"I’ll get the guests taken care of," Shelby announces.
"I’ll check with the kitchen and have the food come out in bite sizes instead of plated," Clarabella says.
"I’ll check with the music and see if we can get it going," Presley adds.
The three of them go in different directions, and it’s just my mother and me. "Are you okay?" she asks, her voice soft.
"Actually." I look down at the empty glass in my hand. "I am." I look over, seeing that most people have stayed. "Better now than later, right?"
"She wasn’t the one," my mother says now, and I look at her and see her dabbing the corners of her eyes. "When it’s the right one, you’ll know." My mother looks over at the bar. "Maybe the right one was at the wrong time."
I look over at the bar. "Or maybe she was the right one all along, and I was stupid and scared she wouldn’t pick me."
"Only one way to find out." She comes to me and kisses my cheek. "Truth be told, you might still be stupid and scared."
"Not sure about scared," I joke with her. "Definitely still stupid." I look back over at Harlow and see her moving behind the bar as if she does this all the time. I wonder how she’s been. I wonder if she is happy. I wonder so many fucking things, and all I can do is stand here staring at her. But there is no mistaking that she still takes my breath away and makes me feel things I thought were gone forever.
"I’m proud of you." She cups my cheek. "Now, I shall go and mingle."
She walks away from me, and I have to say that that went better than I could ever imagine it going, like tenfold. I walk toward the bar and see my college friends all huddled on one side. I get closer, and the guys look up at me, and one of them just hands me their drink, and I take it without caring what it is. "Well, this is nice," I say, and I laugh.
"Listen, if you wanted to see us so bad," Frankie starts, taking a pull of his beer. "All you had to do was ask. You didn’t have to go out of your way and pretend to get married."
I throw my head back, and I laugh at him. "Guilty," I say, taking a gulp of the drink. I look to the side and see ten people now running in, all wearing black with white dress shirts. Two guys come over and walk behind the bar.
"I think this means I’m fired," Harlow declares and walks over to the sink to wash her hands. I follow her every move. I don’t think it sank in that she’s really here. She walks over to Bennett now. "Good job," she says, holding up her hand for him to give her a high five. "But I still won."
"I didn’t know where any of the bottles were," he whines to her retreating back. "We should have a rematch."
She shakes her head and walks out from behind the bar. Rachel whispers something into her ear, and she smiles and nods her head. "Okay, people," Jake says. "We know the drill." He looks over at the bartender. "We will take nine shots of tequila." The bartender nods at him and pours nine shots, and then he looks at all of us. "It’s time to play monkey business."
Everyone now groans and then laughs. "Got to bring it back old-school," I say, looking over at Harlow, who made up the game.
"If there is ever a time for monkey business," Harlow says and turns to hand me a shot. I laugh because she always had a way to make me feel better. If I had a crappy day at school, she would order my favorite food. If I got a bad result back, she would turn off all the lights in the room, and we would play touchy-feely, as she called it, trying to find each other. That’s Harlow, that is who she is. That is who I pushed away and forced myself to believe that I did it so she didn’t have to choose me over her family. I pushed her away because I was scared that she would sacrifice everything that she wanted for me, and then she would end up resenting me. I pushed her away, scared that in the end, she wouldn’t pick me. "It’s definitely now. Who wants to start?"
Chapter 8
Harlow
"Tomcat," Bennett says, and everyone laughs at him. "It’s an animal."
"No, it’s not," Presley says from her spot beside him. We moved from the bar to a table when the music started. People slowly started to leave, and now it was just our table left. We’ve been playing this game for the last hour, and the drinks have been flowing. The tension of me being here is gone, or at least it doesn’t bother me now because I have booze flowing through my system.