It’s the shame that propels me over to where she’s sitting on the couch. Trying, like I always do, to be close to her. Hoping that maybe today is the day she’ll talk to me without embarrassment. Without acting like every time she looks at me, she’s remembering that night too…and what happened the next morning.
I don’t deserve it, but I want it all the same.
When she’s in lawyer mode, with a desk between us and a job to do, she has no problem looking me in the eye and having a conversation. Putting me in my place. Ordering me around and telling me what’s best for me and my foundation. I am stupidlygrateful for that, and it’s more than I deserve after the way I treated her.
I was young and dumb and hurting and had no idea what to do when something good walked into my life. Or how to keep it. Now I’m older and hopefully less stupid, but I still don’t know what to do with the good things. How to have them. Treasure them. Keep them. When you have seen as much bad as I have in my thirty-seven years, it makes the good seem unattainable. Fleeting. Temporary. Like something that isn’t meant for me. Something that won’t stay.
Emma is one of the good things, and being around her makes me think that maybe, one day, I could be one of the good things too. Wishful thinking most likely, but it doesn’t stop me from taking the seat next to her where she’s talking to Jordan and Molly and sliding into the skin of the happy and cheerful Jeremy that even most of the people closest to me never think to look past.
“I’m here! Finally!” I’ve barely sat down before Jordan’s fiancée, Allie, runs in, a little breathless. “I’m so sorry I missed the dress fitting. I had a surgery that ran long.” Her eyes search the room and land on Jordan. She heads straight for him, plopping herself in his lap and kissing him. Allie is a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon. She and Jordan met years ago when he was a resident, and she started at the hospital as his attending. They are perfect together. Just one more epic love story in our increasingly paired off circle of friends.
“No problem, baby girl,” he says, running a hand down her blonde ponytail and kissing her temple. “We haven’t even lit the grill yet.”
“We missed you earlier, but we took pictures.” Hallie bounces over to hug Allie before sitting back down with Ben.
“We’ll show them to you while the men handle the grill later,” Julie says, giving Allie a hug.
“So, how’s it going, besties?” I ask once Allie is settled in.
My thigh is pressed to Emma’s on the couch, and she shifts, trying to move closer to where Molly is sitting on her other side. But there isn’t much room left, so her fidgeting just presses her closer to me. Her face is flushed, and she looks down at her hands, her hair falling forward to cover her freckled face.
As usual, she mutters a quiet “hi” but doesn’t say much else. Instead, it’s Molly who talks first.
“You know, it’s pretty disconcerting when a thirty-seven-year-old man uses the word bestie.”
I shrug, waving my hand at the three of them. “That’s what you are, isn’t it? My besties.”
“Damn straight we are,” Jordan says, reaching his hand up for a high five. We slap palms and Molly rolls her eyes.
“Men. You really are all just overgrown children.”
“Yes, but is that such a bad thing? You know, childlike wonder and all.” I’m talking out of my ass. I never had an ounce of childlike wonder. The closest I ever came was the first time I put on an old pair of hockey skates I found in the closet of one of my foster homes and stepped out onto the frozen pond behind the house, but that’s about it. My childhood was not all that wondrous.
“What you call childlike wonder, I call immaturity.”
“Potato, potahto, Molly my dearest.” Emma stiffens at the “my dearest,” and I don’t hate it at all. I like any time I can get a reaction out of her. Makes me feel like she still sees me, even when we’re not sitting across a desk from each other.
“So how was the big wedding dress fitting?”
“Great, as expected. We may only have a couple months to plan this wedding, but it’s going to be perfect.”
“Hey, why are you guys doing the planning?” Jordan asks. “Isn’t that usually the kind of thing Hallie would do with her mom?”
Emma makes an irritated sound and Molly scowls.
“Care to share with the class?” I ask.
To my surprise, it’s Emma who answers, her voice full of irritation and disdain.
“You would think, wouldn’t you? Except Hallie’s mom refused to listen to anything Hallie wanted, so Hallie told her to fuck right off and called Julie.”
“Right on,” says Allie. “Don’t let anything steal your joy, Hal.”
“And anyway, hasn’t Julie basically been training for this her whole life?” I nudge Emma with my knee, pressing our legs even closer together, and I’m surprised again when she doesn’t move away.
“Fucking right I have,” Julie says from across the room where she and Asher have been deep in conversation over something that looks like a vase of fake flowers. I don’t know what the hell that’s about, but she has her Lawyer Julie face on, so I assume it must be important.
“No one gets to make my best friend feel like she doesn’t have a say in her own damn wedding. Especially when she’s marrying my brother. Hallie’s mom will ruin this day over my cold dead body. And then I’ll come back and haunt her from the afterlife.”
