Page 101 of Best Man Speaking
My eyes ache. “We still probably need something to keep us from committing grievous bodily harm.”
I take a deep breath, and my lips quirk. It’d be funny if it weren’t so damn sad. I can’t think about my conversation with Marcus yesterday afternoon without my eyes burning with the threat of angry tears. I take a long drink of my coffee.
“I knew he’d been interested in your grandmother’s house.”
I cough, barely swallowing the hot liquid. Well, there goes my thinking I was keeping that news to myself.
I feel the heat of anger rise inside me at the thought of someone else I love lying to me. Of them keeping things from me. “What do you meanyou knew?”
Julian puts his cup on the coffee table, then turns toward me. “I mean, I knew he’d been to see the property to assess what work needed to be done on it. He’d looked into what types of developments the land had been approved for. But when I brought it up, he didn’t give me a straight answer about it. I told him you’d hate him if he bought it, and he replied saying you hated him already.”
My chest seizes at the image of my gran’s house simply not existing, newly built condos in its place. The thought of it being knocked down is painful. Just because I hadn’t thought I could live here, hadn’t believed I could call this place home, didn’t mean I no longer wanted the house to exist. I’d simply imagined some young couple or happy family purchasing it, that it’d be a fresh start and a new home for someone else.
“He wants to demolish it?” I ask, voice small. The betrayal I feel quadruples, taking up all the space inside me.
Julian shakes his head. “I don’t know, Hal. All I know is he was looking at the options, at the value.”
Something about this niggles at me. Marcus specializes in restorations, not new developments. Knowing the development permissions for the property seems almost pointless for the type of work he does. Unless it was the chance at a new venture for his business. It wouldn’t surprise me, but one single thing does.
Julian’s eyes are earnest on mine, and I look away, no longer trusting them. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Hal, I’m sorry, I’d hoped…” His sigh is long and drawn out. “I’d hoped it’d be different this time.”
I scoff. Didn’t we all.
“Do you want him to be at the wedding?” he asks now, completely serious. But for all that I’m ready to do Marcus physical harm, I don’t wish for animosity between him and his brother. Not again.
“Jules. He’s your brother, and he loves you, more than anything. He adores Erica. I might want to fling things at his face, but I wouldn’t take him from your day. If one of us needs to bow out, I’d rather it be me.”
Julian’s brows betray his surprise. “Why?”
I rub my aching eyes, unable to believe I’m about to defend Marcus. “Because it wasn’t just Marcus who broke your truce.” I suck in a breath. “We only technically broke a single rule, and it was one which couldn’t be broken without the other’s consent.” Julian grimaces, and I resist the temptation to roll my eyes at his immature reaction. “We were in this together.”Until we weren’t, I think bitterly. “But I’m the one who’s leaving, who can leave earlier if need be.”
“You’ll have to excuse me if I disagree.” He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have.
“Jules, if you ask Marcus to no longer be the best man, I know you’ll regret it one day. He’s your brother.” My chest burns at the thought of leaving, the backs of my eyes gearing up to follow suit with another round of tears. The excitement of going back to Edinburgh and a home of my own no longer holds the appeal it once did.
“Why do you care, Hallie? After everything, after all the pain he’s caused you, why do you care?”
If the question had come from anyone else, I doubt I’d bother answering, but this is Julian. This is the friend who’s come through for me time and time again. The least he deserves is the truth—my truth.
“Because even though it’s highly unadvisable, I love him. And just because he doesn’t feel the same way about me, that I wish I didn’t feel that way about him, it doesn’t mean he should lose his relationship with you and Erica in the process.”
I discard my pillow, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. All the better to hold myself together. I hate that my fire and fury from yesterday have been smothered by my tears overnight. I have to remind myself that I can be sad now and angry again later.
There’s a small pause. “You love him?” Jules asks in gentle disbelief.
I press my forehead to my knees.
“Don’t make me say it again,” I mutter into my pajama pants before looking back up.
“How’d that happen?”
“A lot easier than I’d thought it would.”
But if I were being honest, it’d been the way Marcus went toe to toe with me, never backing down in our banter, my sharp edges not scaring him off. The way he touched me and how he went out of his way to help me, especially when I didn’t ask for it. The agony I felt when I remembered he’d had an ulterior motive for it all was absolute and all-consuming.
Jules considers me, and I can only imagine what type of hot mess I look like in his eyes. The pathetic creature defending his brother to him. Most likely, he’s remembering how we’d been here before and how he’d helped me when I’d cried for days on end. How, as only a teenager himself, he’d made sure I was looked after in my heartbreak and in my grief.
