“Are you sure you wanna do this? I mean, you’ve known this guy for six months. I can’t fucking believe he proposed after only three months with you. He’s probably a psycho. If he chops you up in your sleep, A, I’m gonna kick your ass.”
I laughed. “If he chops me up in my sleep, I’ll be dead.”
“Hence the reason I’ll be pissed at you. There’s no going and getting murdered without your best friend. We’re supposed to be those guys who are a hundred, still best friends and bitching at each other because you left your cane on the floor and I tripped over it.”
I couldn’t help chuckling again. Fucking Caden. He could always make me laugh. “So we’re supposed to still be single at a hundred?”
“Preferably, yes. Now you’re catching on.”
“Yeah, but you’re forgetting…I want that whole happily-ever-after. Like what we have, only with sex and someone who’s queer. This is really all your fault. If you were queer, everything would be perfect.”
I expected to at least earn myself a chuckle from Caden, but I didn’t. Instead, he swallowed the rest of his whiskey and said, “I know you want that storybook happily-ever-after, A.”
And he didn’t.
And he was straight.
And he wasn’t in love with me.
Which was why I was moving on.
“Are you sure this guy isn’t going to chop you up and stick you in the freezer?”
“I’m fairly certain.”
“Because then I’ll have to kill him, and I don’t wanna go to prison. I’m too spoiled for that shit.”
Yeah, yeah he was. “You can call him by his name, ya know?” Caden rarely did. In fact, he and Jack didn’t get along very well. Jack thought Caden was a bit of a dick, and if I were him, I’d probably think the same. Caden was always busting his balls. Plus, Jack thought Caden was secretly in love with me, which I knew he wasn’t. If he were, he’d have had more than enough time to do something about it—twelve whole years, to be exact. Not to mention, I’d drunkenly told him once I was in love with him. It wasn’t something we ever talked about, but Caden knew. If he felt the same, he knew all he had to do was say so, and I’d be his.
Ignoring my comment about Jack’s name, Caden said, “Getting married in Vegas isn’t you. Jackass doesn’t even know that.”
I cocked a brow. “That’s my future husband you’re talking about.” He was right, though. I never would have chosen to get married in Vegas. But having only three months between the proposal and the wedding didn’t leave a whole lot of time for us to find a venue back home. Jack also loved Vegas in a way I never had.
“See? He’s already made you more boring. You’d laugh if I called anyone else jackass.”
I sighed, knowing there was more going on here than Caden would say. “You’re not going to lose me, Caden. No matter what. We’ll always be us.” The way his parents fought had fucked him up. Plus, he was more sensitive than he let on. He didn’t like to get too close because he was afraid of losing what he cared about. I was the exception to the rule—we’d been close since we were two, so he hadn’t had any choice in the matter.
“Pfft. I know,” he replied, then tried to take a drink before realizing his glass was empty.
The truth was, I didn’t think Caden knew at all.
Chapter Two
Caden
I was freaking the fuck out, and I didn’t like it.
There was no reason I should be so angry, sad, frustrated, annoyed, or anything other than happy over the fact that Alex was getting married. I was feeling a whole lot of shit where he was concerned, and one of those things made the least sense of all—part of me felt…betrayed.
I had no reason to. Alex was my best friend. He was gay; I was straight. He wanted to settle down; I didn’t. I fucked my way through life, and while he’d had his fair share of hookups, staying single was never his endgame.
Plus, again, he was a dude, and I was straight, so yeah, we weren’t like that. It was just hard to separate the two of us sometimes. Alex was the only person I’d ever trusted one hundred percent. The only one I felt I needed in my life. The only one I believed loved me for me, no matter what. Dad was demanding and a workaholic, Mom was always preoccupied with herself, but Alex was always there. Even when I was needy or selfish, he never left my side.
And now he was getting married to Jackass, and I didn’t know how to deal with that.
“I’m gonna go get laid.”
Alex laughed. “That easily?” He played with the hoop earring in his left ear.