Connor
Me
Your brother showed up. We’re going out for a drink.
The bartender setstwo beer bottles in front of us, beads of condensation slinking to the wooden bar top. The murmured sounds of the few patrons scattered throughout the establishment are barely enough to cover up the sound from the television behind the bar.
Drew hasn’t spoken a word since we sat down. As unsettling as that is, I know this conversation has to begin with me.
“I’m sorry you found out like that.”
He pushes the beer down his throat with a click of his tongue, but doesn’t respond.
“I wanted to tell you myself, I swear. I was planning on?—”
“Well, here I am, Vining,” he interrupts. “So, start talking.”
I give myself one breath and one swig of beer before I dive in. “I’m in love with her, Drew. And it didn’t happen overnight or on a four-day trip to Arizona. It happened a long time ago.”
His lips twist, nostrils flared. “Start there,” he says before he takes another pull from his bottle.
“That summer after we graduated college?—”
“Dammit to hell,” he mumbles, leveling me with a look.
“Everything I said to you in your kitchen was true. I didn’t lie to you. I cared about her and promised to always look out for her.”
“I saw it,” he accuses. “I caught you looking at her and you promised me it was nothing.”
“Itwasnothing, Drew. Nothing happened between us then.” I scan my best friend’s face and then the woodgrain of the bar.
“I warned you—allof you—back then that she was off-limits.”
“I know. And I heard you. It’s why I kept my distance after that.”
Silence settles as we tip back our beers.
“Then what?” he asks.
“Then,” I sigh, “Gretchen turned eighteen. Your parents lifted the social media ban and she sent me a DM on Instagram.” I shrug. “We were friends. That’s how it started, at least. We were talking…a lot, and somewhere along the way it started to feel like more. We talked for a year, Drew.” I turn my head to meet his gaze. “I didn’t see anybody else that whole time.”
His expression is unflinching and entirely unreadable. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
I shake my head in thought or…avoidance, maybe. “I don’t have a good excuse. You were living with Reagan, in your last year of law school, planning your wedding, we weren’t seeing each other as much and I…I wasn’t certain she was even interested. I don’t know, maybe I convinced myself there wasn’t anything to tell.” I take a drink. “I mean, I knew I was in love with her, but I didn’t know how she felt.
“I was planning to talk to her at your wedding, see if she hadany of those same feelings for me before I talked to you about it, but I?—”
“She said you hurt her,” Drew supplies, unmistakable protectiveness in his tone.
Guilt presses in, but then I remember Gretchen’s face, her repeated affirmations of love and forgiveness. I can do this. I can confess this painful piece to him.
“At your rehearsal dinner you said some things to me,” I say and remembrance immediately flashes across Drew’s face, “and I’m not blaming you for my mistakes because that’s on me. No matter what you thought of me, I had the opportunity to prove you wrong or prove you right and…I made the wrong choice.”
“You invited that bartender.” His voice lands lethal and quiet.
I close my eyes and that’s confirmation enough. “Didyouknow she was Gretchen’s friend from high school?”
Drew gives me a look of pure horror. “What the hell?”
