1 Chapter 1

When I got a call from my ex at work one Thursday afternoon, asking if he could see me to discuss something, I immediately feared Clay had bad news to share. His tone was serious and he was not as talkative as usual.

Clay and I had broken up about a year and a half ago and we had both moved on to new partners, but we still ran into each other on occasion around Chicago and kept in touch. No, we didn’t talk on the phone every week or anything, but I knew how to reach him if I needed to and he knew how to reach me. The last time we’d seen each other was the previous year when I’d gone to his apartment to talk about my current boyfriend, Eric. He and I were having problems at the time and I wanted Clay’s advice on how to deal with them. Clay and I had been together for about four years before we’d broken up, and I figured, since he knew me better than I knew myself sometimes, he’d be able to help. Unfortunately, we’d ended up arguing about our own failed relationship instead of discussing my situation with Eric, and I vowed to never seek relationship advice from him again. I hadn’t seen Clay or heard from him since that day, so his request to meet now, months later, worried me.

“Why can’t you tell me whatever you have to over the phone?” I asked.

“I’d prefer to see you in person,” he said. “Is there a good time I can come to the house so we can speak privately?”

I told him to come over Saturday afternoon at three. Eric, an assistant manager at a hotel downtown, would be at work, so Clay and I would have the privacy he’d requested. Eric and I lived in the house Clay and I used to share.

After agreeing to meet Saturday, Clay hung up, and I sat in my office wondering what he wanted to talk about that couldn’t be discussed on the phone. My first thought was that he’d found out he was HIV positive. I’d been tested recently with, thankfully, negative results, and the only men I’d been with over the last few years were Clay and Eric. The thought of Clay being positive made me sick. Sure, being HIV positive didn’t mean an instant death sentence the way it did years ago, but it wasn’t anything to take lightly either. As far as I knew, Clay was still with his boyfriend, Dean, the man he’d left me for, but I had no idea how their relationship was. Maybe they saw other people on the side. Hell, maybe they weren’t even together anymore.

I shouldn’t have assumed Clay wanted to see me to relay bad news, but I couldn’t help worrying that whatever he wanted to share would be disappointing. If he wanted to share something good, he could have simply told me over the phone. But a face-to-face meeting meant only one thing: trouble.

* * * *

Clay showed up a little before three on Saturday. I was about to get a beer out of the fridge when I heard his car pull into the driveway and my beagle, Popcorn, barking from the backyard. I opened the side door just as Clay was getting out of his Passat. He looked good dressed in dark jeans and a gray polo shirt. His dark hair was a little longer than it had been the last time I’d seen him. If he was sick, he sure didn’t look it.

“Quiet, Popcorn!” I snapped at the dog, barking his head off from behind the fence as Clay walked up the driveway. The beagle let out a whimper before heading to the chew toy he’d abandoned across the yard.

“I didn’t know you had a dog,” Clay said.

“Eric and I got him from a shelter.”

Clay gave me a funny look. “Why are your arms folded?”

I hadn’t even realized they were until he’d mentioned it. “I don’t know,” I mumbled, unfolding them as I held open the screen door for him.

“That’s not a good sign.”

I ignored the remark and asked if he wanted something to drink. “I was about to have a beer myself.”

“Then I’ll have one, too. Thanks.”

I handed him a can before grabbing one for myself and suggesting we go to the sun porch to talk.

“It feels weird coming here again,” he said as we sat.

“Does it?”

“Yes. The house looks great. The flowers out front are beautiful.”

I nodded. “Eric planted those.” Actually, Eric and I had both planted the tulips, but he got the credit since they were his idea in the first place. He certainly had more of a green thumb than I did. As long as the grass was cut and the hedges were trimmed, I largely left the lawn alone.