Decisions: A Best Friends Book Three BXBXB

The Years After The Happy Ending

Chapter Eleven: The Years After The Happy Ending

Present Day: Ten Years After Dane's Wedding

Jamie leaned against the cold window, looking out onto his grandparents' garden, covered in fluffy snow. Rubbed his hands up and down his arms, trying to warm up, cold even though he wore a thick wool sweater he'd bought at a quaint shop during a trip with Shannon to Ireland. It got cold in Vancouver, but being near the coast, the weather was more often moderate than not, even during winter. This cold was the cold of his childhood. The bone deep bitter cold emanating from the mountain that loomed over their town. He wasn't used to it. Didn't like it.

He sighed, and watched as Luke approached.

"Hey, where's my sunshine?" The older man commented, running his hands over Jamie's closely cut hair.

Jamie snorted. He'd started wearing his hair really short a long time ago, but it was still something Luke kept commenting on. It was weird, the other man admitted, seeing Jamie without his curls.

Difficult for him to get used to, because this was the first time he'd seen Jamie in years. He still had a vision in his head of the last time they were together, when Jamie was still basically a boy, lighthearted, carefree, his tumbled curls a symbol of his youth.

"I thought the funeral went well," Luke commented, as Jamie leaned against his old friend. Despite being almost thirty, Jamie still couldn't stand next to someone without touching them. "Your grandfather would have been happy. Practically the whole town was there."

"Yup. He was a man of the people." Jamie rolled his eyes. They both knew the truth. That Luther was often a prejudiced, narrow minded, bigot. Yes, he ran a successful tourist lodge. Yes, he brought a lot of money to their small community. Yes he gave to the charities that supported his limited views. Like the NRA, but also the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. For obvious reasons.

"I hate funerals. People shouldn't die. It sucks," Jamie tried to laugh, but it didn't quite sound sincere.

"I know, baby." Kissing Jamie's neck softly.

Jamie turned to Luke and rolled his eyes. "Stop. Don't flirt with me. I'm not into it anymore, Luke. Your husband might be bothered by it."

Luke sighed. And thought back to that other winter, long ago. The evening that was the beginning of the end of his relationship with Jamie.

===

The Past: Two Years After Dane's Wedding

"The artist obviously prefers stars as a theme, instead of the sun. He should have just focused on that image. Everything's muddled with the inclusion of the sun pieces. They don't fit."

Jamie and Luke froze, overhearing the comment by a random visitor to Noah's first student exhibition.

It was a big deal. Most sophomores weren't invited to host such an evening, but Noah had won almost every prize and scholarship the school offered. It seemed neglectful to not allow him to show his collection to the public, as an exemplary student in the BC University art department.

And true to his nature, what would have been a source of crazy panic inducing chaos in anyone else, being asked to organize some pieces for an exhibition with only a few weeks notice, Noah calmly, without drama, selected some of his older paintings, worked up a few new ones, and was ready a few days earlier than was expected.

It was a small, but well attended event. A few local artists of good name, the admin of the art department, a few bigwigs from local graphic design companies, always on the lookout for new talent to hire, and even a some moneyed collectors who'd heard good things from this young man, hoping to purchase some works inexpensively before his name became more widely recognized.