The Best Man Read online

  “I’m saying he’s great.” I shrug. “He’s great and I don’t want to marry him and that’s all I’m saying.”

  Carly is quiet for a beat—no easy feat for a woman who can’t hush half the time.

  “Do you love him?” she finally asks.

  “That’s the thing. I don’t think I do. But I like him a lot.” I reach for my cactus-shaped glass. “Part of me is like … what’s the catch?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s almost too good to be true,” I say. “I find it hard to believe that anyone is that perfect and wants to lock me down by New Year’s Eve.”

  “What? You never said you guys had set a date.”

  “We haven’t. But we’ve talked about it, and he mentioned a New Year’s Eve wedding.”

  “That’s in, like, four months.” She slides her sunglasses to the top of her head, pushing her blonde hair back. “What’s the rush? I mean, yeah, it was a quickie engagement, and I’ll be honest, for a while we were all wondering if he’d knocked you up, but clearly you’re drinking tequila, so our mother and sisters will be interested to hear that’s not the case.”

  I stare at the drink in my hand, and then set it aside now that I know it was more of a test than the offering of a proper hostess. I should’ve known … Carly’s always been tricky like that. Even more so since her three little angels turned into pimply, sneaky, hormonal teenagers with cell phones and cars. But, in their defense, if Carly were my mother, I’d be just as much of a pain in the rear. She helicopters the heck out of them, and it’s only gotten worse as they’ve grown more independent. The more they push, the more she pulls. And they’re all miserable for it.

  “I will say it’s strange how much he wants to seal the deal. I had no idea he was talking four months from now.” Carly nibbles on the acrylic earpiece of her sunnies before setting them down and pacing the terra cotta tiles under the cabana roof. Her gaze is locked on the ground, the wheels in her head likely turning faster than she can keep up.

  “See? It’s a red flag.”

  “Absolutely it is.”

  “He did say he’d wait though,” I add. “He said he’d wait as long as he had to. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m not in love with him.”

  “Agree.”

  “And you can’t force love.”

  She stops pacing. “There’s got to be something in it for him. Something more than … you.”

  “Like what?”

  “He’s been spending a lot of time with Dad, right?” she asks.

  “They golf and get drinks …”

  “Maybe he’s trying to cook up some kind of business deal?” She’s pacing again.

  “Dad deals in real estate. Grant knows nothing about any of that. In fact, I’m pretty sure I know more about it than he does.”

  “Maybe he wants to learn from the best? Maybe he wants Dad to take him under his wing?”

  I wave my hand. “Okay, let’s stop. I don’t like all this speculating. It’s not fair to him, especially when we have no proof of anything.”

  Carly takes a seat in the lounger again, gathering the fabric of her sarong in her hands and kneading it between her spray-tanned fingers as she stares into the lush distance of her pristinely-landscaped backyard.

  “Fine,” she says. “Let me do some digging. In the meantime … what are you going to do?”

  “I leave for New York tomorrow and I’ll be gone a week. When I get back, we’ll have a week together, and then we’re supposed to fly back to New York that following weekend for his friend’s party …” I sigh. “Really want to meet this friend of his, too. It’s the man from the accident.”

  She claps her thighs, defeated. “Maybe a week apart will give you some clarity, some real time to think this through so you’re not deciding your future from such an anxious place. When you get back, see if you still feel the same. And, hell, go to the party. Meet the guy. Who knows if you’ll ever get a chance to meet him again? It’s pretty amazing what you did, staying with him on the scene and everything. I don’t think most people would do that.”

  “Okay, so I go to New York with Grant, meet his friend, and then, what … break up with him after?”

  “If that’s how you still feel, then yes,” she says. “But I will say … many a long and successful marriage has been built on a loveless foundation. Sometimes knowing someone’s going to be an amazing father and dependable provider is enough. Besides, look at Rob and I. We were insane for each other in the beginning. Now we rarely sleep in the same bed unless he’s had too much whiskey and thinks he’s going to get his dick sucked. Sometimes I wish we had more of an understanding. Instead we’re just two frustrated jerks mourning the chemistry we used to have.”

  On that note, remind me never to get married and definitely scratch having kids off my to-do list …

  I rise. “I should probably get going. Have to leave for the airport at five AM, and I haven’t started packing.”

  Carly pouts. “All right. My teenage terrorists are going to be home in about thirty minutes. I should probably start thinking about what I’m making for dinner or something …”

  I love my sister and all of her quirks and imperfections, but she has got to be the most miserable stay-at-home wife and mother I’ve ever met in my life. Growing up, our mom made it look easy. She breezed through her sunshine-infused days and greeted us with a smile on her face and freshly-squeezed lemonade at three o’clock sharp every afternoon, her citrus-colored Pucci sarong trailing behind her.

  Carly was definitely not cut from the same cloth as my mother.

  But to be fair, the man she married is nothing like my father.

  Not even close.

  And they only got married because he got her pregnant their senior year of high school and his old-school parents freaked out and guilt tripped them into becoming insta-adults.

  I wonder if she ever resents the path her life took. She always says her kids are her earth, moon, and stars—and I believe her. But I also know she doesn’t have anything else. The day the youngest one leaves the nest is going to be a day of reckoning for her, a day she’ll be forced to look in the mirror and see herself in a new light. She won’t be a PTA Mom or Cheer Club parent volunteer. She won’t be spending her days doing heaps of never-ending laundry or grocery shopping for a family of five. She’ll have no need for the extra-long suburbitank that hardly fits in their oversized garage.

  As I leave my sister’s house and head home, I try to picture my future with Grant. Not the one he describes with the kids and the dog and the house in the ‘burbs and the Fourth of July cookouts and the family vacations to Disney with all the grandparents and cousins.

  Only my mind refuses to conjure up a damned thing.

  It’s all … blank.

  12

  Cainan

  Six months ago, I’d be sending a drink to the strawberry blonde in the fuck-me heels at the end of the bar, the one who hasn’t taken her come-hither gaze off me since I walked in tonight.

  But I’m a changed man—whatever the hell that means.

  I order a double Laphroaig Lore single malt on the rocks and check my email on my phone. This place is busier than I expected for a Tuesday night. Then again, there’s a hotel next door with limos parked out front, so there must be some event going on. Limos in Midtown always bring foot traffic—tourists mostly. All of them lured like wide-eyed magnets in case they might see a celebrity they can tell someone back home about. Bonus points if they can snap a blurry, zoomed-in cell pic. Extra bonus points if it’s an anchor from The Today Show.

  Someone takes the spot to my right.

  I don’t bother glancing away from my phone.

  “Pinot noir, please,” she says to the bartender. “Thank you.”

  Her voice is velvet soft and honey sweet—with a hint of familiarity, too. A soft yet spicy perfume radiates off her jacket as she slides it down her arms and hangs it on the back of the stool.

  The bartender
places a stemless glass before her and then pours the red wine halfway to the rim, then gives her an extra pour. An inch maybe.

  “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” The sound of a woman’s voice in my ear and the weight of a stranger’s stare captures my attention.

  “I beg your pardon?” I don’t look up from my phone.

  “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” she repeats her question, as if it’s perfectly normal to ask a complete stranger a random question.

  I lift a shoulder, gaze still fixed to my phone screen. “I don’t do crazy things.”

  “Sure you don’t.” She exhales, lifting her glass.

  “I’m sorry, but …” I’m two seconds from asking her to leave me the fuck alone when I finally lay my eyes on her and all the oxygen is sucked from my lungs.

  I can’t breathe.

  I can’t speak.

  I can’t fucking think.

  It’s her.

  It’s the woman from my dream.

  She lifts her dark brows, peering at me through a fringe of even darker lashes. The sour-apple green of her irises glimmer even in the dim light of this Midtown tourist trap bar.

  “You’re sorry but what?” she asks, blinking.

  “I’m sorry, but … do I know you?”

  She studies me, head tilting from side to side. “There is something familiar about you … are you on a billboard in Times Square?”

  Her serious expression turns into a teasing smirk.

  “I’m kidding. But only sort of. You look like a model. Or like you could be a model.” She hides her face in a sip of her drink. “I’m sorry. I’m making this weird. I’ll stop talking.”

  Please don’t.

  Please never stop talking.

  My heart is two seconds from exploding in my chest as I search for the right words to suit this serendipitous moment, but I’m speechless, wishing I could press pause on this surreal reality long enough to wrap my head around it.

  “I come here for work about once a month,” she says. “Here and Jersey. And I always stay at that hotel.” She points next door. “Maybe you’ve seen me in passing?”

  “This is my first time here.”

  And I only stopped in because I was on my way to my sister’s place on 72nd and needed to kill some extra time since she was running late.

  She sips her wine, which is halfway finished already. Maybe she’s got somewhere to be.

  I take in every inch of her from the freckle on her nose to the square line of her jaw to her nervous, bouncing ankle. My gaze shifts to her left wrist in search of the tattoo from my dream, but it’s covered by her blouse sleeve.

  “Are you from around here?” she asks. Every word that leaves her pillowed lips sends tingles reverberating to every part of me.

  “I am.”

  “And what do you do?” She blinks twice. I could lose myself in those bright greens for days.

  “Divorce attorney. You?” I ask.

  “I’m an actuary.”

  She doesn’t strike me as someone who sits behind a desk and plays with numbers all day. I suppose I pictured someone a bit paler. Someone in a boring, three-piece suit. Someone allergic to smiling. Zero personality.

  “What made you want to become a divorce attorney?” She takes another sip.

  “It’s a long and boring story,” I lie. I’m not about to tell her about my parents’ shit-show marriage. No one cares about that. Besides, I’m more interested in getting to know her. “You’re a lot younger than most actuaries I know.”

  “I fast-tracked.” She swirls the remaining wine in her glass before freezing and placing it down in a hurry. Turning to me, she splays a hand on the bar top. “Wait. Oh, my god. I know why you look familiar.”

  “What? How?” My ears burn as I wait. Never in my life have I been so dumbfounded, so incapable of uttering more than a few fucking words, but here I sit, paralyzed, in utter awe with a side of disbelief. “How do we know each other?”

  Her heart-shaped mouth curls up at one corner. “We met earlier this year. In a bar. You hit on me.”

  Her words don’t compute. Not at first. “I’m sorry—I think I’d remember hitting on someone like you.”

  “Wow.” Her brows lift and she takes a sip. “Silly me for thinking you’d remember after that mouthful you gave me.”

  “Mouthful? What are you talking about?”

  “You told me you could last longer than seven minutes … that you could give me an orgasm … that you wanted to know what my mouth tasted like …” She’s blushing, hiding an embarrassed half-smile.

  Those sound like exactly the kinds of things I would’ve said before.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Sorry? For what?”

  “I’m sorry for coming onto you like that.”

  Her head tilts and her dark hair drapes over one shoulder. “Don’t be. It’s not like you got any anyway. I don’t do strangers, remember? Wait. You don’t remember hitting on me so you definitely wouldn’t remember my stance on one night stands …”

  I take a drink of whiskey and settle back.

  “When did we meet?” I ask.

  Her brow lifts and she studies the wall behind me. “February. thought it feels like a lifetime ago at this point.”

  Her gaze falls to the fourth finger on her left hand, which is bare, but shows the indentations of a ring. My heart sinks, and I feel the color bleed from my face by the second, but I maintain my composure.

  “Are you … married … now?” I swallow the hard lump in my throat and clear my throat.

  She tosses back the rest of her drink.

  My heart is heavy and arrhythmic, and my chest constricts. It feels like forever before she remotely reacts to my question.

  She nods, eyelids heavy and gaze pointed at the wine glass before her. “I’m technically engaged, but I’m planning on ending it.”

  I release a hard breath. Obvious. Loud.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  She turns to me with glassy green eyes. “Have you ever broken someone’s heart before?”

  “More times than I can count.”

  “Well, I haven’t. Not like this,” she says. “He’s crazy about me. He’d marry me tomorrow if I’d let him. And he’s so good to me. So sweet. I have to let him down slowly. I have to handle this with dignity. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Rip the fucking Band-Aid. Trust me, you’ll both be better for it in the end. No sense in dragging out the inevitable.”

  Her lips waver and she offers a bittersweet smile. “You make it sound so simple.”

  “Isn’t it though? If you don’t want to marry him, tell him.” So you can marry me …

  “He’s a person. He has a heart. I’m treating him the way I’d want him to treat me.”

  “With kid gloves?” I snort.

  “With compassion and respect for his feelings.”

  Her phone lights up beside her with a call, though I don’t catch the name on the Caller ID before she swipes it away. “Shoot. It’s him actually. I have to go.”

  Digging into her bag, she retrieves a twenty and places it on the bar top before sliding off her chair and tossing her jacket over her arm and her bag over her shoulder.

  “Wait.” I stand.

  “I’m so sorry—it was lovely meeting you—again.” She gives a distracted wave before disappearing out the door. As soon as she gets outside, she lifts her phone to her ear and vanishes into the throng of tourists gathered around a black limousine.

  I drag my hand through my hair and sit back down, deflated.

  I never got her name.

  But she’s real.

  She exists.

  I pay my tab and book it uptown, all but banging down Claire’s door when I arrive.

  She answers with a hand on her hip. “Dude, chill. What’s going on? Why are you—”

  I show myself in. “She’s real, Claire. She’s real. I just met her.”

  “What
?” She locks the door behind me. “Who’s real?”

  “The girl. The girl from that dream.”

  “The one with the tattoo?” she asks.

  Fuck. I never had a chance to check for it, but I know it was her.

  I know it was.

  I know it with every fiber of my fucked-up soul.

  “Yes,” I say. “Her.”

  Claire’s brows narrow as she studies me, and then she cups a palm over my forehead. “You feeling okay?”

  “Please don’t patronize me right now.”

  “Did you get her name?” She takes a seat on the sofa, adjusting the mountain of throw pillows behind her.

  “No.”

  “Did you even talk to her?”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Yes. We talked for five, maybe ten minutes. I don’t know. My mind was going a million fucking miles an hour. It happened so fast. And then she took a call and had to go.”

  “Where did you find her?”

  “At the bar attached to the Mondauer Hotel in Midtown. Said she was in town for work and that she always stays there. But get this—we met before. Right before the accident. I don’t remember it, but she says we did.”

  Claire is quiet for a moment, and without saying a word, trails down the hall to Luke’s home office. The click of the door closing follows.

  They’re talking about me, I’m sure.

  I bet she thinks I’ve lost my fucking mind. And maybe I have.

  A moment later, the two of them emerge—hand in hand, a united front.

  “I think we should call Dr. Shapiro,” Claire says.

  “What? No. Absolutely not.”

  “I could call my cousin? He’s a shrink in Seattle,” Luke offers.

  Claire pulls up her phone. “I actually found this really interesting article on déjà vu the other day. Let me see if I can find it. It said something like when we think we’re repeating an event, it’s really just the memory loops in our brain getting tripped up. Or something like that. Two secs.”

  “This is not déjà vu, Claire. This is real fucking life.” I pace the pre-war parquet floor of their living room. “You know what … forget it. Forget I said anything.”