“Thanks, man,” Nick said as I pushed the beer over and sat down across from him.
“How are you, buddy?” I asked. In my periphery, I saw Mason come out into the main area, see us, and nod.
“Not that great, honestly,” he said.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, taking a long pull of my beer. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, taking a big sip of his own. “I’ll be alright. I just have a hard time understanding what went wrong, you know? I feel like I did everything right, and it just fell apart anyway.”
“Sometimes people just aren’t meant to be together,” I offered. “It’s not anyone’s fault. But hey, you’re young still.”
“I’m thirty-seven, Tyler,” he replied.
“So am I, remember. And I refuse to consider myself old, and so should you. You’re a good-looking dude. Not as good-looking as me, but hey, you can’t win them all.” A smile cracked across Nick’s face, and I laughed. “There we go. Smile. Life might suck once in a while, but you have me, you have us,” I said, gesturing at the rest of the bar and my brothers putting up decorations. “You aren’t alone. You will get through this.”
Nick’s smile faded a little as he turned his drink in his hand. Then he emptied it in one pull and sat it down, turning his gaze back to me.
“Thank you,” he said. “You’re a good friend.”
“So are you. Do you want another?”
“No, like I said, I want to be able to drive tonight. Plus, I want to help you guys set up. I know it’s going to be a big night,” he said.
“Packed,” Mason said over my shoulder. He had just stepped up behind our booth to hang a sign above us that stretched from one side of the room to the other. “Sorry, didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but figured I’d chime in. It’s going to be a long, busy night.”
“Ava outdid herself again?” Nick asked.
“As usual,” Mason said, finishing hanging the sign and moving to another part of the bar.
“I might stick around a bit after you open, actually,” Nick said.
“Good.” I smiled. “That’d be good for you. Maybe meet someone here?”
“Maybe. What about you. Maybe you should be looking for someone,” he said.
“After what happened to you? No thanks,” I said, and we both laughed. It sounded like a jerk thing to say, but it was a pressure valve that only a best friend could release. Being able to joke about pain helped you heal, I’d always heard.
“Oh, did I tell you what happened with Becca?” he asked suddenly, and I cocked an eyebrow.
“No, what’s up with her?” “She was supposed to get married a couple weeks ago.”
“Supposed to?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t tell you about this,” he said, almost laughing, though I could see something else in his eyes too. Something close to anger. “She got stood up.”
“Like at the altar?”
“Yup. The fucker didn’t even show up. Or if he did, none of us saw him. I wish I had—I’d have wrung his neck.”
“What happened?”
“Me and a couple other guys went looking for him, calling the hospitals and police stations, making sure he didn’t get arrested or wreck his car or whatever. Turns out, nope, he just left my sister at the altar.”
“That’s bullshit. I’m sorry to hear about that.”
“She’s understandably really upset about it, and I’ve been trying to help her while also dealing with my shit. I guess I just didn’t want to even talk about it, or else you’d know by now,” he said. “Sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry over,” I said. “Man, maybe relationships do suck.”
“What about Mason?” he asked. “And Tom. Isn’t he just stupidly happy now?”
“Exceptions to the rule,” I said. “They got lucky.”
“Perhaps. Maybe you would too, if you gave it a shot.”
I laughed. “What are you? Cupid? A walking Match dot com? Get out of here.”
He laughed, standing and bringing his glass over to the sink behind the bar and washing it out.
“I just want to see you happy,” he said.
“I already am,” I said. “Now let’s help Mason get this bar ready before he has my head on a pike.”
2
Becca
It seemed like the absolute longest flight of my life. I wasn’t the world’s best plane passenger. Despite every bit of logic reminding me air travel wasn’t exactly a new science, I always walked onto a plane with a sense of trepidation. It often made my stomach turn a little, and I tended to clench onto the arms of the seat right up until we were at elevation.
As soon as I sat down and hooked my seat belt, a man behind me laughed and my stomach tied itself into a knot. It sounded just like my ex. So much I almost turned around to see him.