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  Crispin smiled, his flush easing up, some of the mortified horror easing up too. Yeah, Ray had been sort of a dick about it—but he’d only been a dick because he’d thought Crispin was his friend.

  Crispin was his friend.

  “You might have better luck getting me to like girls,” he said, putting his glasses on before grabbing his roller bag.

  Ray guffawed. “Nice one. Now it’s a challenge.”

  “The beer or the girls?” Cam asked, dubious.

  “The beer, dumbass. Not even I’m enough of a prick to try to get him to like girls.”

  “You say that, but I’ve heard your wife. She’s been trying to set him up for years!”

  Ray shook his head. “Well, yeah. But once I told her he didn’t like girls, she’s been talking about her cousin in San Francisco that everybody thinks is gay but won’t admit it.”

  “Oh Jesus,” Nick muttered. “It’s not like he’s a troll. Let him find his own guys—as long as he knows they can come along when we go out.” Nick turned to him, not stopping the ground-eating walk they were all employing to get to the next gate. “You do know whoever it is can come along, right?”

  “Well, now,” Crispin admitted. “But seriously, I’m just hoping to get through the next week without getting sick.”

  “Yeah, well, just don’t let Link pick out the beer!” Nick shot back, glaring at Link’s big linebacker body as he plowed through SAF.

  “I heard that!” Link called. “If you try to get me to drink beer with strawberries in it, I swear, I’ll show you epic book of world records, call the doctors, I’ve-never-seen-this-before style puking.”

  “Your wife calls that Sunday morning,” Cam retorted, and the banter was on.

  Crispin trotted along with the four of them, letting their shit-talking wash over him like always but enjoying it just a little more. Finding a peer group had never been easy for him—it was why he’d stuck so hard with his “guys” after he’d started working at their accounting firm. It didn’t matter if they didn’t like the same movies or if he had to learn things about football he’d never wanted to know. And baseball. And soccer. And, God help him, hockey. It hadn’t even mattered that they didn’t know he was gay. All that mattered was that a couple of times a month one of them popped up in his chatbox at work and said, “Hey, we’re going to a movie/sporting event/somebody’s house—be there at X time and bring Y!”

  And Crispin had plans. He had friends. Sure, Vegas had been a mistake—but it had also been an adventure, and if he hadn’t spent that weekend in Vegas, he would have spent it on his couch with his cat in his lap, reading something that made him cry for the hell of it.

  And no, he wasn’t excited about the next juice cleanse/workout regime Link was trying to start them all on—but he had to admit, his muscle tone had improved a lot in the last six years, and he spent way less time in the bathroom.

  It was like this group of friends, who did all the things he had no interest in, were nature’s way of making sure he didn’t just shrivel up into spinsterhood, turn 105 before he turned 32, and blow into the wind like dust, or better yet, become a rock and get shoved to the corner of the living room to balance drinks on at parties.

  And they’d known he was gay for years and hadn’t stopped calling or inviting or cooking for him.

  He was definitely keeping them.

  ON THE plane he got the middle—pretty much all the time. There were five of them, and he was the smallest. Link and Ray usually got the seats with the empty in the middle because they were the biggest, and Nick liked the window seat because he liked curling up in small spaces—his words. Cameron had once told him that Nick still slept in a bunk bed—one of the kind for adolescent boys, with the twin-sized over a queen-sized, and he claimed the top bunk for his cats. Said Nick liked things cozy, and since Cameron liked to stretch out long legs in the aisle, that meant Crispin—smaller, more slender, humbler—was the perfect center-seat candidate.

  And he’d always been relieved because it meant he didn’t have heinous body odor and nobody was trying to avoid him.

  This time was no exception.

  He expected to read in silence, since nobody liked talking over the sound of the jet engine and they’d known each other too long for small talk, but after Nick curled up with his tablet on his lap, watching a movie, and he’d settled down with his Kindle, Cameron poked his shoulder.

  “My movie’s boring. Whatcha reading?”

  On instinct, Crispin plastered his hand over his screen. “Nothing.”

  Cam’s guffaws echoed through the plane. Crispin was pretty sure Link—who always Benadryled up—choked on a snore.

  “Oh my God. Is it porn? Are you reading gay porn on a plane?”

  “No!” Crispin glared at him and then watched as Cam flipped his bangs out of his eyes and grinned. He’d been baited—and well and truly caught.

  “Then what is it?” Cam asked, his smile white and wily.

  Oh hell. Crispin moved his hand.

  “Nora Roberts?” Mild surprise—maybe Crispin would escape from this without complete humiliation. “I mean… romance, fine. I get it. I like Kristin Higgins sometimes too. She’s funny. Link reads Karen Rose and Karen Slaughter—he likes suspense. But… uh… Nora Roberts?”

  Crispin shifted uncomfortably. “I like love stories that end well,” he said with conviction. “If there’s gonna be a death at the end, it damned well better be poetic, with flowers and a rocking afterlife.”

  Cam grinned again. “You on Wi-Fi? Good.” At Cameron’s nod he snagged the Kindle. “I’m about to make you buy yourself something right up your alley. Romance, right? But, you know… gay.”

  “You are not buying porn on my—” Crispin made a frantic grab, and Cameron—who had played basketball in school—held him off with ease.

  “Romance, idiot. Here. My sister Hazel knows some authors—don’t worry, I got you covered.”

  Cameron handed him back his tablet, about a hundred dollars down in Amazon purchases via the plane Wi-Fi, with a satisfied smile. “Finish your Nora and read some of those others. If you hate ’em, delete ’em. But I don’t think you’ll hate ’em.”

  Crispin stared at his plain blue Kindle cover like it was a new thing. “Uh—”

  Cam rolled his eyes. “Romance, man. You like romance. I mean, I get not taking us out for a rom-com—Ray would fall asleep and Link would be right behind him. But… you know. Pairing off. This trip, for me? It’s an engagement present.”

  Crispin brightened. He’d met Cam’s girlfriend, Darla—she was sweet. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. It’s just… you know. One of the reasons we even started wondering about you being gay is that we were worried about you. You just seem so lonely.”

  Oh God. “Uh….” Crispin flushed. “You know. Got friends.” He made to open his Kindle because it would be a good way to end a conversation he wasn’t comfortable with.

  Cam sighed and looked dispiritedly at his tablet, and Crispin took pity on him.

  “So, uh, I can read later. I’ve got Serenity downloaded under comfort movies, and all three of the Star Trek reboots—you uh, wanna—”

  “Beyond!” Cameron said excitedly. “That blonde girl on the motorcycle is hot.”

  Crispin smiled at him, pulled out his earbuds, and handed Cam one. When the movie was over, Cam would probably be asleep, and Crispin could resume his book—and then read Cameron’s recommendations—but for right now, Crispin was reminded once again why watching hockey wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  Biergarten

  “OH MY God,” Crispin gasped, his thighs and calves screaming. “Why are we doing this again?”

  “Dude,” Link muttered, striding past him on a hill that must have had a 7 percent gradient. “I gave you that workout regime, right?”

  “I didn’t know it was a requirement!” Crispin panted. He wondered in despair if he was going to have to finish this damned climb on his hands and knees.
>
  Cameron swung long legs in front of him, one step at a time, rigid posture and grim face a testament to the fact that this wasn’t easy even for guys who had done the prerequisite workouts.

  “I hate him,” Nick said behind Crispin. “I hate him so much. Ray, how is he your best friend?”

  Ray didn’t sound as out of breath as Nick or Crispin, but he wasn’t doing as well as Cam or Link, either. “How’s he my best friend? I thought he was Cam’s best friend!”

  “I’m Crispin’s best friend,” Cameron called, still walking. “Crispin wanted to tour the damned city we flew into!”

  “You’re all my best friends,” Link said, genial as always. “And as your best friend, I can’t let you leave Germany without seeing Andechs Abbey.”

  “Is this….” Oh God. Crispin could barely banter. “One of those monasteries….” Breathe. “Where the monks….”

  “Kill each other and run around with their robes up past their hips while they bathe in human blood?” Link finished, and the rest of them groaned.

  “Who let him watch Saw on the plane?” Ray demanded. “Who? I will confiscate their electronics for the rest of the trip!”

  “I don’t remember any nudity in that movie,” Nick managed. “Or any monks either. Link’s writing movies in his head again.”

  “If it’s not a movie, it should be,” Link told them with authority. “Now keep walking—trust me, the view is worth it.”

  They had arrived in Munich around lunchtime the day before and had pushed themselves to wander around the town and eat in a local hofbrau. The streets had been crowded because of the Oktoberfest festivities, but the mood had been genial and the sidewalks wide enough to accommodate the overflow. But watch out for the bike lanes! Ray had almost been plowed over because he hadn’t realized the bicyclists here meant business! After six hours of sleep, Link had shaken Crispin and Nick awake and gone back out into the suite demanding everyone get up and get dressed—they needed to eat breakfast and hop on the train for Andechs.

  Link had them all running for the damned train before Cam had even asked what the hell an Andechs was.

  “A… monastery?” Cam had voiced their disbelief first as the train lurched off into the wild blue. “We’re going to see… monks?”

  “No, dork! We’re going to drink beer!”

  That part earned universal approval—Crispin understood that beer drinking was their goal, even if his own beer was going to taste like Riesling.

  Right now, as he struggled up the gray stone-laid street, the bus from the train long gone, he was thinking that there needed to be more beer drinking and way less climbing.

  Finally they all panted to a halt by an overlook, and after he fought the first wave of nausea, he managed to see out into the valley below them.

  “Damn, that’s charming,” he said.

  “Right? Like out of a fairy tale,” Nick said, next to him. The long, steep-roofed cottages below them were cream-colored, with shingles painted yellow or red. It was the only place Crispin had ever seen that could be adequately described by the word hamlet.

  “Selfie!” Link called. “Gather round! Crispin, get your ass in here—in front of Cam, ’cause damn, you’re short. Okay—smile and say ‘beer’!”

  Crispin grinned, jostled by his hot, sweaty friends, and said, “Riesling!”

  The picture only captured the smiles—not the groans.

  ANDECHS ABBEY was beautiful—the church tower rose, ornate and green-painted at the top, as the crowning glory of the chapel itself, and inside, the plaster walls were painted with religious frescoes and plated with gold.

  “The benches look plenty hard,” Ray muttered. “Even us Catholics use cushions.”

  “It does have a ‘suffer before the glory of God’ sort of vibe,” Nick agreed.

  Crispin concurred. “Did you know the monks invented beer so they could drink something filling during fast days?”

  The other four turned to him, entranced. “I had no idea,” Link said, looking around the chapel again. “Clever, clever monks. C’mon, there’s a hallway of crosses and a monk’s cell to see; then we can go to the restaurant.”

  “I think it’s called a cloister,” Nick said, squinting at a pamphlet, “but I don’t read German.”

  “If it’s a cloister, where’s the nuns?” Link asked suspiciously.

  “Wait—do Lutherans even have nuns?” Ray asked, also suspicious.

  “I guess if they have monks?” Cam hazarded.

  They all squinted at each other in confusion, and then Link shrugged. “Look, let’s just go where the guide’s pointing and eat. That climb was brutal!”

  “I can’t believe he admitted it,” Cam whispered to Crispin as they cleared the hallway with the burnished hardwood crosses. “I thought he was going to let us feel like washouts for the whole trip.”

  Crispin rolled his eyes. “He was throwing us a bone. He really just wants to see where the monks sleep and dream of beer.”

  Cameron’s chuckle echoed off the walls, and they both shushed themselves for the rest of the tour.

  They ate in a courtyard at long wooden tables under enormous umbrellas, served by the monks, who sustained their abbey with the business. The fish and chips came out crispy and golden, but they didn’t serve wine.

  Crispin figured that just this once, he could down a beer with his friends—and he was surprised at how good it tasted. Maybe it was the fresh air, or the exercise, or the foreign country—or maybe it was that his buddies knew he’d rather have wine and commiserated.

  During lunch, Link shared the selfie of them at the village overlook, and Crispin used some of his roaming charges to send the picture to Millie.

  Link is in the middle, Cam is behind me, Nick is next to Cam, and Ray is on the other side of Link. They’ve known I’m gay for years. We’re having a great time.

  Her answer was a wee bit saltier than he’d anticipated.

  And not one of those assholes could set you up with a friend?

  He groaned and shook his head and was going to put his phone in his pocket when Cam intercepted. “Wow—tell your sister you told me no setups!” He laughed, giving it back to Crispin.

  “I’m not telling her anything with roaming charges!” Crispin retorted. “She’ll have to get the commentary when I get back and show off the rest of my pictures.”

  “Who would be good for him?” Link pondered. “I think she’s right. We’re all paired off. Crispin needs a mate.”

  Crispin shook his head, not wanting to get into it. “I think Crispin has a good life and—”

  “And needs a mate,” Nick said, right over him. “I mean, I know Ray’s cousin is down in San Francisco, but you know, there’s a perfectly flourishing gay community in Sacramento—”

  “I don’t need a community,” Crispin muttered. “What? You’re trying to get rid of me already?”

  “Get rid of you?” Ray demanded, exasperated. “Buddy, we’re trying to get you laid. Seriously—when was your last boyfriend?”

  “Notice he didn’t say hookup?” Link pointed out. “That’s because we know you. Six years—I started working with you six years ago, and you’d been at the firm for how long?”

  “Two years,” Crispin muttered, embarrassed.

  “So, yeah. We’ve known you for six years, and you haven’t had one relationship. How long’s it been?”

  “You guys—two days ago, you didn’t even know—”

  “We knew,” Cam said, rolling his eyes.

  “For sure—”

  “We knew!” Cam insisted. “Look—we’ll drop it for now, but you’ve become a project, you understand?”

  “I was happy being a friend!”

  “I was a project,” Nick said unexpectedly. “Remember? On the rebound from my girlfriend, living in that shitty apartment? You guys all got together and helped me find a better apartment, better clothes—hell, Link even helped me find a cat. And then when Marcy came along, I looked like I had my shit togethe
r and she liked that about me. We’ve all been a project at one time or another—remember when we covered for Link when he was throwing up right before his wedding?”

  Link had fair skin, and his cheeks pinkened right up. “There’s a memory.”

  “So, see? You’ve never been a project yet—but you are now.”

  “Isn’t it Ray’s turn?” Crispin whined. “Shouldn’t he be getting his wife pregnant right now?”

  “Yeah, papi,” Ray said genially, “but that’s one project you all can’t help with.”

  They laughed, and suddenly the air was thick with talk about fertility treatments and ovulation cycles and Crispin was relieved.

  But it was the third time in two days his friends and family had talked to him about being lonely—and he could feel a tingling in his chest even as they toured the abbey grounds after lunch. They took in the gardens and the sculptures—from a sort of disturbing mass of men carved out of granite to a whimsical wooden man chugging a stein of beer—snarking all the way, and Crispin kept up, as he always did, but every so often he’d rub the center of his pecs, right under his throat, wondering at the ache.

  Why would everybody think he needed a companion right now?

  They toddled down the steep hill to catch the bus back to the train, and Crispin watched as the abbey disappeared behind them. Maybe the monks had it right. Live in silence, worship in sincerity, drink beer, right?

  Who needed a companion?

  Grayson had come for Millie’s parents’ funeral, but then he’d gone back to school. Not cruel—just needed to finish. Long-distance relationships don’t work out, Crispin, right? But it’s been fun, and I’ve loved knowing you—drop me a line and let me know where you land!

  And Crispin, who’d been teetering on the fine edge of falling in love, had fallen back on his ass, gazing gratefully at the chasm he’d almost disappeared into. God, didn’t everybody leave? Hadn’t he learned that already? He had Millie, right? Making her a home? He was grateful he’d gotten a second chance—wasn’t giving her a place to come home to enough?

  Why would he bother to find someone, to risk all that pain, when the odds of that person staying were, well, the odds of finding another family after he’d lost two of them already?