That was just so wrong.

“Okay,” she said, closing up the cardboard box she’d just emptied. “Pretty much done in here, which is good. I can cook dinner, anyway. Now I just have to finish putting some clothes away.”

Hailey glanced at her watch. “I should get going.”

“Oh. I was going to see if you wanted to stay for dinner too. You could meet Dag.”

“Much as I’d love to meet a boring friend of Chris’s, I have other plans.” Hailey’s contempt for Chris and Kassidy’s corporate careers and conventional life annoyed Kassidy, but she let it slide off her like she always did. “Got a hot date.”

“Oh. Really.”

Two years younger than Kassidy, Hailey’d always been the wild child of the family, causing their parents no end of anxiety. When Hailey had started smoking at age fourteen, Kassidy had been horrified. When Hailey’d started doing drugs, she’d been shocked. The drinking and partying had in truth made her a little envious…and the boys…well, Kassidy couldn’t even imagine that. She’d had three steady boyfriends in her entire life, including Chris. She much preferred that to a string of meaningless sexual encounters with guys she didn’t even know.

And Hailey showed no signs of settling down. She’d dropped out of college to work as a bartender, and still did. Kassidy had no idea how Hailey lived the lifestyle she did off the kind of money she made bartending—maybe she didn’t want to know. Hailey’s licentious lifestyle had always made her a little uncomfortable.

“Well, have fun,” she told her sister. “Thanks for helping.”

“No prob.”

“Hey, Mom and Dad’s thirtieth anniversary is coming up. I was thinking we should plan something for them.”

Hailey frowned. “We just did something for their twenty-fifth.”

“That was five years ago!”

“But twenty-five is the big one. We don’t need to do something for their thirtieth.”

Kassidy blew out a breath. “Sure. Never mind. Chris and I will do something.”

Jesus, Hailey could be annoying, especially when it came to their parents.

Hailey took off with a wave and Kassidy wandered into the bedroom, her irritation with her sister scraping away some of the pleasure she felt from living with Chris. She opened a drawer and saw Chris’s socks and underwear shoved inside in a jumble. Shaking her head, she removed everything and carefully replaced it, neat and organized. He’d be so happy when he saw that.

She sat on the bed and looked around the room, now nice and neat, the mix of their belongings a happy symbol of their two lives now linked together in cohabitation. She let the happiness swell inside her again. She loved Chris so much, and seeing her moisturizer sitting beside his aftershave sent a wave of contentment through her.

She glanced at her watch. Better get dinner started. In her new kitchen, she laid the cookbook open on the shiny granite counter and looked back and forth from it as she prepared the Greek chicken casserole, adding chicken to tomatoes and black olives. She crumbled feta cheese on top and popped it into the oven to bake. The guys would be back any minute.

She set out salad ingredients, and then, because they weren’t home yet, used the extra time to fix herself up, changing from rolled-up sweatpants and a T-shirt into a pair of knee-length shorts and a loose camisole top.

She was ready. The casserole was ready. Chris and Dag still weren’t back. They must have gone out somewhere after the game. With another glance at her watch, she sighed. The casserole sat on the stove. It would keep.

Then she heard the key in the lock and hurried toward the door. Chris and Dag walked in, bringing the smell of fresh air and sunshine with them. Their eyes sparkled, their faces were tanned from sitting in the sun all afternoon at Wrigley Field and they looked like they’d been laughing.

“Hey, sweetheart, sorry we’re late,” Chris said, hugging her and kissing her mouth. He smelled like beer. Not obnoxiously, like he was drunk, just as if he’d had a few.

“It’s my fault,” Dag said from behind him, and she met his sexy dark eyes. Once again that little current of electricity jolted her as their eyes met and held. “These are for you.”

He held out a cellophane cone full of pale pink and fuchsia gerbera daisies, all bright and cheery. She’d been ready to be annoyed, but the sweet gesture softened her up, even though she totally recognized it as sucking up.

“Thank you.” She moved to take them from him. He opened his arms for a hug. She hesitated. For some reason she did not want to touch him. But she moved toward him anyway and gave him one of those superficial, barely touching hugs you give a near-stranger or an uncle you haven’t seen for years.

But that wasn’t good enough for him, and he pulled her in and gave her a quick squeeze that pressed her breasts into his chest and sent fire licking over her. It was over in a second but she had to swallow and clasp her hands tightly around the flowers. She focused on them instead of Dag.

“They’re beautiful,” she said. “I love them.”

Dag smiled, his dark eyes crinkling and warm. Both he and Chris were bright-eyed and suntanned and happy, and her heart swelled at seeing Chris so relaxed and cheerful. A surge of gratitude toward Dag rose inside her, gratitude for coming back to see his old friend, for bringing such a smile to his face and a sparkle to his eyes. Not that Chris had been miserable. She just knew this meant a lot to him. So she sent a warm smile Dag’s way, and once again their gazes hooked together and hung there, suspended, as if she couldn’t look away.

“Come on in,” Chris said, leading the way into the living room. Dag looked around and Kassidy moved to the kitchen to find a vase for the flowers, hands unsteady, stomach quivering.

She could not remember where she’d put the vases. Likely Hailey had unpacked them. She searched through cupboards, flustered—Where are the vases, dammit?—and listened to the guys talking about the condo.

“Nice,” Dag said. “Really nice.”

“Three bedrooms,” Chris said. “One’s going to be my home office eventually. Still have some work to do.”

She found a vase and arranged the flowers then carried them to the living room and set them on a side table. “Dinner’ll be ready in a few minutes,” she said. “I just have to cook the pasta and toss the salad.”

“How about another beer?” Chris offered Dag. They followed her into the kitchen. It seemed very confined in that small space with those two big guys moving around.

“Who won the game?” she asked, filling a pot with water.

“Phillies won, three to two.”

“Cubs kinda sucked,” Dag added.

“It’s early in the season,” Chris said. “Thanks for the game, man.” And he looped an arm around Dag’s neck and pulled him in for a brief squeeze.

She watched the hug then turned away to run water into the big pot for the pasta, the image of that brief embrace lingering in her head. Stuck there. Making her feel…she didn’t know what. And she didn’t know why. Maybe it was because she’d never seen Chris do that with any of his other friends. As she set the pot on the stove to boil, she kept thinking about it, even as they moved out of the kitchen with their drinks.

She liked seeing Chris do that. Once again, she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because of what had happened when Chris met her friend Steve. Steve had been one of her best friends in high school, part of the crowd she hung around with, and he was gay. He’d never “come out”—he just always was out. As far back as she could remember, everyone knew it and accepted it. He was a great guy. He had boyfriends, and so did she.

Then in the summer after graduation, he’d been attacked by some kind of sick homophobes after coming out of a gay bar downtown. He’d been close to dying, in the hospital for weeks with serious injuries. She and all her friends had spent hours at the hospital visiting him, sick with grief and rage over what had happened to him. He’d recovered, but after that he’d moved away. They still kept in touch, and when he’d come back for a visit last year, she’d been anxious for Chris to meet him and his new partner. It didn’t bother her at all, but Chris was cool, almost awkward around Steve and Ryan, and that troubled her a little.