"Can it come back?" Riley asked.

Eli shook his head. "It can but I don't think about it. It's been a few years and everything is clear so far."

After releasing their mutual grip, Eli forked a huge pile of salad into his mouth and treated Riley to a view of mashed pasta and sauce on his tongue.

Riley sighed. "You'll never grow up, will you." Eli swallowed. "Nope."

Riley couldn't even begin to think about what he had just said. Eli was the same age as Riley, only a couple of months separated his July birthday from Eli's in September.

"I'm sorry, you know, for what happened at college," Riley offered finally. Might as well deal with the elephant in the room.

"You mean for that argument?" Eli pushed pasta to one side of his plate and then looked up directly at Riley.

"It was stupid and I've grown up a lot since then." Riley said this knowing it to be true. "I slept around with so many different people you were right to call me on it."

"Nah, I was just a kid who was jealous that you could sleep with all those different people. Anyway, how can I be angry for anything you did with anyone at college, including Lexie, when you have Hayley to show for it?"

Riley smiled at the mention of his daughter. The he sobered.

"If we hadn't argued I could have been there for you when you were ill." The words hung there. They had been good friends pushed apart by Eli trying to do the right thing and rein in Riley's catting around, and he couldn't regret his stupid reaction enough. "You wouldn't have got drunk and taken the car."

Both men sat quietly for a moment, each remembering the dean's car in the lake and the subsequent sending away of one Eli drunk-off-his-ass Martin. Eli laughed first. When Riley got past the whole thing of not believing Eli was laughing about what had happened, he joined in. Seeing his friend sitting on the bank watching over a hundred thousand dollars of Ferrari ass end up in lake mud was pretty fucking hysterical. Argument or not, Eli had certainly left the college with a bang.

"Tell me about this arranged marriage thing then," Eli asked. He had stopped laughing and the waiter had cleared the plates.

Riley took the opener for what it was—the chance for Eli to change the subject—and using as many funny stories as he could he gave Eli the whitewashed version of how he had met Jack and how he had fallen in love.

With a whole lot more laughing and no thinking the bad things that had happened to death.

That was a new experience for Riley.

* * * * "Jeez. What did you say when he told you?" Jack asked. Eli had cancer? That wasn't what Jack had expected as the outcome of his husband meeting Eli for lunch.

"I didn't say anything. What could I say? He trusted me with the news and I think he wanted me to just go with the flow. So we did. We talked a lot about you. I think he has a small crush on you. We just carried on like it's every day someone you know lays having cancer on you."

"Cancer is harsh," Jack commented.

"The way Eli explained it made it all sound so simple. But it seemed as we chatted that Eli was alone when it happened. He was out of college and not in touch with friends, not in touch with me, and with his mom and dad who didn't give much of a shit about anything but themselves." Riley sounded alternately sad and remorseful. "If I'd known—"

"He didn't tell you. How could you have known?" Jack tried to be the sensible one.

"I never should have been such a child over Lexie. He told me I was treating her like shit, cheating on her, and we argued."

Jesus, Riley was so hard on himself. Why did he do that? What purpose did it serve to beat himself up over not being there for a friend so many years ago.

"I know. You said when he first visited," Jack commented in summary.

"I was a dickhead."

"Riley." Jack said the single word with a note of warning and Riley subsided to looking into his coffee cup morosely. Sometimes all Riley needed was to be told not to think a certain way. Not that Jack assumed it immediately impacted his husband to stop worrying. It did, however, reset Riley's worry so that he could break the cycle of beating himself up over things. Amazing how much you learned about people in a few years. Like Riley knew that standing in Jack's way had the effect that Jack's temper went from boiling to merely simmering. Words wouldn't stop the temper but Riley physically blocking Jack always did.

Jack's cell rang and he scrambled to reach it before the requisite four rings took it to voicemail. He'd been expecting a call from Neil about Daisy, who was really unsettled despite this being the second week since she arrived.

"Hello?" He answered quickly. He hadn't even looked at the screen. He listened for a few minutes and watched as Riley was checking his cell phone for messages, the tall man slouching so he could lean on the side counter.

"Mr Campbell-Hayes, I'm so pleased to reach you directly. My name is Frank Templeton and I am on the committee for the Texas Gay Rodeo Association. Maybe you have heard of us?"

"I have. How can I help?"

"Mr Campbell-Hayes, we have a proposition for you."

Jack listened. He heard every word that Frank Templeton said, but he wasn't sure they had the right man. He didn't say as much; he didn't want to seem rude. Best take the offer at face value he guessed.

"Thank you," he said. "It's an honor to be asked. I will have an answer to you by tomorrow."

Frank ended the call and Jack stared at his phone in bewilderment. He couldn't believe what he had just been asked and he sat at the kitchen table with his coffee and a completely blank hole where his thought processes should have been.

"Who was it?"

Pause.

"Jack?"

Pause.

"Talk to me… what's wrong? Is it Beth?"

Riley was talking to him and Jack blinked away the shock. "No, not Beth. That was a guy from the TGRA; they want me to be a judge with the gay rodeo that's holding finals in Texas in October." He finally managed to get the words out and then slumped in his seat.

"TGRA?"

"Texas Gay Rodeo Association."