Read Online Brick by Brick by Maryn Blackburn - Free Book Online Page A

table as if he’d brought takeout a hundred times. “I’ll get plates.”
    “No, I—”
    “This is my treat. I’ll find them. You could boil water, for tea.”
    James arrived as I was setting chopsticks on napkins. “Go change. Gage will be here any minute. I left you a message.” To James’s credit, his tone didn’t contain a trace of I told you so.
    “He’s here already.” Gage emerged from the dining room and clapped an arm across James’s shoulders. James’s meaty arm wrapped Gage’s ribs, turning the manly embrace into a half hug. I hadn’t seen James look so happy in months.
    “Good to see you, man,” Gage said. “Don’t make her change. She’s dressed better than I am already.”
    Maybe I was. His jeans were new, but his faded T-shirt sported a hole at one shoulder.
    “You always lay bricks in a suit?” Gage released James.
    “I pick up checks in a suit.”
    “You got the Rincon job?” I hoped, hard.
    “Larry Kline’s giving me a trial run. Outdoor space on one executive suite. He loved the plans, even the water feature. Two minutes,” he promised Gage and me and trotted toward the bedroom.
    “So how have you been, Natalie?”
    “Fine.” I wanted to demand an explanation for his absence, but didn’t. “You?”
    “Busy. Working.”
    James reappeared in the jeans I’d thrown away. The ragged-edged splits in the denim revealed knees, thighs and a tantalizing glimpse of the lower edge of one buttock. Where was his underwear? “What do I smell?”
    We ate, James and Gage talking and laughing as much as the night we’d shared too much Bordeaux. Gage opened his fortune cookie first and laughed aloud. “‘You will successfully renew an old acquaintance.’”
    “Let me see that.” James wasn’t buying.
    Gage refused, dropping it into the half inch of soup in the carton. I leaned forward, but the red letters had already bled into blurs.
    “Open yours, Natalie.” Gage smiled at my cleavage.
    “‘Two beautiful men will grant your heart’s desire.’”
    “Why don’t I believe you, either?” James said.
    “Because I lied,” I admitted at once, dropping my fortune into the soup. “Or did I?”
    James read his. “‘If your wishes are not extravagant, they will be met.’ For real. See? Am I hoping for too much?”
    “I don’t think so.” With a bashful smile, Gage averted his eyes and stood up, collecting plates and containers. “Don’t get up. This is my version of taking you out to dinner, without people bugging us.” He cleared the table and reappeared with a large green bottle and glasses. “Champagne in the living room?”
    “What are we celebrating?” I followed him.
    “One another?” Gage eased the cork out with a subdued whoosh rather than the pop and spew I expected.
    “Must be the good stuff,” James said.
    “It should be,” Gage said, pouring.
    That meant he’d paid plenty. Well, why not? He could afford it. We clicked glasses and drank, the men smiling over the rims of the champagne flutes from our wedding, me over the thick lip of an everyday white wineglass.
    “I owe you guys an apology, not calling sooner. Things got crazy.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said.
    “Then I had to go to work, on location.”
    James waved his excuses away like so many gnats. “Where did you go?”
    “Romania. While I was there, I must’ve picked up the phone to call fifty times.” Without meeting my eyes, Gage busied himself topping off our glasses, although they didn’t need it.
    He’s unsure of himself, I thought, watching him center the stemware on the coasters, moving mine an inch closer to me, avoiding a direct look at either of us. Shy around us, after the things we did.
    “Phone service not up to American standards?” James was practical.
    “My manners not up to anybody’s standards is more like it. The time to call was soon. Next day. Only I didn’t, and the more time that passed, the surer I was what you must think of me. I’m not like that.” His smile