Before he can act on any of these impulses, there’s a knock on the door.

Robbie had forgotten she was coming, but as soon as he hears the knock, he knows exactly who’s there. Swearing, he lets go of Lance and gets out of the bed.

How did he forget that Megan was coming by?

Robbie adjusts himself in his jeans with a grimace and looks down at Lance. Lance’s expression is bereft for a moment, before it turns carefully blank. The transition sears Robbie. He bends back over the bed and touches Lance’s cheek, which is still chilled even though there’s a bright blush staining his skin. All he wants to do is get back down beside him, peel off those threadbare boxers, and…well, at that point, it gets a little fuzzy, either because Robbie doesn’t have a parallel experience for source material or because trying to imagine it short-circuits his desperately turned-on brain.

Another knock sounds, and Robbie twists to look at the door, half-afraid it’s going to open before he’s had a chance to explain. Megan is waiting outside in the snow and won’t think anything of letting herself in if she thinks he hasn’t heard her. There’s no way to emerge into friendship from a decade-plus relationship and still worry about privacy when you assume—with good reason—that the other person will be alone.

“Robbie!” she calls.

Robbie hears the little intake of breath from behind him and turns just as Lance scrambles out of the bed, untangling himself from the blanket as he moves. He looks at Robbie with an expression of pure betrayal.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Robbie is quick to say, but Lance looks unconvinced—and also sinfully gorgeous with his damp hair and his flushed face and his heaving chest and his—goddamn, Robbie has been curious about men before, yes, but never before has the outline of someone’s semi made his mouth water.

While he’s staring, Megan finally loses patience and pushes open the door.

“Sorry,” she says, stomping off her boots and obviously not yet having realized Robbie has other company, “but it’s cold out there, and I figured you were—”

Robbie turns just in time to see Megan notice Lance, and her jaw drops. She almost trips over the boots she just shucked as she tries to backpedal out the door in her socks. “Sorry! Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, I—”

“Meg, it’s not….” He wasn’t going to say “it’s not what you think,” was he? When did he become a liar? But at the same time, he does feel like he has something to explain. A drawer skids open behind him, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lance yank one of Johnny’s old flannel shirts over his head.

“No, no, it’s fine, I mean, of course, it is—I’m the one who just burst in, and…okay, yeah, sorry. I’ll just be in the truck.” She’s managed to get her boots back on and escape back out the door. It closes with a thud that makes Robbie flinch.