In the Unlikely Event

Summer turns the volume down, swiveling on the couch to face me. “What’s up, Ror? You look like you sucked off Lucifer and he filled your mouth with ashes and lava.”

“No, but close.” I put my glass down.

Summer has been my best friend since we were toddlers. We went to grade school and college together. We share an apartment. She knows everything about me.

“I saw Mal at the ball tonight.”

She blinks at me. “Mal…?”

“Irish Mal.”

Her eyes widen, and she slaps the back of her hand over her forehead dramatically. Summer can be scandalized more easily than a seventeenth century duchess in a brothel.

“Say it ain’t so.”

I nod. “It’s so, and it’s worse than anything you might imagine.”

“I don’t know how it possibly could be, unless he’s Callum’s lover and is after his ass, not yours. You finally have your shit together, Rory. You’ve been hung up on him for years.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about this life, it’s that you should find friends who love seeing you win and will support you when you lose. Summer is both.

“He’s married,” I say.

“Ouch.”

“To my sister, Kathleen.”

“The bastard!” She jumps up on the couch, quilt dropping to the floor, and shakes her fist in the air. “I’m going to kill him.”

“The worst part is not even that everything Kathleen said turns out to be true. It’s the fact that Mal can’t stand the sight of me for some reason. He’s mad at me, and he won’t tell me why.” I grab a throw pillow, hugging it to my chest.

“Who cares why he’s an asshole? Just be glad you dodged that bullet. Look how he treated your half-sister. The jerk played her around when you were there. I’m going to go out on a limb and bet their marriage is a clusterfuck of massive proportions.”

Summer plops down, grabs my wine glass, and puts it to my lips, urging me to take a sip like it’s medicine.

“Besides, you have Callum now, and he is uber hot and doesn’t hate money or standing or…you know, life in general.”

“Mal doesn’t hate life. He loves it.”

That’s the entire reason he is who he is. Because he loves life so passionately. But I’m thinking about Young Mal. The current version seems about as jolly as a KKK meeting.

Summer huffs. “What was he doing there, anyway?”

“He’s working with Jeff Ryner now.” I put the pillow behind my head and throw myself over it. “We’re about to work together. In Ireland. For two months. I’m going to live with him.” I swallow hard. “And his wife.”

Summer looks at me like I’ve just announced my intention to join the circus, where I will be performing a one-hour show doing gymnastics on the back of an elephant in nothing but leopard thongs. Blindfolded.

“What in the fuck went through your head when you said yes?”

“The job opportunity. Plus, the Mal thing happened eight years ago and clearly means nothing.”

“Means nothing?” Summer shoots to her feet, pacing back and forth in our tiny living room, arms linked behind her back. “Means nothing?! You obsessed over his ass like he was the only male with a functioning dick in the entire universe. It took you years—not weeks, not months, years!—to finally move on with Callum. You dreamed about him. You woke me up crying. You thought you saw him on street corners and in festivals and at airports. Remember that time you ran after that poor Asian lady because you thought she was him?”

Do I ever. She hit me with her bag trying to shoo me away.

“She was tall and had the same blue-black hair,” I mumble into my drink.

“Point is, he haunted you. We had to take turns in college watching you so you didn’t break your stupid napkin contract and look for him on the internet. That’s not nothing, Rory. That’s everything.”

I rub my eyes, taking a gulp of air. She’s right. Stupid Mal and stupid Kathleen ended up together and somehow reached the convenient (and also stupid) conclusion that I’m the reason for their problems, but I never stopped pining for him.

“You can’t go.” Summer stops pacing, stomping her foot. “I won’t allow it.”

“I’ve made up my mind.”

I stare at the TV to avoid her glare. Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are bickering. I think about Callum’s reaction when I came back from the balcony and explained everything. He shook Whitney off immediately, then stood up and ushered me to a little bar. There, he told me I should do it. That I daren’t pass up a blazing, new opportunity because of an old flame.

He said who knew how long I would keep this job anyway. Once he proposes, he will need me at his disposal, helping with the wedding arrangements, managing our social calendar.

I kind of blocked everything out past the “go for it” part, though. I have no plans of becoming a housewife, but that wasn’t the time to broach the subject.