Seven Groomsmen from Hell (Love by Numbers 6)

“What’s your relationship with all these guys? You don’t seem like them,” I asked.

Bram seemed slightly taken aback, but also intrigued. There was a twinkle in his eyes that made it very clear that he was attracted to me as well. His gaze scanned my form meticulously, as though he was trying to memorize it. I took his body in as well. It was clean, but ripped. Even through his t-shirt, his biceps bulged out of the sides, and his calves were defined and sharp. I couldn’t help but think that he’d have no problem holding me up. He could probably do all kinds of stuff with me.

“Kent hired me to drag him from the brink of financial ruin,” Bram started. “He’s a smart guy, but he’s not good with money. Thank god Anna is. The first thing I’m doing once those two are legal is getting all of his assets transferred into his name.”

“Not a bad idea,” I said, knowing Anna had a degree in Economics and was stellar with numbers and money.

“He was so convinced that I was going to be this stuffy guy, that when he realized I wasn’t he wouldn’t let it go. Apparently he bragged to all of his friends that he’d met ‘the only cool accountant’ and when they didn’t believe me, he made me go out with them to prove it,” Bram continued. “I actually got along with them really well, we had a lot in common, so they kept me. When they discovered that my romantic life was basically me hiring prostitutes whenever I had the chance, they decided to introduce me to their concept of sharing women for mutual pleasure. I loved it.”

I continued to exchange stories with Bram over lunch and ended up enjoying his company much more than I thought I would. Surprisingly, he was something of a romantic, and told me all about how he would enjoy falling deeply in love some day, the same thing I’d just been reflecting on earlier that morning. He told me that he wasn’t an easily trusting guy, so it had been hard for him to fall in love at all. He hoped that someday he would form a close enough bond with someone that he would actually feel comfortable letting his guard down and being open to love. In that instant I oddly hoped that I might be that person, and the perk to his smile told me that he hoped so too.

“So, did you just hate us all as subsets of Luke?” he asked after a while.

“Of course not,” I responded even though it was an out and out lie. “I mean… Not entirely.”

Bram laughed. “If not for Luke, would you have disliked me?”

I thought about it for a second even though I knew the answer. “Honestly, no. You two were so close that I thought you probably shared his attitude towards me.”

“Well, I do,” Bram admitted. “It’s just not as sinister as you thought at first.”

“Right,” I replied. “I was wrong about Luke, so I guess that means that I was probably wrong about all of you.”

In an instant, Bram was across the table and had his lips on mine. As he parted ways from me, he offered me a warm, sincere grin. “Maybe that means that you need to give all of us a try.”

I nodded back at him. “Yeah. Maybe.”

16

Cody

The rehearsal dinner

I glanced at myself in one of the floor-length mirrors in the hallway outside the rehearsal dinner space. It wasn’t wedding time just yet, but I still dressed up for the occasion. I was in a pressed, navy blue suit with a light gray shirt and pocket square. I had my dark hair slicked back and had my light goatee shaved down and clean for the wedding. I pressed my jacket down, making sure I looked as good as I could, and then I entered the hall.

There weren’t many people in Puerto Rico for Kent and Anna’s wedding, by design. They wanted it to be small and understated, so it was just close friends and immediate family. Only a handful of the guests for the wedding weren’t at the rehearsal dinner, which was just made up of Kent and Anna’s parents, Kent’s grandmother, Khloe, and us groomsmen. I walked in and noticed that Luke was on one side of the room murmuring to himself, probably practicing his best-man speech, and another scan revealed Khloe was clear on the other side of the room from him. There was a light hue to her face, and her eyes were darting everywhere but at him. She looked nervous, but not the ‘I hate these guys’ way she was typically acting, more like she was trying to hide a true nature.

On occasion, I would catch Luke glancing over at Khloe and a warm smile would cross his face. He would lock eyes with Khloe for a moment and then she would look away, but more in a coy way than frustrated. As the dinner proceeded, I noticed that a couple of the other guys, Brett and Bram, were making eyes at Khloe too. When her gaze would land on them, they would wink or smile at her, and she seemed receptive to it. She didn’t seem as shy about them as she did about Luke, but things had definitely changed.