1 Chapter 1

1

As Rick entered The Falcon’s Nest, he heard The Cure’s “Friday, I’m in Love” and smiled. Not his favorite song, but damn, he was glad it was Friday. It took only a few seconds of scanning the crowded bar to find his friends sitting in a corner booth near the back. His smile stayed in place until his gazelanded on Josh.

Crap. There was something vaguely unsettling about Josh, but Rick could never put his finger on it. Yet, it nagged at him and tended to irritate him. He sighed deeply, knowing if he wanted to hang out withhis two best friends, Mark and Andrew, he had to put up with Josh. God, he missed the days when it was just the three of them. They’d met back in college, and over the years, it had become a tradition to gettogether on Fridays, usually at this bar.

The place wasn’t fancy. Walls with posters advertising local LGBTQ events, pictures of stars, and somelarge lighted marquee-style letters spelling out words like “dance,” “drink,” and “party” enclosed a pretty basic club. And old wooden bar lined one side, with booths along two walls, the dance floor at the far side, and round tables spaced throughout the area. But The Falcon’s Nest had amazing appetizers, great music, and lots of men. And it was cheap. So basically a win all around. Friday nightswere typically pretty busy, and at least one of their gang had always tried to arrive early and grab a booth.

Rick deftly wound his way through the crowd as he made his way to the booth, noting that a lot of the bar’s regulars were already trolling for fresh meat. He slid into the booth as Andrew moved over to make room.

“Hey, Rick. I just ordered you a beer.”

He flashed his friend a genuine smile. “Thanks. I need one. Work was a nightmare.” He glanced across the table at the tall brunette seated directly across from him and tried to keep the smile pasted on. “Josh,” he said with a nod, keeping his voice even.

“Hey.” Josh was a man of few words and barely acknowledged him most of the time, but tonight Rick could have sworn he saw a hint of a smile tug at his lips and a twinkle in those emerald green eyes.

Interesting.

He let his gaze skip to Mark, the quiet man with the short bright red hair, pale skin, and a few frecklessprinkled across his nose. Mark smiled at Rick and rolled his eyes. He wasn’t too crazy about Josh either, although for an entirely different reason than Rick’s. One word—jealousy—over Andrew. Anyone with eyes could see that Mark was head over heels for Andrew. Well, anyone but Andrew could see it.

They’d all been friends for so long, Rick couldn’t pinpoint exactly when Mark had started looking at Andrew differently, but he’d noticed a change in Mark’s demeanor around Andrew last year. Personally, Rick thought if they did get together, the guys would be good for each other. Not that Mark had ever admitted his crush to anyone.

Andrew was a good guy, but clueless. He was a nurse at the local ER, and one night he’d been working a late shift when several firemen had been brought in by ambulance. There had been a bad blaze at an apartment building just south of the hospital, and the EMTs on scene had worried a few firemen had inhaled too much smoke and had insisted they get checked out. When Josh had been brought in, Andrew had been assigned as his nurse and had crushed on him hard. Josh turned out to be fine, but stuck around while the other firemen had been treated.

Andrew had invited Josh to join them at their next Friday night outing at The Falcon’s Nest and, not surprisingly, Josh had shown up. Andrew was all kinds of adorable with his dark brown hair that curled around his ears, chocolate brown eyes, and skin the color of mocha. Standing at five-eleven, he had a lean, muscular build, with broad shoulders, and dark hair that peeked out of his shirt. He may have beentwenty-seven, but he had that adorable boyish smile.

Okay, yeah, at one time, Rick had also had a major crush on the guy. Andrew was sexy, but Rick had quickly realized they were destined to be only friends.

So nobody had been surprised when Josh had showed up that night. Men usually did when it came to Andrew. What had surprised them was that Josh had showed absolutely no interest in Andrew whatsoever—not as far as dating or hooking up, that is. No, it appeared he’d thought of Andrew as a buddy. A friend. Afterabout a month, it had finally gotten through to Andrew that nothing was going to happen, and his crush had eventually faded, but Josh had already become part of their group.