them. Try everything on and let me take a look when you’re done.”
Julian was tired, and he wanted to argue, but it was easier this way. He slipped in and out of garments, opening and closing the door, turning from side to side for pictures until his friend was happy.
“Your dad just sent me a text asking me if I was coming to the wedding,” Ilan said through the door as Julian struggled back into his button-up. “What should I tell him?”
Toeing on his shoes, Julian opened the door and crossed his arms. “You know I want you there, but I also don’t want you in jail.”
Ilan bit the inside of his cheek and breathed out through his nose. “If you promise me,” he said quietly, putting a hand to the side of Julian’s neck, “that you are going to let yourself have a good time and be swept off your feet…”
“For pay.”
Ilan rolled his eyes. “Yes, for pay…then I’ll come. If you also promise me a dance.”
“You can have all the damn dances,” Julian said, because it was a fair trade. What he wanted more than anything was for Ilan to go with him and stay the entire time, but he knew that was impossible. Even if his schedule would allow it, there’s no way he’d last around Julian’s family or Bryce for that long.
Ilan’s beginnings had been humble. His father worked in administration at Julian’s private school, which offered Ilan a scholarship. And he’d been singled out and mocked for his secondhand clothes and tattered shoes. It was one of the reasons they’d found solace in each other. They stood on shared ground, different lives but similar people—and it didn’t matter how they turned out in the end. They understood each other better than two people ever could.
And even with his career now, and his money, Ilan could never stomach people like Julian’s mother. He never saw the point in her performative charity, and the way she treated her family like cute accessories. Ilan was protective, and loud about it. Bryce’s wedding week would be too much, and Julian wasn’t going to ask Ilan to risk his own future for the sake of a punch, even if it would be satisfying.
They made their way to the register and Ilan had the courtesy to let Julian pay for the clothes he was probably going to wear only once, and then they headed for dinner. Ilan indulged his expensive tastes in a posh little sushi bar with rooftop views. The air was warm for December, a hint of rich humidity on the breeze, and he shrugged his jacket off as they grabbed a table near the railing and settled in.
“I want to live near the beach,” Ilan said after a while. “This view would be so much better with the ocean.”
Julian chuckled. “Not my ideal place.” He hated the wind, and the salt air, and the way it made his hair impossible. He wanted something like mountains, like rolling, green hills and countryside. Maybe somewhere with a quiet city—old buildings with rich history.
He wanted to be a part of something ancient, something that predated his tracked genetics. But he knew he wouldn’t go far from his parents—at least, not until his dad died, and he wasn’t ready to face that yet.
“Are you going to start dating again?” Ilan asked after the server dropped off drinks and their dish of ginger and wasabi. He’d ordered himself sake, which was hot—tendrils of steam rising from the small opening in the pot. He offered some to Julian who shook his head, then he sipped from his little cup and sighed. “I know people. Good people.”
“Ones I won’t have to pay for?” Julian said, just to be a little mean, but Ilan only smiled.
“I know both kinds.”
Julian shook his head. “I mean, yes to dating. I think once Bryce officially moves to New York with Ashton, I’ll feel better about it.”
“I’m happy to introduce you around,” Ilan told him. “I’m sure I could find you someone.”
With a shrug, Julian reached for his water and took a long drink. “What about you? I know you’re trying to fix me up to distract yourself, but you can’t last on those one-night stands forever.”
Ilan picked at his thumbnail and sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve tried it, but nothing works after the third date. No one gets me.”
And where that might have sounded pretentious and ridiculous on anyone else, Julian understood what Ilan was saying. Someone who loved