“We hooked up during the day.”
Gagnon smiled small, but still all class, and they started walking again as Gagnon said, “Don’t kill the dream. The stars always shine somewhere.”
“Don’t kill the dream?”
Gagnon looked at him. “You almost fucked it up with Luciana. I did fuck it up with the woman I loved. You two surmounted a big obstacle. You’re giving me hope. Don’t kill it.”
“Gonna try to win her back?”
“She married someone else. I have to start fresh.”
Rough.
“The sun is a star, brother.”
Gagnon halted a lot more abruptly that time, a look of shock on his handsome mug.
Then he shook his head and muttered with open disgust, “I’ve been shot at while taking pictures of ISIS and I’m having a conversation out of a romance novel with a virtual stranger at a post-show Fashion Week party.”
“Time to go, bro,” Hap advised, starting them walking again. “I’d suggest arm wrestling, but we might get champagne on our clothes.”
Gagnon laughed.
“What’s funny?”
They’d made it to Pearl and Luci was with her.
“Baby,” he murmured, moving in to kiss her cheek.
When he shifted back, she gave him bright eyes then she gave the flute in his hand the same. “Is that for me?”
“Pearl is double fisting. I’ll go back and take care of you.”
“I’ll just have some of this,” she said, taking his beer, putting it to her red lips and sucking back a draw, full throated.
Fucking fuck, but he loved this woman.
He grinned at her as she handed back the bottle.
“I now want beer,” Pearl announced, holding the glass Gagnon obviously gave her.
Hap offered her the second.
She shook her head then tipped it to Luci.
He gave it to his woman.
Once she had it, she leaned into his side, tucking her hand around his arm.
Second proudest moment of his life.
Serious.
“Okay, she’s taken care of,” Pearl declared, eyes on Hap and Luci. She turned to Gagnon. “Now what are we going to do about you?”
“Mm?” Gagnon asked distractedly over the rim of the glass that he had raised to his lips, his attention aimed over Pearl’s head.
Pearl twisted to look behind her.
Luci craned her neck to look.
“Who is that vision?” Pearl breathed.
“I don’t know,” Luci whispered.
Hap caught sight of the blonde everyone was looking at and leaned toward Gagnon. “Dude, hup.”
It looked like it took a lot of effort for Gagnon to give him his attention.
“Sorry?”
“Old broad and former supermodel matchmaker radar just pinged, brother. You’re up shit’s creek,” Hap said under his breath.
Gagnon took in Luci and Pearl then mumbled, “Fuck.”
“Who is she?” Pearl demanded.
“I don’t know,” Gagnon answered smoothly, his gaze straying back to the cool, curvy blonde in a dress Luci would tell him later was made of blush satin and bugle beads (the fuck?).
Pearl waited a beat.
Then two.
Then said impatiently, “Well, my boy, find out.”
“You better go,” Luci advised.
“And now would be a good time,” Pearl pushed.
“Let him play his game, women,” Hap grunted.
“Bluh,” Pearl forced out.
Luci rolled her eyes.
The blonde went on the move.
“Excuse me,” Gagnon murmured.
Then, without saying good-bye, he moved with the grace of a big cat through a room crowded with uppity people.
All Hap could think was he’d be good in the bush.
Then it happened.
The blonde tripped, spilling champagne everywhere, crying out, as did the others that were around her.
Gagnon had made it close enough to catch her, full body, with just one of his arms, before she hit the deck, not spilling a drop of his own damned drink.
Agile, suave and gallant . . .
As.
Fuck.
Hap was impressed.
“You have got to be fuckin’ kidding me,” he stated, trying hard not to bust out laughing.
“How sweet,” Luci drawled.
The blonde took one look at Gagnon, her face went pink, then her mouth moved as she said something before she pulled from his hold and dashed away, shouldering through the crowd.
“You have got to be fuckin’ kidding me,” Hap repeated, his words shaking with laughter.
“Dio mio,” Luci murmured, those words amused too.
When Gagnon hesitated, Hap shouted, “Do you need to check your horoscope, bro?”
Many turned to look.
But Gagnon shot him a shit-eating grin.
Then he pushed after her.
“That’s the way, brother,” Hap muttered.
“Horoscope?” Pearl asked.
He looked down at her. He then took a drag from his beer.
And after he swallowed it down, he said, “I’m thinking the stars are aligned tonight.”
Luci curled her front into his side, giving him her weight.
The wrinkles on Pearl’s face rearranged in her version of a huge-ass smile.
It was one of the most beautiful things Hap ever saw.
He didn’t share this.
He took another draw from his brew.
It was two days after they got back from New York.
Just two.
They were laid out on his couch bingeing Altered Carbon on Netflix (for the second time, the show was the shit, they both thought so). There was enough junk food on the coffee table, this their dinner, to take out a battalion.
It was getting late.
After nine o’clock.
And the doorbell rang.
“What the fuck?” Hap muttered as Luci used his chest to push up and look over the back of the couch.
She turned her head to look down at him. “Are you expecting someone?”
“No.”
He was going to ignore it when the doorbell rang again.
“Maybe it’s someone with a mistaken delivery of pizza and we can take it and then not answer the door the second time when they come back after they realize their mistake,” she suggested.
He glanced at the coffee table, where on top of the mess was an empty bag of cheddar cheese Ruffles that Luce had not ten minutes ago upended the last crushed bits into her mouth, then he looked back at his woman.
“Babe, how in the fuck can you want pizza?” he asked.
“Is there ever a time when it’s okay not to want pizza?” she asked back.
He could not answer that because there wasn’t ever that time.
The doorbell rang again.
“Shit,” he murmured, sliding her off and coming out from under her.
He took his feet, walked to the door, didn’t see anything out the high windows, but got up to them, checked side to side and the doorbell rang again.
He looked down.
And his chest seized.
He should have known.
They’d taken pictures of him. Of Luci blowing the kiss to him. Of them at the party afterward. They’d even posed for some.
He hadn’t seen the pictures anywhere.
That didn’t mean they hadn’t been printed somewhere.
Like it had a mind of its own, his hand reached out, unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door.
“Ma,” he whispered.
She smiled up at him, but her attention wasn’t on him. Her eyes were darting beyond him, into the house.
“Georgie.”
It all happened in a flash.
One second he was standing there, staring at his mother.