Page 5 (2/2)

Lake buried a sad groan in a linen throw pillow

He should be happy

Taylor loved Amy, they were devoted to each other Lake and Taylor had just turned twenty-six, for crying out loud Dynaed with time Best friends became friends, and then later, acquaintances This was the natural course of life

But, God This sucked

No best friend to listen to his crazy schemes and political tirades

No best friend to give hi job and his nonexistent love life

No best friend to be blatantly open with

He’d beco in bromantic solitude

He punched the pillow over another self-pitying groan

A darkened figure appeared in the doorway, brandishing Taylor’s baseball bat Lights flashed on, and Lake shielded his eyes “Just add to the torture, why don’t you”

“Lake?” Taylor’s dad said, a surprised hitch in his low-timbred voice

Lake lowered the pillow

Taylor’s dad—Knightly Dixon, or Knight, as Lake had been calling him daily for the last seven years—lowered the bat and threw his neatly tuxedoed ass into the adjacent ar his staff With his free hand, he loosened his bowtie and popped a button

He looked nothing like Taylor Taller, darker brown hair, squarer jaw, and deeper laughter creases He’d shaved for the wedding, but he already sported light, silver-speckled stubble A badge of raising a child alone in his twenties and thirties

Okay sure, he had a good relationship—friendship?—with Taylor’s dad But Knight had a way ofhis own faults

Knight settled tired, soulful brown eyes on hi here?”

Lake rolled onto his side, propped hiht’s muddied dress shoes “Did you walk back?”

“I’d hardly drive after drinking” He toed off his shoes and tossed them onto the tiled hearth

“Guess I made you traipse in here with them on?”

“I saw a flicker in theand grabbed this froround and dropped it again “I have a great deal of patience when it coain”

“Mental note: Don’t give Taylor’s old man a heart-attack Got it”