The Best Man

by Renshaw, Winter

  “Oh my God.” I go to him.

  I wrap him in my arms.

  He may not be the man I want to marry, but he still means something to me.

  And I’m no stranger to loss.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper as I hold him.

  “Had a heart attack in his sleep … I … I just talked to him two days ago … he and Mom were getting ready to go on a cruise in the Bahamas … he sounded great … he …” Grant’s words trail into nothing.

  I wrap him tighter.

  I don’t tell him about my decision to move to New York. Now’s not the time.

  Instead, I swallow the breakup speech I’d gone over a dozen times in my head while he lay sleeping all night.

  I can’t kick the man when he’s down.

  18

  Cainan

  “Thank you so much for coming.” Grant’s mom wraps me in a powdery lilac-scented hug that takes me back to my youth. A pitch-black dress hugs her pleasantly plump figure, and she accessorizes with a gold cross necklace and teary eyes.

  The place is packed, throngs of visitors making their way toward the lifeless body of Grant’s father in the front of the church, his casket surrounded by a hundred floral arrangements and potted peace lilies.

  If I have half the turnout at my funeral, I’ll die a lucky man.

  “Oh, I wanted you to have one of these.” She reaches toward a table behind her and retrieves a white and blue boutonniere, pinning it on the lapel of my jacket with shaking hands. “There you go. You were like a second son to him. You deserve to be recognized as such.”

  “Thank you, Georgette.”

  Michael “Big Mike” Forsythe was a tough-as-nails son of a bitch who’d have done anything for anyone. He’d survived two back injuries from his career as a construction foreman. A boating accident as a teen. A bout with early stage lung cancer. And a pulmonary embolism ten years ago. But in the end, a widow-maker heart attack took him in his sleep at sixty-three—a year and two months after he retired.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I say. “Really going to miss him.”

  Guilt gnaws at my insides. I should’ve spent more time with them. Growing up, I thought of them as my second set of parents while secretly wishing they were my first and only.

  She swipes at a tear before running her hand along my arm. “Me too.”

  “How’s Grant doing?” I’ve only been here a few minutes, but I’ve yet to run into him. When he called me two days ago and told me the news, he sounded numb and the entire phone call lasted less than sixty seconds before he said he had to go.

  Her thin lips press flat. “He’s trying to stay tough. You know how he is.”

  “I do.”

  “Last I saw him, he was in the church library talking with our pastor.” She points to a hallway to the left. “Brie is with him. Have you met her yet?”

  I don’t know how to answer that question in a concise, uncomplicated manner, so I shake my head.

  “Oh, Cainan, she’s the sweetest thing.” Georgette clasps at her heart, a crumpled tissue in her hand. “You’re going to love her.”

  The irony of her words isn’t lost on me.

  “I’ll see if I can track them down,” I say. “You let me know if you need anything, all right? I’m less than an hour from here.”

  I leave Georgette as she greets an older couple, and I make my way to the hallway to locate my best friend and his intended. My heart lurches in my throat with each step. My sister’s unmistakable voice trails from the other room. Up ahead, a group of guys we used to run around with in high school stand in a circle, half of them almost unrecognizable thanks to their thinning hair and bulging beer bellies.

  Up ahead, I spot Grant through an open doorway. There’s a woman on his arm. Brie, obviously, though I can’t see her face from here.

  My stomach knots with each step that draws me nearer.

  The pastor shows himself out.

  I linger in the doorway, the two of them oblivious as she cups his face in her hands and whispers something to him. Sweet, tender. Compassionate.

  It’s a special moment, one that guts me from the inside out for a myriad of complicated, contradicting reasons.

  “Hey …” I interrupt their moment because standing here any longer would be creepy.

  They turn to me in unison, a team.

  Grant’s eyes grow light when he sees me.

  Brie lets out a quiet gasp, but her preoccupied fiancé doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Hey, man. Thanks for coming.” My best friend doesn’t give me his famous handshake-side-hug and his eyes are a dull shade of brown, the whites bloodshot as if he’s been crying.

  I’ve known the guy almost twenty-five years and not once have I seen him shed a single tear—except when the Ravens defeated the 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII and he lost five thousand bucks to a guy at work.

  “Brie, this is Cainan.” He slips his hand around her waist and pulls her into a makeshift circle. Or is it a triangle?

  “Nice to see you again, Cainan.” Her shiny chocolate curls bounce with each relaxed step. And she extends a hand. “Looking much different than the last time …”

  I squint, confused, until I realize she’s referring to the night of my accident—which means she’s completely skipping over our brief exchange at the bar two Tuesdays ago. We didn’t flirt. We didn’t do anything wrong. Hell, we didn’t even exchange names. I can’t imagine any reason for her to feel guilty—unless she found herself attracted to me and has decided not to call off the engagement?

  “Thank you.” I slide my palm against hers, bracing for the electric jolt that follows when I catch my gaze on her heart-shaped mouth—the one that can never be mine. “Grant told me what you did, and I’m extremely grateful.”

  “I’m just glad you’re okay.” Her bright green eyes hold mine and her voice is library-soft. “I’ll let the two of you catch up. I’m going to see if Georgette needs anything.”

  “Thanks, babe. I love you so much.” Grant squeezes her hand as she walks away.

  I love you so much …

  My jaw is clenched as the brain-squeezing tautness of a tension headache forms.

  “She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Grant asks. His gaze drops as he watches her go, and he bites his lip, though I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it.

  Old habits die hard.

  “Yeah. You two seem really … in sync.”

  His brows rise and he scratches at his temple. “Don’t know how I got so lucky.”

  Our recent prenup conversation floats through my mind. I resist the urge to ask if he’s referring to her … or her father’s money.

  “You doing okay?” I change the subject. “So sorry about your dad. He was one of the best.”

  “Thanks, man.” He nods. “It’s hard, but just taking things one day at a time. That’s all you can do. At least he got to meet Brie. That’s the little bit of solace I’ve found in all of this.”

  “Yeah? Did he like her?”

  “Psh. No. He loved her. He’s the one who told me to lock her down,” he says with a teary-eyed chuckle. “Told me a woman like that only comes around once in a lifetime if you’re lucky.” Grant shrugs. “I guess after watching what you went through and talking to my dad, I realized I wanted more for myself. A wife who loves me like my mom loved my dad. A couple of kids. Family vacations. All that stuff.”

  I can’t help but wonder if he was waxing poetic about his dream life while he was balls-deep in Serena McQuiston, but I keep that question to myself.

  The man just lost his father.

  He’s feeling nostalgic and wistful.

  I’ll let him have his moment.

  “Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt,” an older woman in a pinstripe suit stands in the doorway. “We’re about to begin the service.”

  Grant gives me a tight-lipped nod. “I should find my girl. Oh, and hey. We’re still good for Friday.”

  “Friday?”

  “Yeah. Your
party …”

  “You guys are still coming?” I squint.

  “Of course we’re coming. You’re my best friend. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  19

  Brie

  Raucous laughter bursts from the kitchen and fills the entirety of Grant’s childhood home. He and his uncles and cousins are playing cards while his mother serves up a buffet line of reheated leftovers that neighbors and friends have been dropping off left and right all week.

  I’m seated in the front room on a floral sofa with plaid pillows. A Terry Redlin picture adorns the wall behind me and a brass corner lamp gives off a cozy glow as I page through one of the photo albums his mother left sitting out.

  Grant had a happy childhood from what I can tell. Lots of trips to the shore. Carnivals. Fourth of July ice cream socials. Colorful birthday parties with rented clowns. An abundance of family and friends. Growing up with four sisters, I can’t wrap my head around life as an only child.

  I haven’t had the chance to ask if he was an only child by choice, and given the fact that we only buried his father yesterday, it doesn’t seem like it’d be an appropriate question to ask in the near future.

  I close the burgundy album and reach for the smaller one with the powder blue cover. The first picture inside is from Mike and Georgette’s wedding day. They’re almost unrecognizable with their full, youthful faces, wide eyes, and big hair, but I grin, happy for them as I page through their memories.

  If I have half of what these two had, I’ll consider myself fortunate.

  “Hey. There you are.” Grant stands on the other side of the room. “Went looking for you. Thought maybe you were upstairs. Mom wanted to know if you were hungry?”

  A rupture of laughter flows from down the hall.

  So many of this week’s events have taken me back to Kari’s death five years ago.

  The phone call you never want to get.

  The beautiful flowers that seem to never stop coming.

  The scent of food that’s been reheated far too many times.

  Perfume. Tissues. Tears.

  The carbon-copy greeting-card phrases everyone gives one another because we never truly know what to say in situations like these.

  A swell of emotion has resided in my chest all week. And I intend to keep it there. None of this is about me.

  “I’ll grab a plate in a few,” I say.

  “What are you doing in here all by yourself anyway?” His gaze falls to the wedding album in my lap. Before I answer, he takes a seat next to me, peels the photo book from my hands, and begins to flip through the plastic-covered pages. “I haven’t seen this in ages … wow. Look how young they were.”

  More laughter trails from down the hall, which only makes this moment all the more painful. He has a wonderful family. They’ve been nothing but supportive of Grant and Georgette, and they’ve welcomed me with open arms while grieving their beloved patriarch at the same time.

  Tomorrow we leave to spend a couple of days in the city—kicking things off Friday night with Cainan’s party. And Cainan, as it turns out, is the same man who hit on me at a singles bar in Hoboken this past February. Of course I didn’t know that when I came across his car accident two days after that night. And then when I saw him again at that Midtown bar the other week, I didn’t know he was Grant’s friend.

  Everything is cross-crossing and intersecting in the strangest of ways, and I don’t quite know what to make of it. The only thing I am still sure of—is that I still intend to end the engagement when the dust from all of this settles and we’re back home in Phoenix.

  I wish I felt differently about Grant. I do.

  But you can’t force yourself to love someone any more than you can make yourself to un-love someone.

  Either you do—or you don’t.

  There’s no such thing as in between.

  “We’re going to have one of these someday.” Grant closes the album and places it on the coffee table with the others. “Can’t wait to fill it with memories of our own.”

  His dark gaze holds mine captive.

  Grant cups my cheek in his hand and deposits a slow kiss, one I have to force myself to return even if his lips are ice cold and his breath tastes of beer and marinara.

  “I love you so much, Brie,” he whispers in my ear as he cups my cheek.

  An apologetic ache burns in my chest.

  And then I say the words he needs to hear because the man has had enough pain and suffering for one week. “I love you, too.”

  He returns to the kitchen, turning back once to give me a sleepy smile.

  The bitterness of my lie remains on my tongue long after he’s gone, and while I’m lying in bed later that night, unable to sleep, my mind is inexplicably fixed on the strangest thing.

  No, not thing—person.

  Grant’s best friend.

  20

  Cainan

  “How many of those have you had?” Claire points to the empty tumbler in front of me.

  “It’s my first.” I push it toward the passing bartender and nod when he asks if I’d like another.

  “Jesus, Cain. The party doesn’t even start for another twenty minutes. Pace yourself. I can’t have my guest of honor stumbling and bumbling around like a drunken idiot.”

  “When have I ever stumbled or bumbled?” I shoot her a look and accept my refill.

  “Fair point.” She glances toward the door. “Okay, people are arriving. I just saw Mia Taylor and her husband. And DuVall is here with his wife. You should probably head to the private dining room … oh, there’s Serena. Aaaand Grant and Brie.”

  The latter two follow a line of well-dressed guests down a dimly-lit hallway. His hand rests on the small of her back, her body enveloped in a little black dress that makes me want to eat my fucking fist.

  Like the good brother I am, I head to the private room to receive my guests—beginning with the Taylors, old college friends of mine who flew all the way here from Seattle, and moving onto DuVall before Grant interrupts by squeezing between us to order two drinks.

  “Hey, man,” he says, inadvertently butting DuVall out of the equation.

  “Glad you guys could make it.” Although I saw them two days ago, in some ways it feels like a lifetime.

  I’ve been doing my best to emotionally distance myself from whatever mental hold my mind had on that woman.

  Guests arrive in full force. Singles. Pairs. Groups. An hour into the event, Claire tells me everyone who RSVP’d has officially arrived and instructs the wait staff to start handing out champagne for the toast.

  She’s officially insane.

  But whatever.

  A hundred people lift their glasses to me.

  They celebrate the fact that I’m alive—I smile as if I share their enthusiasm.

  But the truth is, I’ve never felt so dead inside.

  In some ways, I suppose I’ve come full circle.

  The woman I believed I was destined to love … belongs to my best friend.

  She can never be mine.

  So while he’s been mourning his father, I’ve been mourning her.

  And the life we’ll never have.

  21

  Brie

  I gather a breath of chilled city air into my lungs and pull Grant’s linen suit jacket tighter around me. The restaurant signage glows above me. Passersby converse along the sidewalk.

  Inside, Cainan’s party is still going strong. We’ve been here three never-ending hours, and somewhere along the line, Grant did four too many shots and drank three too many beers and forgot that he was here with a plus-one.

  If this were a viable engagement, I’d be livid.

  But instead, I wandered outside, indifferent, to get some space and take a break from watching The Grant Show. I also needed a breather from the pretty girl in the Boho dress who hasn’t stopped shooting sad-eyed daggers my way since we arrived.

  If I had to guess, she and Grant have a history.

  I lean aga
inst the brick façade and dig my phone out to respond to a half-dozen texts from a couple of friends back home, my mom, a colleague, and two of my sisters.

  “You never told me about the craziest thing you’ve ever done.” A man’s voice sends a sharp start to my heart, and when I settle down, I find Cainan to my left.

  The door behind him floats shut.

  He dips his hands in his pockets, taking his time moving closer. He studies me, his chiseled features shadowed in the dark. I inhale his cologne—recognizing it as the same one he wore the first time we met.

  “Excuse me?” I ask.

  “At that Midtown bar last week. You asked me about the craziest thing I’d ever done,” he says. “But you didn’t tell me yours.”

  He’s beside me now, back against the brick, arms folded as he stares toward the street. His entrancing brown-gold gaze flicks to mine for a second, and I lose my breath.

  “So?” he asks.

  “Shouldn’t you be inside with everyone?” I change the subject. Force myself to look away so I don’t have to revel in his magnetic stare or the way my heart hiccups when he points his attention my way.

  It’s wrong to feel that way about someone you can’t have and shouldn’t so much as consider wanting.

  He exhales through his nose, taking me in from his periphery. “Probably. What are you doing out here?”

  “Same thing you’re doing—getting some air.” A brisk shiver runs through me, but I’m not ready to go inside. It’s so loud inside that it’s impossible to hear myself think, and after a while, being shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow with drunk and uncoordinated strangers becomes draining.

  We linger in silence, but it isn’t awkward or uncomfortable—it just … is.

  “I wanted to thank you,” Cainan breaks our wordless moment, “for what you did during the accident. For staying with me. For calling for help. For following up at the hospital.”

  My mind goes to my sister. “Of course.”