Priceless (An Amato Brothers/Rixton Falls crossover)

by Winter Renshaw

  “God, it’s good to see you, Daphne,” he says. It feels good to hear him say that, but it doesn’t change how I feel. “You have no idea.”

  Checking the time on my phone, I rise, cutting this conversation short before it grows wings and flies to heights much too dangerous.

  “It’s been a long day,” I say, wincing apologetically. “I’m going to head home and rest for a bit. Tell my sister I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  I don’t give him a chance to respond; I simply turn and leave.

  Chapter 21

  Cristiano

  “She’s in there.” Joey’s mom straightens my tie outside a Sunday school classroom at the church, her lips pulled up in one corner and eyes misty. She smells exactly the way I remember: Charlie perfume, aerosol hairspray, and menthol cigarettes. “You look very handsome, Cris.”

  “Is she nervous?” I ask.

  Her mom swats her hand in front of her face. “Not my Joey. You know how she is. She was at first, but she’s been all smiles today. Only thing she was worried about was whether or not you’d make it here in time to give her away.”

  Connie runs her hand down my lapel and gives me a misty-eyed smile before walking off, her shimmering blue dress swaying with each step.

  Rapping on the door, I take a deep breath and wait.

  “Come in,” she calls.

  Pushing the door open, I’m smacked in the face with a little bit of everything all at once.

  Confusion.

  Guilt.

  Regret.

  Subjection to the inevitable and that which I have zero control over.

  But she’s my best friend and she has been for almost two decades, and I’ll be damned if I’m not happy for her on her big day. It’s not about me. I’ll swallow my pride. I’ll stuff these emotions deep down, where they belong, and I’ll put on a good face.

  I almost missed this day; I’ll be damned if I ruin it.

  “Don’t look at me like that, you’re making me nervous.” She offers an uneasy laugh, reaching for a dark tendril and twisting it around her fingers. “Do I look ridiculous with all this makeup? Please tell me I don’t. You know how I am. I don’t think I own a tube of Chapstick, and now I’m all glammed up. Feels weird.”

  Joey’s a tomboy through and through. Always has been. It’s how she got mixed in with our group growing up. Granted, she lived in our neighborhood, but she was also into riding bikes and playing baseball and video games while all the other girls on the block would’ve preferred to braid each other’s hair and aimlessly page through Seventeen magazine.

  “Nah,” I say. “You look beautiful.”

  And I mean it. She looks gorgeous. I don’t know what she did different. I know she’s wearing makeup and her hair is curly or wavy or some shit. It’s long, dripping down her shoulders, and there is some kind of crystal and pearl crown sitting on the top of her head. She looks like a princess.

  “You sure? You know you can tell me the truth,” she says. “I’d rather hear it from you than anyone else. If you think I look ridiculous, I’ll wash it all off right now.”

  “Nah.” I take a seat on the edge of a table beside her. Her bouquet of red roses rests next to me. “Leave it. You look like a million bucks, Jo. Honest.”

  She smiles, exhaling as if she’s releasing tension. “I’m so glad you made it. I was worried for a while. I shouldn’t have let you go out of town the week before my wedding.”

  “Like you could’ve stopped me.” I toss her a wink, arms folded across my chest.

  Joey rolls her dark eyes. “Right. You always were my rolling stone. God forbid you gather a little bit of moss every once in a while.”

  There’s a palpable silence that lingers between us for a moment, and her smile fades.

  “I wish you’d come home more,” she says. “We miss you. It’s not the same going from seeing you every single day to seeing you a couple of times a year.”

  Pulling in a deep breath, I glance up at the ceiling tiles, unsure of what to say. The truth lingers on my tongue, though I have zero intention of speaking it.

  “Sometimes I think you left because of me.” Her voice is lower now, and when I look her way, I see fingers fidgeting in her lap as her gaze is focused on them. “Sometimes I think a lot of what you do is because of me.”

  “Joey.”

  “Cris,” she cuts me off. “You weren’t the only one whose life changed forever that night.”

  Her bottom lip trembles. I can’t have her crying on her wedding day because of this.

  Because of me.

  “You have to stop blaming yourself . . .” she says, pulling in a long breath and looking to the side. “And you have to stop running when things get hard. You act like you’re this world traveler guy, but I know you, Cris, and I know you’re just running. I know you don’t come home because it’s hard for you to see me.”

  “Come on. Not today. We’re not having this conversation on your wedding day, Jo.”

  “No.” Her voice booms and her eyes flick into mine. “We have to have this conversation because we have to move on from that night. We both do.”

  Blowing a tight breath past my lips, I fold my arms snug across my chest and give her my full attention.

  “All right,” I say. “Go ahead. Let me have it.”

  “I know you don’t like Trent,” she says, clasping her hand across her heart. “But he loves me, Cris. He loves me so much. He’s the love of my life, and he loves me exactly the way I am. He knows what he’s signing up for with me. And I know that’s hard for you to hear because you’ve always felt like you were supposed to be the one to take care of me, but Trent loves me in a way that you can’t. Not because you don’t want to, but you know, I’m like a sister to you. You’re like my annoying big brother. It’d be really frickin’ weird. You remember that time we kissed, right? In tenth grade? It was disgusting.”

  I crack a hint of a smile, though it disappears in a flash. It’s true. I don’t like Trent. He lived in his mom’s basement until he was thirty. He manages a video game store. And from the outside looking in, I get the impression he has zero motivation in life to ever leave Jersey or make something of himself.

  But fuck if he doesn’t make Joey happy.

  And he’s loyal as hell.

  He loves her, and he loves her exactly the way she is.

  “At some point, you have to stop blaming yourself,” she says, reaching for my hand and slipping hers into it. “I’m sure we’d both like to go back three years and make different decisions, but we can’t. We went on that spur of the moment road trip, you fell asleep at the wheel and hit that guardrail. You walked away with hardly a scratch and I . . .”

  She glances down at her lap.

  “It was my turn to drive,” she continues. “You were tired, and I was tired, and I asked you to drive just a little bit longer, and you agreed because that’s the kind of person you are, Cris. You’re selfless. You did it for me.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger.

  “I don’t blame you,” she says. “You’re still my best friend, and I still love you, and it hurts so damn bad to see the way you look at me now and to know you avoid coming home because it means you’ll have to see me and it means you’ll be reliving that night all over again.”

  Letting my hand fall to my side, I look her in the eye. “You’re right. I hate seeing what I did to you. And sometimes I fly halfway across the world just to try and forget it. And when I heard you were getting married, a part of me felt like an even bigger piece of shit, because I’d always vowed to be the one to take care of you.”

  My chest burns the way it did the summer we both turned thirteen and the weightlessness of childhood faded without warning. Her dad had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer the day after school let out. And the night before he took his last breath, he’d asked to see me. Mom sent me over with a casserole for Connie, and I was startled when I walked in and saw Joey’s dad sit
ting at the kitchen table. He was bald and frail and pale, and he was wrapped in a thick blue robe, but he was smiling as if nothing was wrong. There was something lighter about him that night, as if he knew it was his time. He called me to the table and asked me to take a seat.

  That night he asked me to promise to always take care of his Joey.

  “I don’t blame you, Cristiano. So can you please stop blaming yourself? And can you please be happy for me? Because I’m so happy and in love. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, I promise. And for the love of God, will you please push me down the aisle now?” Her face lights the way it does when she thinks about Trent.

  “Yeah,” I say, standing tall and moving to the back of her wheelchair, letting the burn in my chest fade to a soft fullness. “I’ll push you down the aisle now.”

  Chapter 22

  Daphne

  Crawling under the covers of my childhood bed, I clutch my phone and peer through tired eyes at the bright screen in the dark. I left the hospital an hour ago, stopped for a late dinner with my parents at a local diner, and patiently bided my time until I could be alone with my thoughts again, and exactly as I predicted, they seem to be fixed on one thing.

  Pulling up Facebook, I type in the name Cristiano Amato.

  I want to see his pictures. I want to know more about him. I want to pull back the curtain and peek into his life one snapshot and status update at a time.

  There are only two Cristiano Amatos, according to the search I perform, and I click on the first option. His cover photo is of a city at night. Looks like Paris. And his profile picture, though tiny, is undeniably Cristiano standing outside the pyramid of Giza.

  My heart patters as I click through his photo albums. Most of them are pictures from his travels. He doesn’t caption most of them; just a few random ones. Some people ask questions and he responds.

  Some girl, Joanna Marcuso, comments on almost all of them. Beneath a photo of Cristiano parasailing, she’s written, “I thought you were afraid of heights. You sit on a throne of LIES!” It shows he responded, so I click to expand the conversation.

  “I’ve never said I was afraid of heights. You must have me confused with Ben Fletcher,” he replies, tagging Ben. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Ben was the one who climbed the flag pole in sixth grade and pissed himself when he got to the top.”

  Ben Fletcher replies twenty-five minutes after, saying, “Don’t listen to him, Joey. That never happened.”

  Joey . . .

  I click on Joanna’s profile, my heart pulsing and my ears heating. Her profile is an open book. Nothing is private, though she doesn’t have much to go sifting through. It doesn’t take long for me to find a picture of Cristiano with Joey. It’s from several years ago. He looks much younger in it, thinner, less brawny. They’re smiling ear to ear, their arms wrapped around each other. She’s wearing a baseball cap and a Red Sox t-shirt. Flipping through the rest of her photos, I find at least three dozen pictures of the two of them.

  My heart sinks.

  They look incredibly happy together. Natural. Comfortable. In love.

  This is Joey.

  This is the “friend” whose wedding he was headed to . . .

  The wedding he wanted to stop.

  Sitting my phone aside, I decide not to torture myself another minute longer. This feels like Weston all over again. I can’t do this. I can’t let my heart want another man whose heart is still stuck on someone else.

  Closing my eyes, I pull in a deep breath and try to let go of what once was and what will never be.

  Rolling to my side, I yank the covers up to my chin and let the day’s fatigue soak into my bones. Within minutes, I’m drifting, seconds from succumbing to a bittersweet slumber, when my phone vibrates softly against my nightstand.

  Eyes squinting in the dark, I reach for the phone, flipping it over and bringing the screen closer. The caller ID flashes a 973 area code. It’s him. At least I’m ninety-nine percent sure. My body freezes, and my mind replays a carousel of images of Cristiano with Joey, smiling, intertwined, inseparable.

  The vibrating stops, and the phone quiets, but it’s all the same because I can’t talk to him. I know where this will lead.

  I could answer the phone. I could drown myself in the sound of his voice and imagine his fingers in my hair. I could make plans to see him again and count down the hours until his mouth crushes mine again. I could let him sweep me off somewhere far away, traveling the world by his side and making priceless memories.

  But she would always be there in the background, just as it was with Weston. With him, I’d see it in the way he’d look at me, like he was there with me . . . but he wasn’t completely there. Sometimes I’d swear he was picturing her in my place, wondering what things would be like if he were sharing that moment with the one who still held his heart in her teeth. And it was never intentional, but it happened.

  I was a placeholder. I gave him hope. But in the end, I wasn’t enough.

  I couldn’t do it with Weston, and I can’t do it with Cristiano.

  I can’t play second fiddle.

  I can’t settle for half of his heart.

  I can’t sit around hoping I’ll be the one to help him move on, and I can’t spend the rest of my life trying to convince myself he doesn’t always think of her when he looks at me.

  I just . . . can’t.

  Chapter 23

  Cristiano

  Hunched over the bar at Joey’s reception, I lift my empty glass the second I catch the bartender’s eye. He gives me a nod, an unspoken promise of sorts, like he knows a troubled man when he sees one, though I’m not sure I’d call myself troubled.

  Confused, maybe?

  I’d called Daphne earlier, and I’ve yet to receive a call back. All I wanted to do was make sure she got home all right.

  And hear her voice.

  I even left her a message.

  I could’ve taken the easy way out and shot her a quick text, but I thought I’d be a gentleman and take the old-fashioned route to show her I cared enough to actually pick up the phone and call her.

  The bartender slides me a fresh finger of bourbon, and I slide him a generous tip. Thank God for open bar tonight, the good man upstairs knows I needed a little something to numb the sting of watching my best friend marry Trent Tisdale and hearing her say for the first time that she doesn’t need me to take care of her after all.

  Maybe it was silly, to put that burden on myself, but for years, that burden was there. I figured I’d travel the world. See everything there was to see. And then come back home to Jersey, face Joey and what I’d done to her, and spend the rest of my life making it up to her. Making sure she’d never want for anything. Making sure she was comfortable. Happy . . . enough.

  But she’s happy with Trent. That’s all that matters.

  And she forgives me.

  And I’m happy for her. At least I am now.

  “Sure you need another one of those?” Two raven-haired women with strands of purple in their hair take the empty seat next to me.

  Wait. Shit. No.

  It’s just one woman.

  I’m seeing double.

  “I’ve been watching you all night,” she says, waving down the bartender. “You’re just sucking those down one after another. Although I do have to say, I admire a man who can hold his liquor. If you were causing problems, then we’d have problems. I’ll be damned if I let some drunk jackass ruin my cousin’s wedding.”

  “You Trent’s cousin?”

  She shakes her head. “Nope. Joey’s. I’m Ashley.”

  “No shit?” I remember Joey talking about her cousin, Ashley, growing up. She lived in Minnesota and rarely came to Jersey. Joey and her mom would travel to Duluth every summer to stay with her aunt, and Joey would come back with a funny accent that always seemed to wear off by the time school started again. “You’re Cousin Ashley?”

  She rises slightly, leaning over the bar to order a draft beer before turning back to
me. “In the flesh.”

  I toss back my drink, her face coming in and out of focus.

  “You want a water?” she asks, slowly reaching for my drink, like she’s going to try to distract me and take it away.

  Joke’s on her because I’m not a fucking dog with a chew toy. I slide it away, though in my uncoordinated state, I slide it too quickly and sticky liquor splashes over the rim and onto my hand.

  “Fuck,” I say, rising from the bar stool and nearly stumbling backward. Ashley hops up, looping her arm through mine to steady me.

  “Okay,” she says, like she’s about to make an executive order. “No more drinks for you. Come with me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say, though I’m ninety-nine percent sure I’m slurring each and every last one of my words.

  “Yeah. You are.” This one has major attitude. She’s feisty.

  She pulls me to a corner table with a view of the dance floor. Strobe lights flash on half-empty slices of cake resting on tiny white plates. A disco ball spins in the distance, spilling sparkles of light all over the wooden dance floor. Up ahead, Trent is dancing around Joey, holding her hand as she sways in her chair to Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together.

  God, they look happy.

  Deliriously happy.

  I want that. I want that more than I’ve ever wanted it before. Maybe it’s because I’ve never had that before? Regardless, I want it. And I want it with Daphne.

  Maybe it’s the alcohol talking or maybe I’m still strung up on all those high-running emotions from earlier today, but there’s an empty part of me that’s making its presence known for the first time in I don’t know how long. For years, I ignored this void. Convinced myself it was nothing more than my imagination.