Chapter Text
Damen first met Laurent in the back room of a cafe in Marlas. He had just been seated, and Laurent must have been right behind him in the line. By the time Damen looked up, Laurent was being shown to the seat across from him. In Damen’s memory, it was like time stopped. He’d swear it felt that way in the moment, too, as though the world had narrowed to just the two of them. Blond and beautiful, Laurent was like some daydream he’d had, pulled directly from his imagination. He couldn’t believe his luck.
“Hey,” Damen said. Introducing himself seemed silly, given the name tag he’d just stuck to his chest.
“Hey,” Laurent said back. He had his coat slung over one arm, and he kept it there as he sat, uncapped the marker, and began to write on the name tag waiting for him.
Laurent, next to the number 12. Below that, Heston’s vegan mozz.
He fixed it neatly to his sweater, and then his eyes slid over Damen’s. Meat lovers combo. His expression didn’t change.
“I’m going to run to the restroom before it starts,” Laurent said, standing again. He took his coat with him.
Damen had visions of the space filling around him, other single twenty-something guys paired across each row of two-top tables, and Laurent’s seat empty, staying empty, Damen having fucked up his chances before even saying a second word to him. His eyes stayed at the entrance to the room, watching the host continue to seat men as they arrived until—Laurent reemerged, minus his coat, which he must have hung on one of the hooks in the hall where Damen had hung his.
He was so perfectly Damen’s type that he almost didn’t look real.
“Are you going to order something?” Laurent asked as he sat back down.
Damen was twenty-six, and he’d been dating for over a decade. He knew how to have a first date. Normally, though, by the time he was sitting down at a table with someone, there was already a baseline atmosphere of warm interest. Laurent was polite but cold. Damen had no idea how to start from zero, and he had no idea how much time he had left to turn it around. He half expected a timer to ding, their minutes already spent.
“I don’t know,” Damen said. “It seems distracting, right? Trying to eat and talk at the same time when you don’t have long?”
“You’re in the right spot for it, if you want to. Evens change tables, and odds stay where they are.”
Damen’s name tag, next to his name, above Meat lovers combo, has the number 11. “You’ve come to one of these before?”
“Third time,” Laurent said.
“So—it didn’t work?”
“Define ‘work.’” He looked over his shoulder and caught a waiter’s eye, flagged him down. Blue eyes back on Damen, he said, “Why would someone come back if they didn’t have a positive experience?”
“But you didn’t meet anyone,” Damen said. “Or you wouldn’t be back.”
“Or it’s gone so well that this has become my preferred way to meet people.”
Then the waiter was there, and Laurent ordered some kind of tea Damen had never heard of. Damen went ahead and ordered a beer, just to have something.
“You’ve talked to a lot of people, then,” Damen said, when the waiter was gone. “Is it—what’s it like?”
Laurent smiled. Just a hint of it, briefly, but Damen’s eyes were caught on Laurent’s mouth. “Do you not talk to people?”
“Not under a time limit, typically,” Damen said. “Or in succession, or with twenty other conversations happening at the same time.” The noise had been building in the background. They were the eleventh and twelfth to arrive, and their number had at least tripled already.
“We don’t meet everyone else,” Laurent said. “A dozen at most. And there will be prompts, when we actually start.” He gestured to the projector screen on the far side of the room, which was displaying a welcome message and a brief introduction to the forms on the table in front of each of them.
Matching Sheet, it said across the top. A place for Damen’s name and email, then phone number and Instagram handle, both marked optional. A dozen blank rows where he could fill in names, with check boxes for would hang out with as a friend and would go out on a date.
“We haven’t started?” Damen said. So many people were already talking. He and Laurent were already talking.
“They don’t start until everyone’s here and has a chance to get settled,” Laurent said. “They’ll do the intro first, how to fill out the sheet, all of that, and then the first prompt.”
“What kind of prompts?” Damen asked.
“Did you read the description at all when you bought the ticket?” Laurent asked. He sounded—well, kind of mean, but that hint of a smile was back.
“I wasn’t expecting pizza toppings,” Damen said, “and yet.”
“It won’t be pizza toppings,” Laurent said. “It’ll be—What are you most afraid of? Think of your ideal self; what’s stopping you from being that person? What’s a challenge you overcame?”
“So a job interview. I’m great at those.”
Laurent quirked one eyebrow. “Are you telling recruiters your deepest fears?”
“I’m not telling any of these people my deepest fears,” Damen said. “Why would I want to do that?”
And Laurent laughed, genuinely, like Damen had surprised it out of him. He was even more beautiful smiling. “Isn’t that contrary to the spirit of the exercise?”
“I’m not here to do an exercise,” Damen said. “I just want to meet someone.”
Laurent only looked at him. Damen was thinking of what to say next, of what he wanted to know, of what might make Laurent laugh again, and then the waiter was back. Laurent’s mug was round and nearly as big as his head. Damen drank from his beer. Conversation hummed around them. He was looking at Laurent, and Laurent was looking back at him.
“All right! Is everyone ready to get started?”
The MC and his microphone were unnaturally loud, the subsequent hush through the room unnaturally quiet. It was exactly what Laurent had said—he introduced the matching sheet, the five-minute conversations, the prompts. There would be a ten minute break in the middle. Everyone with an even number would be getting up.
They would be getting up now, and moving to the next table, and then the event would begin.
“It was nice to meet you, Damen,” Laurent said. He was standing, sheet and pen in one hand, mug in the other. “I hope you meet someone.”
—
At twenty-nine, Damen’s eyes still catch on Laurent, but now it’s a twinge. A muscle cramp, or a stye.
“That’s Laurent,” Isander says. “Do you want me to introduce you?”
“They know each other,” Nikandros says. There’s both amusement and annoyance in his voice.
“Why is he here?” Damen asks, at the same time that Isander says, “I thought he was one of Lazar’s guests.”
“We all know Lazar,” Nikandros says, as Isander repeats, now in answer to Damen, “He’s one of Lazar’s guests.”
“No, why is he here already? It’s only Thursday.”
In the pause that follows, Damen can almost hear Nik rolling his eyes. He doesn’t see it; he’s still looking at Laurent’s easy posture on the far end of the patio, talking with Pallas and his mother Sofia.
“Why are you here?” Isander asks. Then, as though only aware of the words once he’s said them, he adds, “I mean—you’re both here for the same reason, right?”
Damen figured Laurent would come for the weekend, but only the weekend. Saturday for the pre-wedding festivities, and Sunday for the wedding itself. He’s always complaining about the heat, about Akielon food, about crowds and parties and volume. But he’s here now. He got here before Damen. He’s making nice with Pallas’s mom, and his cousin Isander, who is already saying Laurent’s name with a smile in his voice.
“You made it!”
It’s Charis. Damen usually thinks of her as Nik’s girlfriend, but this weekend she’s Pallas’s sister before anything else. Her arm is around Damen in greeting, just for a moment, and her lips press to his cheek. Then she’s at Nik’s side, fitted neatly against him. Or Damen assumes that’s where she’s moved to, that she’d be where she always is; he’s still looking at Laurent.
It is ridiculous that he’s doing this. He knows what Laurent looks like, whether or not he’s ever seen him in loose-fitting linen, smiling and leaning in, aglow at golden hour. Damen blinks, as if that’s ever helped a stye.
“You’ve met Isander,” Charis checks, an offer of an introduction if he needs it.
“I think I know everyone here,” Damen says, finally taking a real look around the patio. Aside from Laurent, the only person he sees from Lazar’s side is Huet.
“More of the family will be here on Saturday,” Charis says. “And a few more of Lazar’s guests tomorrow.”
“Oh!” Isander says, remembering. “When’s your fiance coming down? She didn’t arrive with you, did she?”
“I’m not engaged,” Damen says.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I thought—”
“You remembered right,” Laurent says, in gently accented Akielon.
Damen didn’t see him cross the patio. He took his eyes off him, and he should have known better. Looking at him—bright, easy, warm—is as necessary as it is frustrating.
“He was engaged,” Laurent continues. “He just isn’t anymore.”
He plays it exactly right. A polite interjection, helpful, for Isander’s sake. Laurent would never be so rude as to bring it up on his own.
And yet he’s still going. “‘Here for a good time, not a long time,’ right? Wasn’t that it?”
That’s the thing about Laurent. No matter how he plays it, the underlying reality is that he’s miserable, and he wants everyone to be there with him. “And you, Laurent?” Damen switches to Veretian. “Have you ever had a good time, ever, in your life? Have you ever tried loosening up even a single inch?”
“You’d know loose.” Laurent switches with him. His expression hasn’t shifted, not once. “Or—maybe you wouldn’t, not even if it was living in your house and fucking your brother in your bed.”
Damen leaves the patio. He hears other footsteps, but it isn’t Nik following him, it’s Laurent walking in the opposite direction. He thinks. He doesn’t turn around to check.
“You’ll get used to them,” Charis is telling Isander.
The villa is a maze, and Damen is half convinced he’s about to round a corner and find cold blue eyes on him, that mouth somehow still going. He makes it back without incident, though, back to the room Nik showed him earlier. A room for two, all for Damen, because he hasn’t seen his plus one in nearly two months.
Four nights in Kesus. Alone. And Laurent is going to be here the entire time.
—
Damen’s first speed-date went about as well as he could have expected. The prompt was What’s something new you’ve been wanting to try? What’s stopping you from trying it?
Damen said, “Well, I’ve never dated a guy.”
The guy across from him—number 10, cheese, Damen’s forgotten his name—opened his mouth as though to respond, but nothing came out.
“I mean—I want to. That’s why I’m here. I’m bi, but I’ve only dated women. I’m not straight, and I’m out and everything, but all my relationships have been with women. And I thought it would be good to switch it up, but so far on the apps—I’m on the apps, a couple different ones, two or three, and it’s all very hookup-focused. You know? So I haven’t had any luck finding a date. I mean, I’ve had luck. I’ve had sex with men. Not just from apps. My first time with a guy was seven or eight years ago, so—I’ve had sex with men. But on the apps, whenever I connect with anyone, it’s clear they want to get right to that, and it’s hard to actually, you know, connect. In a romantic way, I mean, and not only—sexually. Not that I don’t want to connect sexually, but when it comes to dating, I do like there to be some amount of romance, too. And I thought an in-person event like this might be a better way to connect. Romantically.”
At the next table, less than two feet away, Laurent had the back of his hand over his mouth. It almost looked like he was covering a cough, except that his eyes were crinkling with laughter.
“I want to learn another language,” Number 10 said, after a silence that felt like a full five minutes in itself.
“I speak a few,” Damen said, in Akielon.
Number 10 tilted his head, brought his ear closer to Damen. “What?”
“I speak multiple languages,” Damen repeated in Veretian.
“Oh,” Number 10 said. “Okay.”
“That’s five,” the MC said into the microphone. “Evens, please stand and move to the next table.”
“Okay,” Number 10 repeated as though to himself, and he moved without another word to Damen.
The next table was the last of the row. When Laurent got up, he carried his big round mug to the row of tables down the middle of the room. Damen couldn’t not look at him. He was still smiling a little, and his hands were full, so Damen could see his mouth. In the next row, odds and evens were switched, so Laurent’s back was to Damen once he sat.
When Damen signed up for this, he was picturing it like a dinner party, but larger, and in a more public setting. He liked dinner parties. He’d liked house parties when he was younger, in college, but in the last year or two he’d started to like gatherings where there was more food than alcohol and the music was quiet enough for conversation. He liked meeting his friends’ friends, and their girlfriends’ friends, or coworkers, or old college dorm mates. He liked when they hit it off and saw each other again the next time, caught up, became friends in their own right.
Five minutes wasn’t long enough to feel like you’d met someone. Even when the prompts were normal, or Damen’s answers were normal, it felt like the MC was cutting them off just as they found their rhythm. Number 8 (pepperoni) had also lived in Ios, had gone south for school and returned to Delfeur, the opposite of Damen, but they only figured this out in the final minute of the “date.” Number 6 (pineapple) asked what Damen did for work only seconds before their time was up, having spent the rest of it telling Damen how much he loved bowling.
By Number 4 (Neapolitan), Damen finished his beer. Between Number 4 and Number 2 (cheese, again), Damen ordered another, plus a curry and rice plate. He increasingly resented being on the odd side of the table, stuck in one spot against the wall, feeling too large, like his legs weren’t fitting below the table top the way they were supposed to.
His final match of the first half was with Number 36 (peppers), and it took him a few minutes to recognize him as the host who had been seating people when they arrived. He had light brown hair, almost blond, and his black t-shirt read like a dress code rather than a fashion choice. It was too far into the conversation for Damen to betray that he’d only just realized this, but he said it anyway, and the host didn’t seem bothered.
“We can’t have odd numbers,” the guy explained, “so I get to join if we wind up with a no-show. It’s nice—I’d rather talk to people than sit in the corner for the whole thing.”
When he’d arrived, Damen had assumed the guy was cafe staff, not event staff. “Do you feel like you’re meeting people, or like you’re entertaining customers?”
“It varies.” He was soft spoken, but pitched his voice just right for Damen to hear him clearly in the crowded room. “Some people act like customers with everyone they meet, I think. But you know, even when it feels like work, I think it’s a worthwhile thing to practice. It’s good to be able to talk to people.”
The MC cut them off then, and let them all know to come back to these seats in ten minutes.
“See you in ten, Damen,” the host said, with a sweet and seemingly genuine smile. “It was nice to meet you.”
Damen immediately felt bad for not having caught his name. He got it later—it was Erasmus, this was how he met Erasmus—but in the moment he only remembered that the evens had looped around, and he’d just spoken with the person with the highest number, who had started furthest from him in the room.
He scanned for Laurent without meaning to. He stood out, was the thing. His blond hair was like a beacon. Damen spotted him on the far side of the room, where the staff had set out pitchers of water.
“This isn’t quite what I was picturing,” Damen said, now beside him with his own glass of water.
Laurent gave him a look that could have been annoyance as much as it could have been curiosity. “Meet anyone promising?”
I met you. “I’m not sure yet,” Damen said.
“Well, either way, now you can say you’ve been on dates with men,” Laurent said. “Six dates. You’re making huge strides.”
He had been listening. Now he was looking at Damen, assessing. Damen couldn’t help staring back, studying Laurent studying him.
“What is it?”
“You’re taller than I realized.”
“Yeah, all of my strides are huge,” Damen joked. Laurent didn’t smile, but he kept looking at him. “It’s—it’s pretty weird, to be honest. I don’t know how you’ve done two of these.”
“If we’re counting six for you, I’m at nearly thirty.” Laurent looked away then, out to the rest of the room, but he was still standing close to Damen, his body angled towards him.
“How’s your success rate?” Laurent hadn’t answered when Damen asked before, and he wanted to know. Anyone would want to see Laurent again, but it was hard to guess what Laurent was after.
“For completed conversations?” He sipped from his glass. “One hundred percent. I did not walk out once.”
“What about successful connections?”
“Oh, I’m not here for that,” Laurent said. “I’m here on the advice of my therapist.”
Damen laughed. “Your therapist’s advice was to go speed-dating and not meet anyone.”
“Yes.” His eyes came back to Damen’s. “I’m here to actively sabotage everyone I speak to, and he says that’s very healthy and well-adjusted of me.”
“So I can blame being sat with you for how badly I’m doing so far.” Damen was grinning.
“Well, you’re learning.” Now Laurent was smiling too. “‘Don’t open by describing your history with gay sex.’ That’s lesson one, and see, now you know that.”
“You have a better opening, I’m sure.”
His smile changed, and he tipped back the rest of his water. “That opening is actually perfect for my purposes. We’ll all have the worst possible time. Zero percent success, guaranteed.”
It would have worked on Damen, but he wasn’t about to say that. “Does it count as a success if you don’t walk out but the other person does?”
“What if—” Laurent started, and then the MC spoke into his microphone.
“All right, everyone. It’s time to return to your tables. Please return to the same seat where you were before the break.”
Laurent flashed Damen a smile, a slight tilt of his head, and headed for a table in the second row. Damen went back to his seat to find the curry and rice plate and second beer had been delivered in his absence. The host was there already; he smiled when Damen joined him but quickly glanced down and away. Then the MC was telling the evens, once again, to stand and move to the next table.
The next set was worse, in that Damen was distracted and kept looking across the room at the back of Laurent’s head. Numbers 34 (cheese, maybe?) and 26 (sausage) seemed restless and distinterested; Damen wondered if they had also met people they’d rather be talking to at this point, or were reconsidering this entire format the same way he was.
It was also easier, in that Damen no longer cared. Five minutes wasn’t long enough to feel like he’d met someone, but it was long enough to decide whether he wanted to keep talking to them, and for the most part he didn’t. He was now actively eating dinner, too, while his companions had a beverage at most. The moment a silence began to stretch, he took another bite and let it keep going.
Number 30 (veggie) was someone he might have matched with on an app, might have met for an unromantic encounter, but in person it was immediately clear the two of them had no hope of carrying on a conversation. They ran out of material for the prompt (How have you changed since you were younger? How are you the same?) in the first thirty seconds. Number 28 (4 cheese at Veggie Crust!!) wasn’t Damen’s type in the slightest, but he had traveled a lot, and they switched to Patran for the last minute or two just for the hell of it. Damen was not going to get a boyfriend out of this. There were other kinds of connections.
His final five minutes (Number 24, cheese asiago) were practically scripted—the same small talk he’d been rehashing all night, the same beats to the same stuttering rhythm. When the MC cut them off with a new line, Damen felt like he was waking up from a long nap.
“That’s it, everyone! It’s 9 pm, which means it’s time for us to let you go.”
Damen’s eyes flew to Laurent, at a table in the third row with his back to Damen, along the opposite wall.
“Take a moment now to finalize your sheet. Remember, the cafe is still open and will be open until 11:30, so please feel free to head to the front and grab dinner, grab drinks, grab a new friend and keep the conversation going, but before you do any of that, grab your sheet and turn it in to us on your way out. No sheet, no matches.”
Damen hadn’t written a single thing on his sheet past his own contact information. Looking at nearby tables, it was clear that everyone else had been filling it in as they went, a dozen names all down the first row. Some people left the columns blank and were checking them now, and others had been checking after each conversation. The only name Damen could remember was Laurent’s, and they hadn’t had a speed-date.
8, he wrote, hoping that would be enough. It had to be, or why did they all have numbers? 36. 30. 28. He checked the hang out column for each, folded his sheet in half, and handed it to the guy he would later learn was named Erasmus (36, peppers) with a quick smile and nod.
He knew he was blocking half the space of the hallway, but he had to do what he could. He didn’t know which black coat was Laurent’s. As others reached for theirs, Damen stepped to the side, and then the other side, making room without actually getting out of the way.
“Are you stuck?” Laurent asked. “Is the doorway too small?”
“Laurent,” Damen said. It was his first time saying it, and the name sounded too honest in his mouth.
“Are you really? I was joking. Do you need help? Should we see if someone can help cut it taller? Or is it the shoulders?”
“You haven’t eaten, have you?” Damen asked. He hadn’t taken his coat from its hanger, and Laurent hadn’t made a move to get his yet either.
“I haven’t.” He was standing close, inches from Damen, so that people could pass by behind him. At this proximity, he had to tilt his face up to meet Damen’s eyes.
“Let me buy you dinner,” Damen said. “Here, if you like. It looked like they have a few vegan options on their menu.”
“I’m not vegan,” Laurent said. “I’m just annoying.”
Damen grinned.
—
Laurent makes Damen feel like a teenager. Smaller, less coordinated, more emotional. After a point, he has to admit to himself that he’s sulking, and that he can’t hide in this guest suite forever.
There’s still food out in the kitchen. From the sound of things, most of them have moved on to drinking, either in another room or outside; he can hear layered voices coming from somewhere else in the villa, punctuated by laughter here and there. When he gets to the dining room, it’s just Nik and Charis left. They’ve nearly cleaned their plates, and they’re working on a bottle of wine. Charis has her feet tucked under her in her chair.
“He came and went,” Nik says. “You’re in the clear.”
“And Mom and the rest went back to the house,” Charis says. “We get some quiet tonight.”
“Who’s all here already?” Damen asks. It’s not as if Laurent has any equal, but he’d rather know than not know.
“Laurent,” Nik starts, counting off on his fingers. “Rochert and his wife. Huet. The happy couple, obviously. Family is staying at the house except for Cass,” he says, using her small name.
“Lydos and Elon are both coming down in the morning?” Damen checks.
Charis nods. “Oh, and Jord’s here.”
“Berenger tomorrow too,” Nik adds. “And the other one.”
The only guest who’d be worse than Laurent is Kastor, and Damen knows he’s in the clear there. Pallas and Charis are both younger than Damen, making them both at least a decade younger than Kastor, and even before Damen’s relationship with his brother dissolved, the connections between their families didn’t extend out to Kastor in the same way.
“It’s the tour,” Charis says. “Everyone had to come in time for the wine.”
“Not Laurent,” Damen says.
“So you’ll be free of him tomorrow,” Nik says. “You could sound a little happier about it. ‘Not Laurent!’” He raises his glass with a big fake smile. “It’s a wedding, man.”
“That’s your advice? Doesn’t it kill the vibe if I’m actively hostile to Lazar’s—surrogate brother, or whatever?”
Nik shrugs. “A positive’s a positive. Is it hostility if you’re smiling?”
“Yes,” Damen says, thinking of every smile Laurent has flashed him over the last few years.
“I think he’ll keep to himself,” Charis says. “I don’t think he expected you to be here early.”
He’s the one who started it, Damen doesn’t say. He’s pushing thirty, and this situation is ridiculous.
At his silence, Charis produces a third glass and offers Damen a pour. Damen asks after her family, how the week’s been so far, and gives her room to complain about her father’s persistent nudging that she and Nik should have done this by now, that it’s backwards for the younger brother to be getting married first. Distantly, Damen can hear the others—Lazar’s side—still talking, still laughing, but after a while it’s like they aren’t there. Like it’s any other night at Charis and Nik’s place, before everything happened with Jokaste, when he may as well have been their third roommate, and everything was easier than it is now.
When they get up and bring their dishes to the kitchen, the illusion breaks. Lazar and Laurent are talking quietly, privately, and both of their heads snap up at the intrusion.
“It’s fine,” Laurent says to Lazar, and then something else, lower, that Damen doesn’t catch. There are two paths out of the kitchen, and Laurent takes the other one.
“Can I talk to you?” Lazar asks Damen.
He leads them out the same way Laurent left, but he stops in the hallway, turns. Crosses his arms.
“I get it,” Damen says, crossing his arms to match. “I know.”
“Can you both let it rest? Just for the weekend?”
The exasperation in his voice is a bit much, Damen thinks, given that Damen only got here a few hours ago. But then, this is two and a half years of exasperation. Laurent always starts it, Damen doesn’t say.
“I’m not asking for a miracle. You don’t have to play nice. Not talking at all would be an improvement. And before you say it, I already said this to him. I’m not playing favorites.”
“Laurent’s your favorite,” Damen says.
“Laurent’s my favorite,” Lazar agrees. “Between the two of you? No question.”
“Well, it’s up to him. You know I—”
“‘Don’t have a problem with him,’” Lazar finishes. “Sure you don’t.”
“When you say weekend, are you including tomorrow?” Damen asks.
“You’re both children,” Lazar says. “Children,” he repeats, as he continues down the hallway.
The other voices are up this way. Damen can hear Rochert’s laughter, high and giggly when he drinks. For a moment he imagines joining them, plays it out in his mind. He has a good time with them, generally. He likes Lazar. He likes Jord. He could shake this off, drink a while longer, laugh at whatever’s so funny. They’re an easy group. Generally.
He turns the other way to go back through the kitchen. Charis and Nik have gone. In their place is Laurent, leaning against the counter just like he was with Lazar, as if he never cleared out in the first place. He’s the very picture of nonchalance, the sleeves of his linen button-up pushed to his elbows, his hair mussed just a touch, as though windswept. He looks at Damen like he’s nothing.
Maybe he circled back around to eavesdrop on Damen’s talking-to. Or he came to make nice. Or antagonize him. Damen doesn’t know, and whichever it was, Laurent doesn’t do it. His eyes track Damen as he walks past, but he doesn’t say a word. Damen doesn’t either.
He doesn’t have a problem with Laurent. Laurent’s problem with him is his only problem with Laurent.
After that event three years ago, they stayed in the cafe. Laurent ate, and Damen sipped a novelty drink Laurent ordered for him as a joke, and they talked until the cafe closed. They kept talking, walking, until they reached the point where their paths home split.
“I’d love to see you again,” Damen said, but it turned out Laurent had only been humoring him. Then, half a year later, he did see Laurent again. They were in Lazar’s kitchen. Laurent said, “It’s good to see you,” and at first Damen thought he meant it. It felt like he meant it. Then it felt like he didn’t, but Damen still wanted to believe he did, even as Laurent avoided talking to him the rest of the night.
“Can I get your number?” he finally asked, before he left.
“My number.” Laurent’s gaze was cool.
“Yeah. So I can contact you?”
“What makes you think I want you to be able to do that?”
So that was that. Laurent didn’t want anything to do with him, but he was friends with Lazar, somehow, for whatever reason. Pallas was with Lazar, so Damen was friends with him too. Pallas is still with Lazar. He’s marrying Lazar on Sunday.
It’s been three years. Damen can handle three days.