The Flame by Christopher Rice Read Free Book Online Page A

She’s crossed her hands over her lap like a prim schoolteacher. She’s shaking her head and taking deep, dramatic breaths through both nostrils. The only thing she’s missing is a Bible and a fan.
    “Lord, girl,” he mutters. “Calm down.”
    “She is your best friend,” Samantha whispers.
    “Yeah, well, maybe you’ll replace her.”
    “He’s her husband.”
    “Yeah, and he started it. Not me. So lighten up already.”
    “Dark and proud, thank you. It’s the one thing God got right the first time.”
    “Samantha, of all people, I didn’t think you would be so judgmental.”
    “Oh, what? You think ‘cause I’m your trans friend that I’m just gonna sit back quietly while you juggle knives? Listen here, Shane. Secrecy is not how the heart operates. Take it from someone who used to wait just a little too long to tell a boyfriend my birth certificate said Stanley Scott!”
    “Wait. What secrecy ?”
    “You telling me you never made a move on Cassidy’s husband?”
    “ Never. Oh my God! Andrew? Are you kidding? He’s her husband.”
    “He’s also fine !”
    “Yes, and I love Cassidy and I have a conscience, thank you very much.”
    “So it just came out of the blue? Andrew has too much to drink and suddenly all three of y’all are making out together at some party?”
    “Basically.”
    “ Basically ?”
    How can Shane answer this? Out of the blue… They’re his best friends, for Christ’s sake. He can’t think of any two people in the world he’s closer to, can’t think of anyone who knows more of his secrets than Cassidy and Andrew. But there was one secret they didn’t know. Samantha didn’t know it either. Because no one knew. No one except for the couple he’d shared that furtive afternoon with, on the carpeted floor of the penthouse he’d just sold them. Because they hadn’t just been a couple. They’d been his clients, for God’s sake. And the three of them had done a helluva lot more than make out for a few minutes on some garden bench.
    His cheeks are so hot he contemplates pressing some ice cubes from his water glass to his face. Now he’s struggling to sift through a decade’s worth of memories looking for signs that this—he still doesn’t have a name for it; they’re all too scary—was always in the making, the eruption of a long-denied passion that’s simmered just below the surface for years.
    But Shane is sure of one thing -- Andrew Burke isn’t gay.
    He’s known his fair share of closet cases. Cassidy’s husband isn’t one of them. No man can fake the adoration and desire Shane sees in Andrew’s dark eyes every time he looks at his wife. There’s nothing hesitant or forced about the way Andrew grabs Cassidy right in front of him, tickles her on the hips until she collapses in hysterics onto the sofa and smothers her with kisses until she blushes fiercely and asks him to stop because Shane is still in the room.
    Did Andrew shoot him a look in those moments Shane didn’t read properly? An invitation Shane read as a dismissal?
    Hell, maybe that was Andrew’s real motive the other night. He wanted Cassidy right then in the middle of the party, and he couldn’t be bothered to get rid of Shane first.
    But that’s absurd! Andrew had been focused on something else entirely during those feverish moments; Cassidy and Shane together, in front of him, under his direction. Andrew had wanted those things badly enough to risk the closeness and connection the three of them had built together over the years.
    And where had Shane’s focus been? On Cassidy, on the feel of her opening, on her racing heart as she offered him the one thing she’s never given him, and on Andrew’s firm, forbidden grip on the back of his neck.
    And maybe that’s where he should be looking for signs. Not with Andrew, with Cassidy. Forget Mardi Gras and The Roquelaure House. Try that afternoon last year, when he and Cassidy had been snuggling together on her bed, marathoning reruns of The