Chapter 46

forty-six

River

The Middle of the Night

Nope. No way. Not again. Drunk grooms and I do not have a great history. With this group, lord only knows what it's going to be that Lee spits out.

As we're making our way through the casino floor to head back to the hotel suite, I have to stop and send Mateo for a luggage cart. There's zero chance we're all getting Lee to bed any other way. He's sat down and can barely keep his eyes open at this point, but thankfully he doesn't seem to have alcohol poisoning.

God this is my nightmare. I try to cut folks off before it's this bad. He's going to be so sick tomorrow. Where are they?

Before I can see them, I hear the crowd around us reacting. Arriving like Tony Hawk and the Queen had birthed a Filipino male model, Mateo sails down the hallway on the back of the luggage cart, giving a dainty wave. He is taking one foot down to give a few kicks and keep momentum before rolling a few feet and repeating again.

Meanwhile, Seth is sitting there dead center of the cart, cradling a few bottles of liquor like they are his babies. I have to assume he lost a bet to Mateo. Is Seth singing? I almost want to check that nobody slipped him something .

As they get closer, I see Seth's "baby" liquor bottles are semi-full and I swear they better have paid for them. The last thing I need to deal with is security showing up to "assist" with the situation. There's little doubt in my mind these guys' behavior would get us assisted directly into the parking lot where none of them, or hell even me, are in any state to drive home.

Which means we'd have to sober up in the car or pacing the boardwalk. Ooh, but that would mean we could have pizza, do we have pizza upstairs?

Okay, Seth has to be on something because as they get even closer, I can hear Mateo has somehow roped Seth into singing along to a Backstreet Boys song. After they finish their off-key rendition of "I Want it That Way," we work together to lift a now-sleeping Lee up onto the cart in Seth's former spot.

In the midst of rolling to the suites, Lee keeps slurring something and trying to tell us a story of some sort. I just want to get back to the room and go the fuck to sleep, and not listen to another drunk groom spill his guts so I can keep secrets for the next decade from Stef too.

Finally, he's gotten clearer and is rolling to his side while grasping the golden bars of the cart. Lee gets louder, begging us to stop. Concerned the motion is going to trigger his upchuck reflexes, we pause.

Quickly, I realize we are directly in front of the door to the girl's suite, and I start to sweat. Whatever we can do, I just want to get him inside without saying something he'll regret tomorrow.

"Guys! Guys! No, seriously, listen." He's speaking rapid fire, increasingly louder and forthright as he goes. "You are the best friends anyone could ask for. Matttyyyy! My brother, I've always wanted a big brother," he coos to Mateo.

"Seriously, I love you guys, which is going to make what I have to tell you so much harder, but shh." He screams the signal for a whisper, before breaking out into a sing-song childlike tone, "Because it's a secret!"

I've had just enough to drink that I've crossed over from fun-drunk to a stern bar owner. I get loud. Much louder than I realize, and cut off Lee with a confession ten years in the making.

"Absolutely fucking not, Lee Samuel Carter. I swear to god, being a best man in this town does not mean being the keeper of secrets from wives. I swear to you if you say some stupid shit like Grant confessing his love for Landan the night before he married Lily and put me in a bad position, I will not just watch another train wreck. You have been with Stef…" before I can finish my lecture, I see everyone's eyes growing wider by the second.

I assume this is just because nobody has heard me yell at any of us, ever.

Not to be deterred, I continue, "How many years now? Huh? If you admit to something that fucked up I cannot just let you marry her. I won't live with this guilt anymore! If I had been older, or had more of a backbone, I could have prevented Lily from getting hurt. It's all my fault." I'm half angry and half crying now, at which point their silent shock has me growing in fury.

What is wrong with these guys?

Suddenly, it grows just quiet enough to hear the creaking of hinges. Turning slowly, I see over my shoulder an open doorway packed with the other half of our group.

Standing at the front of the huddle, arms crossed over her chest, shaking and struggling to stand is the last person I wanted to hear this. Her dark brown hair threaded with caramel streaks is in messy waves cascading down her back. Deep brown eyes are rimmed red and swelling as tears threaten to spill over the lashes and take her mascara with them. Her body seems to be turning in on itself, shaking with fear.

"What did you say?" Lily finally chokes out on a cry, her voice wavering and tears that threaten to fall raining down in strong, silent streaks. "What. The fuck. Did you just say George River Hendrix?" She's shaking and the venom in her voice cannot be missed.

She's probably done with me, and I fucking deserve it. It feels like every muscle in my body has turned to cement. I'm rigid. Turning to face her may be necessary but it is impossible. At a glacial pace, I turn to the side, leaving the doorway to my left and the guys to my right. Looking between the cart and guys in the hallway to my right, and Lily next to me at the door on my left, I'm like a caged man. There's nowhere to run and hide now .

"The hell, dude," Delia says what seems to be written on the faces of the individuals in our group.

Nessa shrinks backwards, she's usually good for a one to one conversation on these kinds of things, but in a group she tries to hide from playing the fixer publicly.

Pushing forward to hold Lily, Stef glares at Lee and me each for just long enough that I know I should be fully frightened of what comes next. I watch my beautiful flower wilt into her friend's arms. My chest aches, it feels like my heart is breaking in a literal way, not just a metaphorical one. My entire being is giving up, and I can feel myself begin to crumple inwards.

The shock of it all has Lee awake enough to stumble over towards Stef and Lily, pushing past me as he enters the doorway. "But babe," he complains, "babe, I'm going to miss these guys. I didn't have guy friends like this growing up, and I'm going to miss them." He repeats ‘miss them' with a high pitched whine like a little boy.

Turning towards her fiancé, Stef chides him, "You need to remember what a secret is. But more importantly…" She adjusts her eyes and is glaring at me. I now fully understand the phrase if looks could kill. If they could,I would be dead, cremated, spread across all seven continents, and she'd come back to stomp on the ashes resting places, and that would not be enough of a punishment from Stef. Putting on her classroom behavior management voice, Stef demands we get in their suite now.

Filing in like the naughty boys we've been, I watch my shoes and make my way to the hotel room combination kitchen-living room area. Seth and Mateo prop Lee up each by an arm and toss him on the couch after he flung himself on the floor near the kitchen's mini island.

With a moment of sibling bond compassion, Stef looks at Mateo and gives him a choice, "Big brother, I'm about to say a bunch of things you may not want to hear. Mostly because you'll have to keep it from Nanay and I don't need you caught up in my shit if you don't want to be. You want to get out of here, go for it."

Looking entertained at the possibilities here, Mateo eyes each of us around the room. Lee has possibly fallen back to sleep on the couch while Seth is chugging mini-water bottles like he's in the desert.

Nessa is mostly out of sight, scrolling on her phone in a chair while pretending she isn't here, Delia looks like she could burn me at the stake, Lily has not stopped crying, and Stef has her teacher face on. Winking in Nessa's direction, he says, "This should be interesting. Perfect Princess saying something I shouldn't know? I'm going nowhere."

Hopping up on the faux marble countertop he grabs an apple from the bowl and crunches loudly into the fruit. He swings his legs like a little kid about to watch a PG-13 movie.

"Our secret is nothing like Grant's apparent drunken confession, which," she looks at me with her death stare again, "we will be getting back to in a moment," she chastises.

Lee immediately groans and says, "Babe, no, we said no telling until the speech at the wedding."

Laughing, Stef softly strokes his blond shaggy hair before kissing his forehead. Softly, her tone a sweet whisper, she says, "You fool, you are the reason we're in this mess. Let's just spill since it's such a small thing compared to," turning her face towards me with another glare and a sharp change in tone, "the important secret just confessed."

Softening again, Stef glows. Her eyes are shiny and everything about her body language says nervous excitement. Thinking back over my memories of the last few days, I know she's had alcohol so I don't think this is that sort of secret, but I'm unable to think of what else it could be. They already have their own adorable bungalow in a residential section of town, they both have amazing jobs in the school district, and Lee has been creating and selling paintings on the side out of their home art studio in what could be a bedroom. Ticking off what other types of things could be big news worthy that would go in a speech during a wedding, I'm slowly coming up short.

Thankfully, I don't have to wait too long before she exclaims with glee, "Our big secret is that I'm getting my PhD, at Columbia Teaching School, and we need to move to New York City for the next few years so I can complete the coursework!" She's jumping and clapping, her tipsy excitement for this professional milestone abundantly clear .

"You see, getting into an Ivy League program like this was not guaranteed and even more so affording it. We just found out, I'm getting a scholarship so I can do this, for real for real…" she trails off remembering how this reveal came to be. She calmly shifts back to serious and continues, "Which, honestly, is absolutely insignificant compared to your revelation River. So, before Nessa buries herself into the couch cushions so far that we have to use the jaws of life to free her?—"

Nessa interjects, "I'm good, babe! Keep going!"

"So, before, Delia skins you alive or Lily disappears on me for another decade, talk River. What exactly did Grant say before Lily's wedding? And , why is this the first any of us are hearing about it?"

Somehow, every pair of eyes in the room turns towards me except the one set that matters. I just want to look into those chocolate brown irises that rest above the dusting of freckles over her pert nose and sweet lips. It's the prettiest face I've ever beheld. Her hair has gone from down in those gorgeous and messy waves to gathered in a knot on her head. With tissues in hand, she keeps wiping over and over at the running makeup.

The ache in my chest comes back knowing I caused this. I have gotten everything I ever hoped for the last few weeks, overwhelmed by the love she has shown me. These red rimmed, watery eyes are the same ones I've been lucky enough to make roll back in her head with pleasure, finally after all these years, and better still: more than once. No, those eyes continue to watch her fingers and fidget with the box of tissues in her hands. Sighing, I realize I have no choice but to get it all out there and so I take us back ten years and lay everything on the line.

I'm trying not to cry when I start speaking, "Lily, please, please trust me that I've been searching every day we've been together for the right moment to tell you this because I knew without you knowing, the guilt would always eat at me. I didn't plan to let it go on for this long, but in December we were having so much fun and I couldn't believe you finally saw me too."

I move closer to her, resting against the coffee table across from her seat on the loveseat. "I keep trying to make everything perfect for you. For us. I wanted, I want there to be an us, still, tonight. Tomorrow. Forever. You're the only one I've ever wanted like this."

I pause to reach for her and hesitate my hand in midair, thinking twice about it and retreat. "In middle school you watched our junior hockey games, it made me feel like I had won the lottery. When Grant and Landan broke up, and he decided to pursue you, I was mad. Not at you, of course not, but at him. Hell, I was mad at everyone here. If you all knew how much I liked her, and saw how shy I was, how come nobody ever set something up for us? Why didn't I get a wingman?"

Feeling my anger rising, I start to pace the length of the sitting area and grumble. "Ugh, no. Not the point. The point is that the night before the wedding while you ladies were having a girls night in, Grant and I got alcohol from the bar cellar and drank too much."

Turning and pointing his way I add, "Seth was with us too, but he'd moved on to playing baseball with sticks and rocks further down the riverbanks from us. He couldn't have known, and I didn't tell him either. Grant got drunk, I mean really drunk. Lee looks sober compared to Grant, honestly. Anyhow, that grease ball started to murmur Landan's name to himself. He was despondent, confused why she didn't love him. He was prattling on until his word vomit turned into actual vomit."

At this point Seth looks up and pauses his water bottle mid air and nods, "Yeah, I do recall him recreating the exorcist on the lawn that night." Returning to his fifth mini water, it's clear the room expects me to continue.

"Right, so once the remake of the exorcist began, I shouted for Seth and we got him home to bed. The next day, you were married, and there hadn't been a moment to see if he knew what he said, or if it was even true. I had always heard that drunk words were sober thoughts, and I wanted to confront him so badly. There just was never a good time. Ugh, that's always the problem. I never know when to do this, to have the impossible conversation with someone. So, when you and Grant finally split, I had to help you however I could. It's why I had to tell you about the stupid town council things I overheard. I wanted to make it right by tipping you off. Getting you the Wrangler and out to Stef at school was the best way I could do it without sacrificing my chance of running The Featherweight."

My pacing has slowed, and I'm back before her. Begging. "Please, please Lily. Please. You have got to believe me. Please." I'm on my knees in front of the oversized loveseat she is curled up in with my hands folded like a prayer. "Please, Lily. Please believe me, please."

Finally, Nessa stands up and hip checks Delia before saying, "Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for this riveting end to our night. I'm going to borrow these two. Stef, if you want to join us for a slumber party, you are always welcome. Goodnight my dudes, and Mateo, seriously, stop grinning. This isn't some television show for your entertainment. Grow the fuck up." On that firm note and an eye roll, she slams the doors that connect our rooms and we see the lights flick off.

Fuck, I need to fix this.