Unwrapping the Best Man

Hell, it’s as good a reason as any to pack up my stuff and head into the back office. I may be tucked away in a darkened corner of the bar but I’m still flaunting my misery by sitting here. Problem is, being alone, whether it’s in the office or my apartment upstairs, I’m bogged down by my thoughts and I can’t stand it.

I need the noise, the hustle and bustle around me. I also need a drink.

‘Great idea. Johnnie Walker Blue, straight up.’

‘Sure thing.’

I refocus on my screen, on the projections for the proposed club in Berlin. It’s a good move. Solid.

I should be buzzing. I’m this close to a new venture, another club in another bustling city, another step in my expansion plans, or my global domination as Ash likes to call it.

But there’s a bitter taste in my mouth—Eliza.

I’ve been back from Berlin a week and still she hangs over me. It wasn’t like I’d been surprised by her presence out there either. We move in the same circles, run the same kind of business; it’s no surprise she and her husband would be interested in the same club I am.

Hell, they’re the reason I’m in the business in the first place. They brought me into my first venture, this club. Without them I wouldn’t have garnered the skill required to buy them out, and I wouldn’t have been able to expand at the rate I have. Something they’ll likely regret when I snap up the Berlin property from underneath them.

No, that has nothing to do with the bitter tang. I’ve lived with them on the periphery of my life for twenty years. This is something else. This comes down to the line I crossed with Caitlin, the line I can’t come back from, the line that exists because Eliza made me draw it.

One side safe, platonic, easy. The other dark, twisted and loaded with sin.

There is no middle ground.

And it’s worked.

Ever since my fucked-up relationship with Eliza ended, it’s worked. I’ve been content, happy—Christ, according to those that know me, I strut around like I’m the king of the world.

Hence the strange looks now.

The looks that have been getting more and more frequent the longer I go without seeing Cait.

And seeing Eliza again has been a punch to the gut, reminding me why I did what I did, why I left before morning, why I bailed on our holiday fling pact. I bailed because everything I did to Cait was wrong, debased...abusive even. My stomach rolls now as it replays rapidly in my brain every debauched thing I did and I can’t deny the similarity, how it parallels Eliza’s treatment of me years back. And look at how that fucked me over.

How could I do that to Cait? How could I do it and think it would be okay? That we would be okay? We’re so far from okay we haven’t been in the same room since the Highlands.

Hell, we haven’t even spoken and I know it’s my fault. I left her without a word, no acknowledgement of what happened. No apology. Nothing.

And now it’s December, Cait’s favourite time of year. She loves Christmas and I hate it. I hate it all the more now it reminds me of her. And it’s everywhere. I swear the hype gets earlier every year—the paraphernalia on the shelves, the music playing in bars, on the streets, in the stores. It taunts me with pictures of the perfect family, of being surrounded by loved ones and having mulled-wine-infused fun.

But it was never that way in the Black household growing up. It was just me and Dad, and a clip around the ear if I was lucky enough to warrant attention.

It’s the one time of year my mood suits my name—Black.

And it’s blacker still without Cait.

I find myself pulling up her account, a habit I’ve formed, and I know what I’ll see before it even opens: nothing. No visits, no drinks.

She’s cut out not only me, but the club too.

I should be happy she’s doing the sensible thing. Happy that she’s getting on with her life far away from me. And yet I’m the one asking Ash and Coco how she is. I’m the one avoiding every attempt they’ve made to host a dinner for the four of us. They first suggested a dinner a few weeks after the wedding. A ‘Thank you Dinner’ they called it.

An obvious attempt at matchmaking more like. And so far we’ve avoided any possible meet-up. I should be over it now, moving on too.

But I’m not.

And I only have myself to blame for crossing that bastard line.

Caitlin belonged on the safe side. She was a friend. A friend like Ash and Coco. Just a friend. And I fucked with that.