucks was a few turns away, safely out of sight. As was Ellis and the heaping pile of unwanted feelings he engendered in Logan.

Contrition seeped into him, settling like ice water in his gut. Surprised or not, he really shouldn’t have treated Ellis like that. They’d been friends once, and he deserved better. Then again, Logan really was late . . .

And that was the most pathetic excuse ever, he scolded himself. If he were being honest, he knew why he’d reacted the way he had, and it had nothing to do with work. He was running away so he wouldn’t have to face the living embodiment of his one foray into gaydom.

It wasn’t like he was ashamed of what he’d done with Ellis. He just wanted to leave that part of his life behind him. Was that so bad?

If his heart had known Morse code, it would have pounded out a steady Y-E-S against his ribs.

Well, it was over now. Neither of them had each other’s number. And with the way Logan had jetted out of there—twice—there was no way Ellis didn’t know he was being blown off. That thought made Logan queasy.

The light turned green. Logan hit the gas as if he could outrace the unpleasant encounter if he just drove fast enough. By the time he pulled into the parking lot behind his office building, he’d promised himself a dozen times that he wasn’t going to think about Ellis. With a final sigh, he grabbed his briefcase and the drinks holder, locked his car, and trotted up to the nondescript gray building.

The glass front doors parted as he strode toward them as if pulled by invisible strings. Inside, Logan was swept into the steady stream of people bustling around. As he walked, he luxuriated in it: the cacophony of voices, ringing phones, and heels clicking on polished tile. He loved walking into this buzzing hive every morning. It made him feel like he was a part of something. And today it had the added bonus of drowning out his disobedient thoughts.

He hurried past the reception desk, behind which two harried men were snatching up phones like their lives depended on it, and flashed his ID badge to Rhonda, the perpetually cheerful security guard. She smiled brightly at him and waved him through to the elevators. He dodged a sea of people egressing from one and rode another up to the fourth floor.

The doors whooshed open, revealing a wall of cubicles bleached dishwater gray beneath fluorescent lights. Logan whistled tunelessly as he made his way to the corner cubicle on the far left, which he jokingly referred to as a stand-in for the corner office he’d have someday.

He’d just plopped into his desk chair and was about to down his cappuccino when a blonde head popped over the barrier to the right.

“Morning!”

Logan nearly dropped his drink in his lap. “What the hell, Jennifer?”

“Nice to see you too, sunshine.” Jennifer flashed a smile, and twin dimples folded her plump cheeks. “You’re late.”

Logan tapped a key on his keyboard. His company computer flashed to life, revealing the time. “I am not. It’s eight minutes to nine.”

“Which for you is late.” She pointed a polished fingernail at him. The movement made her curls float over her shoulder like in a shampoo commercial. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I, um . . . overslept.”

“I can tell you’re lyiiing,” she sang in a flawless soprano.

“I am not.”

“Uh-huh. That was really convincing.”

Logan sighed and rubbed his temple. “Can you please turn off your mommy senses just this once?”

“Sorry, kiddo. Can’t help it. I’ve been changing diapers for ten years now, and I can smell shit from a mile away.”

“I bet your kids love that.”

“Oh yeah.” She batted her eyelashes. “And my husband too.”

“Moving on,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Did you send the updated Murtagh proofs to their marketing director? We’re launching their new ad campaign in three weeks—”

“As you’re so fond of reminding me.”

Logan continued undeterred. “—and we need the final proposal well before then.”

“As it just so happens, I have the updated proofs right here. The clients loved ’em.” She held up a manila folder that was so bloated with papers, it could have been a small novel.

He took it gingerly, squeezing it shut at both ends in the hopes of keeping its contents from spewing onto the carpet. “Um, I take it they had some corrections?”

“Just a few,” she chirped. “Better get started.”

With that, she ducked out of sight.

Logan stuck his tongue out after her but dutifully opened the file. Inside, he found printouts of the ads he’d spent the last six weeks of his life designing, only now they were covered in scribbled notes, arrows, and highlighter.

“And so it begins.” He licked his thumb and leafed through the pages. Most of it was pretty standard: layout and verbiage changes. Nothing he couldn’t handle. There were a couple of bigger changes he was going to have to think about, but if they liked what he’d done so far, that was a great sign. He fired up Adobe on his computer, chugged half of his cappuccino, and got to work.

He managed to get a lot done. Really. For about an hour. Then someone with thick-rimmed glasses walked past, and Ellis slammed back into his thoughts. No matter how hard Logan tried to turn his focus on work, he kept getting hit with little snippets of memories: hanging out with Ellis in his dorm room, walking across campus at a snail’s pace to prolong the time they had together, holding hands when no one else was around, and the one time Ellis had cornered him behind the music building and kissed him so hard, he—

Logan shook his head until he saw spots. That memory came with a can of worms the size of the Chrysler Building. He rested his elbows on his desk and covered his face with his hands. It was time to face facts. Seeing Ellis again had stirred up some residual feelings in him. If he wanted to get anything done, he was going to have to figure out what those feelings were, exactly.

If he were honest with himself, he knew it wasn’t Ellis that spooked him. It was what he represented.

For years now, Logan had had a running joke: he was ninety-five percent straight. And it was true, for the most part. When he was growing up, his parents had fed him the typical heterosexual marriage script: he’d meet a nice girl someday and settle down. He’d accepted that, even if he found himself looking at the other boys on the playground just as often as the girls.

When he’d left for college, however, he’d been introduced to a whole new spectrum of possibilities. It seemed like absolutely everyone was experimenting, from the gay kids who hung around outside the Arts Block to the sorority girls who downed margaritas and then made out at frat parties. Logan had thought he might as well join in on the fun. That had manifested into a handful of drunken make-out sessions with guys he ultimately never saw again.

With one notable exception.

Logan was open about his “colorful” past. When people around the office inevitably assumed he was gay because he dressed nicely and used product in his hair, he’d whip out some joke about how everyone experiments in college. They’d all have a good laugh, he’d assure them he was interested in women, and everyone would go home happy.

He was comfortable with it, because none of the guys he’d fooled around with had shaken his belief that he was, at his core, heterosexual.

Except for Ellis.

There’d always been something different about him. Something about his voice, or his attitude, or the way he talked with his eyes down only to look up at you just as he reached the end of his sentence. The memory alone made Logan’s pulse skip.

It didn’t help that Logan had worshipped Ellis back in the day. He was the coolest person Logan had ever met. He’d smoked rolled cigarettes and homebrewed his own beer and had this whole antiestablishment shtick going on. He’d blown off class whenever he felt like it—usually to break into one of the art rooms and paint—and to an impressionable, nineteen-year-old Logan, that had been the embodiment of rebellion.

Logan had followed him around like a puppy, copying everything he did, right down to the smoking. Out of all the guys he’d kissed, Ellis was the only one he’d been with sober. And the only one he’d done more with than kissing. In fact, one night, they’d almost—

But they hadn’t. That was the important part. That was what Logan needed to remember. Not all these vestigial emotions and memories. Who he was now was what mattered.

“You look tense. What are you thinking about?”

Logan peeked between his fingers. Jennifer had once more appeared above the cubicle wall. He cleared his throat. “Nothing.”

She smirked. “You’re lying again.”

“Do you need something?”

“Yes, actually.” She pointed to where Logan’s phone lay on his desk. “Someone called you like a million times. Did you honestly not hear it vibrating? I heard it. I bet even Anderson heard it.”

“Yeah, I did,” called a male voice from the adjacent cubicle.

“See?”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Sorry. I’ll put it on silent.”

“If you’d be so kind.” Jennifer popped back out of sight without further ado.

Logan did as promised and switched his phone to silent, but not before he checked the call log. Two calls from Abby and one from Rachel within minutes of each other. Goddamn it. One of these days he would have to ask his sisters if they had him bugged or something. How did they always manage to know when he had something on his mind?

He checked his watch. It wasn’t even close to lunchtime. He couldn’t call them back while he was on the clock. His office was pretty relaxed, but Logan had only been there for six months. He was still proving himself, and knowing his luck, Harrison and Cooper themselves would walk by the second he raised his phone to his ear. Not to mention, his meddlesome neighbors were still nearby.

Putting his nose to the proverbial grindstone, he worked until the second the clock hit 11:30 a.m. Then he snatched up his phone, announced to no one in particular that he was going to lunch, and hurried out of the main office.

To the right was a long corridor lined with doors that led to the private offices—the very ones Logan joked about occupying someday. He made his way to a set of double doors on the east side of the building. They let out onto a rooftop garden that had been installed well before Logan’s time. The handful of ficuses were fake, and the “rock garden” was a trough filled with pebbles, but it was a nice gesture. No one besides Logan seemed to use it, so it was a perfect spot for stealing some privacy.

He settled on a bench next to a pillar and tapped on Rachel’s name in his contacts list. He put the call on speaker and rested the phone on his thigh.

It only rang once before a static version of his eldest sister’s voice greeted him. “Hello?”

“Hey, Abby,” Logan replied. “Are you with Rachel, or did you steal her phone again?”

“She’s with me,” Rachel cut in, sounding distant. Logan imagined her leaning over Abby’s shoulder and shouting in the general direction of the phone. “What’s up, lil bro?”

“Nothing much.” Logan kept his tone casual. “I’m on my lunch break at work. I saw your missed calls. What’s going on?”

“Nothing in particular.” Abby echoed his carefree tone. “We just thought we’d check in on our precious little brother.”

Logan pictured them huddled together in Rachel’s cubicle, close enough that they could both speak into the office phone. He could practically see the matching sparks of eagerness in their mischievous eyes.

“Is there any chance you’re actually calling to check in and not to pry about my life?”

“None whatsoever,” Abby replied.

“I don’t know how you guys do that.”

“So there’s something going on?”

“Yeah, you got me. Must be some kind of weird sibling telepathy.”

“Actually, you always text us in the morning, unless you’re preoccupied by something serious,” Rachel explained. “We never heard from you earlier. So, what happened? Did you quit your job? Kill your boss? Join a cult?”

“Nothing that major. I just . . . ran into an old friend from college today.”

“An ‘old friend,’ huh?” Rachel clucked. “I bet it was one of the girls you serial-dated. Am I right?”

Logan blanched. “No! Definitely not.”

“Uh-huh. We believe you. Really.” Abby chuckled. “You can’t fool us. It’s been, what, a year since your last girlfriend? You’re due for one. For a while there, it seemed like all you did was date.”

“Yeah, for all it got me. None of those girls lasted more than a few months.”

“Well, whose fault is that? You kept breaking up with them because you’d decided they weren’t ‘The One.’”

“Well, they weren’t.” Logan pouted. “I could just tell.”

“Whatever you say, lil bro. So, this old friend you ran into, did you charm the pants off her?”

He started to correct their pronoun choice and then thought better of it. Close as he was with his sisters, he’d never told them about what he’d gotten up to at college. It was too . . . personal. And weird. There was the sex thing, of course—he had no desire to talk about that with his sisters—but there was also the gay thing. That wasn’t something that had ever come up at a Vanderveer family dinner.

It wasn’t like their parents were against gay people. As far as he could tell, they didn’t feel any particular way about them. They never discussed it. And Mr. and Mrs. Vanderveer, like many parents, assumed their kids were straight. During their childhood, Mom had talked about dream weddings with the girls, and Dad had talked about finding a wife one day with him. That was just how it was.

Now that Logan thought about it, he was fairly certain he’d mentioned his college friend Ellis to his sisters before, but that would have been years ago. There was no way they remembered him.

“Uh, no. I wouldn’t say I was charming. In pretty much any sense of the word.”

“Then what happened? You wouldn’t sound all nervous if you and your college friend just exchanged pleasantries.”

“Well . . . Look, don’t be mad, but I sorta . . . got out of there as fast as I could.”

“Logan Allen Vanderveer!”

He flinched. “You know, that whole talking-at-the-same-time thing is really creepy. Save it for when they inevitably reboot the Shining.”

“Don’t change the subject. Were you rude to her?”

“Not exactly.”

“Logan.”

“Okay, so I wasn’t a picture of politeness either, but I swear I didn’t mean any harm. I was just so surprised my flight-or-fight instinct kicked in or something. I offered up a coffee date, though, and then I booked it.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Abby said, “Well, I hate to say it, but I think you did the right thing.”

Logan perked up. “Really? Why?”

“Well, now that you’re such a drone,” Rachel interjected, “it’s probably better if you don’t talk to normal people. Especially ones who knew you before you sold out.”

“You realize you both also work in an office, right?”

“Yeah, but we’re management. That makes us queen bees, whereas you’re a lowly worker.”

“Thanks, sis. You always know just what to say.”

“Anything for my little brother.”

Abby regained control of the conversation. “Are you going to see her again?”

Logan’s chest constricted. “No. I don’t think I am.” He ran a hand through his hair, tugging on the stick-straight strands. “Hey, listen, I gotta get going. Lots of droning to do and all.”

“Buzzing,” they corrected at the same time. Then Abby said, “You know you can talk to us, right? If you need advice? We might be able to give you some insight into the mind of the modern female.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” If only you knew, sis.

“We love you, bro.”

“Love you too.”

He jabbed the End Call button and stared at his phone until the screen dimmed. He had no idea why, but he felt worse now than he had when his encounter with Ellis had been fresh. Maybe talking about what’d happened made it more real.

At least one benefit had come from talking to his sisters: it made him realize how badly he was overreacting. He was pretty sure normal people ran into old friends all the time without having a complete meltdown over it. And Ellis wasn’t even a friend, really. More like an acquaintance. An acquaintance that was every bit as disarmingly sexy as he’d been—

Logan jumped to his feet and slid his phone into his pocket. He wasn’t going to waste any more time thinking about this. He had work to do.

He grabbed a quick lunch and then spent the rest of the day pouring every ounce of concentration he had into his ad campaign. By the time five o’ clock rolled around, he’d almost completed all the changes for the Murtagh file. The productivity helped to lift his mood and dispel the last bit of gray cloud hanging over him. By the time he’d driven home to his one-bedroom apartment, made some dinner, and settled in for the night, he’d managed to put Ellis out of his mind.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when he pulled into the Starbucks parking lot at 8:15 a.m. on the dot that Ellis came screeching back into his thoughts. Because he was standing right outside with his hands in his pockets, clearly waiting. And, judging by the way his face lit up when he spotted Logan, he was waiting for him.