“Thanks for coming, everyone. Make sure to send daily overviews on action items from here on out, otherwise, that’s really it for now.”

Everyone chuckled, and he smiled, relieved that the meeting had gone well. He’d been asked to stand in for his boss, J.T., who was missing that day, and lead the meeting of his peers. It was simultaneously an honor and a stressor. Some days he still felt like an imposter, playing at being a respectable businessman instead of a horse wrangler. “Have a good evening.” His words were almost drowned out by the sudden spike of noise as everyone stood and gathered their stuff.

Hill closed down his laptop and swore under his breath when he saw the time. The meeting of directors had run over, and the rest of the people quickly clearing the conference room would probably blame Hill for that. However, less than a week from the start of the two and a half month long American Royal, it was necessary for them to come together one last time and make sure everything was prepared.

He was well behind where he wanted to be in his workday now, and that was going to put him into the heart of rush hour traffic. Hill sighed. Might as well stick around the office and get a few more things done before heading home. Better use of time than sitting in his car…

His car…which was at the dealership getting an airbag recall fix he’d been putting off. David had finally just scheduled the repair himself over Hill’s protests that it wasn’t good timing with the Royal right around the corner.

“Nothing’s ever good timing these days. But come on—get your priorities straight. Better inconvenienced than dead, Hill.” A sigh. “I have office hours until five, so I’ll pick you up around five-thirty…”

“Oh fuck.” Knowing his excessively punctual husband, Hill figured David had probably been sitting down in the parking lot since quarter past five…and it was well after six.

He scrambled to scoop the rest of his things off the conference table, wedged them into the case with his laptop, then headed to his office. Ten minutes later, Hill closed the door behind him and waited impatiently for the elevator. He could finish up whatever else he needed to do that couldn’t wait until morning at home this evening.

When the elevator doors opened into the vestibule on the ground floor, he winced at the sight of his husband sitting on a couch by the water feature, leafing through some pop culture magazine.

At the same time, just seeing David took his stress down several notches. At least for the moment. He savored the minute it took to cross the lobby while enjoying David’s handsome profile.

As he came around the side of the seating area, David looked up and smiled, though it looked a bit strained.

“Sorry.” Hill wished he could bend down for a kiss. But even though his co-workers knew he was married to a man, PDA in the very public building lobby wasn’t exactly his style. He settled for a gentle squeeze of David’s shoulder.

“It’s okay. I saw a herd of directors get off the elevator just a little while ago, so I figured the meeting had gone long.” David rose to his feet and led the way toward the revolving lobby door. “I was just glad that you remembered I was picking you up and didn’t get sucked into your desk chair, never to be heard from again.”

Hill’s appreciation of his husband went up another notch at his attempt at humor when he had every right to be irritated. “I would never forget about you.” Which wasn’t precisely the truth and David knew it from the arched eyebrow and smirk he shot at him. He didn’t call Hill on it, though.

Hill settled into striding alongside David down the sidewalk, wondering where the heck he had parked. “Did you not park in the garage?”

“You know I hate garages. I found street parking not far from here.”

Not far turned out to be several blocks, and, with the temperature and humidity reaching ugly levels today, Hill’s shirt was soaked with sweat and sticking to his chest by the time David took out his fob and unlocked the car. David, of course, looked perfectly comfortable.

Hill winced as he sat and the action caused his clammy shirt to adhere to his back. “Yuck.” It had been a long, sweltering summer.

“Here—hydrate.” David slapped a water bottle into his hand then started the car.

Hill immediately reached to crank up the air conditioning.

“You know that doesn’t work until the car warms up,” David reminded him for about the thousandth time in their lives together as he checked for traffic then pulled away from the curb.

The baked air blowing from the vents wasn’t great but it at least evaporated some of the sweat. “I know. I know. I just don’t want to miss any of the cool once it gets going.” He took a drink—still cold. David had to have added ice at the clinic.

He waited for David to say the next line in their predictable exchange, but to his surprise, he didn’t respond. Just as well. Hill was argued out for the day. The silence started to get to him after a few minutes, so he turned on the radio.

David sighed.

“What?” Hill asked as he scanned through the stations. Most of them had talking head DJs being annoying this time of day.

“Nothing.”

David wasn’t exactly a fan of country music, so in deference, he finally settled on NPR. At least their voices were soothing. “You don’t sigh like that when it’s nothing. You’re—what? Mad that I turned on the radio?”

“I said it was nothing.”

The somewhat bitter, sharp edge to David’s voice caused alarm bells to go off. It was very unlike him to sound so grumpy. Hill turned in his seat to face David, seeing that the strained expression he’d greeted Hill with was back. Maybe it wasn’t just Hill being late that had caused it. “Did you get some bad news? You seem upset about something.”

“I’m fine. I just want to get home. Your car is ready, so I’ll drop you off at the dealership. Unless…you want to do something else first…?”

“Like?”

“Grab some dinner? Maybe a drink?”

Hill chuckled. “Happy hour’s over. And it’s a little early for dinner, isn’t it?” They usually ate around eight, depending on what time Hill got home.

David lost his perfect posture for a moment. “Yeah, it is. All right. I’ll just drop you at your car then.”

It looked like David was disappointed, but really, trying to go anywhere but home this time of day was silly, and David was even more of a home-body than he was. If he didn’t feel like cooking, they could order takeout or delivery later.

The rest of the ride was made in silence. David didn’t seem inclined to talk, and Hill had no idea what was bothering him. He kept saying ‘nothing’ and Hill wasn’t a mind reader, so evidently it either wasn’t a big deal or David didn’t want to talk about it. Hill scrolled through his inbox on his phone, answering, forwarding and deleting. Eventually they pulled into the car dealer parking lot.

“Okay, well, I’ll see you at home,” Hill broke the unusually awkward silence as he gathered his briefcase and opened the door, adding the afterthought as he got out, “Thanks for the ride.”

David didn’t look at him, just nodded.

A part of Hill wanted to climb back in the car, not let David leave until he told him what was wrong, but past experience told him he wouldn’t get any further than the first time or two he’d asked.

Hey, he’d tried.

David pulled away as soon as Hill closed the door. After taking a deep breath, he exhaled slowly, trying to zen himself out of the mood he’d crashed into. He knew it was his fault for assuming that Hill might remember today was the anniversary of their first date. Was that such a big deal now that they’d been together for over a decade, and also had a bigger, more important anniversary coming up? They’d celebrated today’s date for years, and had actually wanted to marry on the same date—or at least David had. They’d shifted it to a couple of months later, however, since it hadn’t been possible to steal Hill away from the Royal during September and October. So David’s family had flown in the weekend after the closing of the rodeo in November. They’d served as family for the both of them—Hill’s dad had been in hospice care at the time, and his mother had begged off with a ‘sick mare’.

Funny how she always had a sick horse whenever they asked her to come to the city.

The BBC news over the radio switched to a ring, then the electronic voice announced, “Samuel Weinstein calling.” Weird. It was like David’s thoughts had conjured his brother up, or it might have been if they didn’t talk at least once a day, sometimes more.

“Accept call,” he said to the Bluetooth device. “Hello?” Spotting a fast-food restaurant on his right, he pulled into the parking lot so he wouldn’t get distracted while driving. His older brother was one of his biggest supporters and would be able to tell in an instant that something was wrong.

“Oh. Hey, you. I wasn’t sure you’d answer. You busy…?” His brother’s voice was light and hopeful—he was aware that David had been planning to take Hill after work to do something—anything—to mark the day.

“Nope.” He cleared his suddenly thick throat.

“Oh. Aww, crap. Um…”

When Sam didn’t go on, David realized it was because he thought he might be on speaker with Hill around. “It’s okay. I’m alone.”

“That jerk.” Sam didn’t waste any time in making his feelings known. “Did he stay late at work? After you arranged for the car thing and everything?”

“No, I did pick him up.” He’d rather die than admit his fear that Hill had forgotten about him waiting downstairs. “A little late. His meeting ran over, but I got him. Then when I suggested going out, he said it was too late for an after-work drink and too early for dinner, so…”

“Bullshit. You could have totally caught the tail end of happy hour somewhere if he’d gotten his ass out of that meeting. What’s the point in being the event director if you can’t send everyone home? And it’s not like they close down the bars at six—you could have still gone somewhere and had a cocktail—”

“I know,” David interrupted his brother. “But it’s not like I can kidnap the guy if he doesn’t want to go out.”

“He totally forgot about the anniversary, didn’t he?”

David didn’t answer.

“I knew it. Davey…” Sam paused for long enough that David thought they might have gotten cut off, then finally continued in a somber, hesitant voice, “Are you sure you did the right thing last year?”

David gritted his teeth. “Stop it.”

“I’m sorry. But, Davey—just like you don’t have a baby to save a marriage, you don’t get married to save a relationship.”

“I’m serious. I will hang up this phone.” Sam wasn’t saying anything that David hadn’t thought himself, but damned if he was going to let his brother feed him a bunch of I-told-you-sos.

“Fine. I’ll let it go for now. Don’t forget, I love you and it’s my prerogative to think that he doesn’t appreciate you—that he’s more concerned about impressing a dead man than making time for his husband. But I won’t say another word about it if you don’t want me to. Just…know that I’m here for you.” He sighed. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t answer your phone because you two were out having fun. You know?”

But yet he’d still called, which meant he’d had a feeling that it wasn’t going to work out.

“Yes. Well, I’m not giving up on today yet. We could still get some takeout and ‘Netflix and chill’.”

“TMI, bro. But yeah, don’t just roll over. In fact, it would be pretty satisfying to remind him about the date and have him be super sorry and want to make it up to you. Right?”

“Something like that.” He really didn’t want to go there, actually. He was usually the one keeping track of dates and their social calendar since Hill had turned into the workaholic of their household, and probably because things like anniversaries meant more to David. Hill’s family wasn’t the sort that found things to celebrate. Far from it.

He grimaced. Maybe he needed to cut Hill some slack.

“Okay, well, don’t be a doormat, Davey. And I say that with all the love in the world. You really deserve better.” He jumped back in when David made a noise of protest, “Gotta go. Bye.”

“Bye.” He pressed the button to disconnect then backed out of his parking space to leave the lot. He was forced to turn his attention to the traffic around him, while trying to think of ways to salvage the evening without resorting to reminding Hill about the date, which probably wasn’t a big deal to him anyway.

It’s a big deal to you, a small part of his mind whispered.

He mentally pressed disconnect to that voice too.