The Best Man: Part One by Lola Carson Page B

head.
    “I know I keep going on,” she says, looking him in the eye, “but I worry about you. You barely know this guy!”
    Noah knows him enough. Enough to know he wants to marry him. It feels right. At least, he thinks it feels right. It feels good, at any rate, and he loves him. There’s not really any reason not to marry him. And Connor’s given him so much already, turned his whole world around in the matter of months. Noah can barely reconcile his life now with what he had before.
    “I know what I’m doing, Jules,” he says, and he’s about to launch into yet another defensive speech explaining to her all the reasons why this makes sense, but his phone vibrates against his leg in his pocket, distracting him.
    It’s a text from Connor.
    Got him! He’s flying in on Sat. xx
    Noah doesn’t care as much as he probably should. He’s pleased for Connor, of course, that he gets to have his best friend by his side on his wedding day. But if this guy—this Patrick Walsh—is as much of a high-flyer as Connor says, and if he’s got a life for himself in America now, then he’s really only going to be a snapshot in Noah’s life with Connor. It’s not really worth his time to give the man much thought.
    “Look,” he says to Julie, slipping his phone back in his pocket and wincing at a particularly off-key screech from the singer. “I know what I’m doing, right. Stop worrying.”
    Although he knows he’s asking the impossible. Fortunately, Ron’s more optimistic, beaming at Noah when he arrives at the coffee house later that day, launching into a hummed recital of the wedding march.
    “Leave off,” Noah says, laughing, as he slips his apron on. “Anyone would think you’re more excited about this wedding than I am.”
    “Just pleased for you,” Ron says. “Not long to go now!”
    About six weeks, give or take a few days. The thought of it makes Noah’s stomach squirm, and he heads straight to the kitchen to prepare sandwiches, give his mind something else to do, Ron bellowing orders at him from out front as he serves customers.
    He’s worked here with Ron since the day it opened. Hired Ron as his co-manager when he realised he wouldn’t be able to do it all himself. Although over the weeks Ron’s become more like his partner, running the place as efficiently as Noah, sometimes better, and Noah’s often had the thought of making it official, some kind of legal business arrangement. He’ll have to talk to Connor about it sometime.
    The day flies by, the business benefiting from the national-chain café over the road shutting down after a failed health inspection. Noah’s kept on his feet, and he works seamlessly with Ron, serving and chatting and watching the time tick by so quickly, he’s surprised when closing time comes around suddenly. He takes Ron for a drink at the pub after work then bids him goodnight, goes home to cook dinner for Connor, gets the inclination to put a little romance in it—bottle of wine, a candle on the table.
    In the early days of their relationship he would plan for seduction—wait for Connor’s return with his dick hard, having spent time working himself up, getting ready to fuck. But Connor always came home tired, or wearing something he didn’t want to mess up, or generally paying no attention to Noah’s attempts at allure, and so Noah had given up. They have sex in bed at night, two or three times a week. It’s good, and he always climaxes, but he can’t help thinking there’s something missing—something to get his blood burning, make him so desperate that he doesn’t care about Connor’s protests, smashes through them and fucks him dry on the couch, or over the kitchen counter, or in the shower.
    But he is, after all, brought to orgasm at least twice a week. He doesn’t really have anything to complain about.
    But Noah’s heart has never raced for him, and he’s come to realise that it never truly happens in the real world, not like in the movies. It