“True,” I say. “I guess you’ll have to —”
“Oh good, you’re still here,” Montgomery’s voice says from my doorway.
I jump away from Eli so fast I trip over my own feet and have to catch myself on my desk. I clear my throat, righting myself. I push one hand through my hair, doing the worst job of acting cool and collected that I’ve ever done in my life, adrenaline stabbing through my veins as Montgomery casually walks into my office.
It’s not a big office. Three people is too many, particularly when two of those people are having a covert affair and trying to keep it under wraps at the workplace.
“I was just about to leave,” I say, my voice slightly higher-pitched than usual.
Eli just nods in agreement.
“Well, you may as well both hear this,” Montgomery says. “Saturday’s wedding has been canceled.”
There’s a beat of silence in my office, while I just blink at Montgomery.
“It has?” I ask.
I’m genuinely surprised. Not because I think that Payton and Edgerton are a match made in heaven, but because people rarely cancel events that cost them half a million dollars. Months and months of work go into planning a wedding. Hundreds of people fly in. It’s a huge undertaking.
Generally speaking, people elect to have the party and then get the union itself annulled a month later if things aren’t working out. But they always have the party.
“Indeed it has,” Montgomery says. “And given the extremely late notice we’ve been given regarding the dissolution of this union, we’ve elected to throw the party anyway and invite the good people of Sprucevale.”
Eli and I look at each other, then back at Montgomery.
“It’ll be a considerably more casual affair, of course,” he says. “But there’s no point in letting everything go to waste, right?”
“Right,” Eli echoes.
“Besides,” Montgomery smiles. “We’ll call it a charity event and get the tax write-off. It’s win-win. Go home, we’ll work out the details tomorrow.”
And just like that, he leaves.
“I don’t think that’s what win-win means,” Eli says, keeping his voice low so Montgomery can’t hear him. “Who’s the other win?”
I just shake my head.Chapter ThirtyEli“Which one’s your new best friend?” Seth asks.
I flip a steak over on the grill and take another pull from the beer he just brought me.
“My new best friend?” I echo, like I’m not really paying attention.
I’m standing on the grilling patio outside my kitchen at work, finishing up my part of the All Sprucevale Block Party that Montgomery sprung on us with thirty-six hours’ notice. Thankfully it’s much more laid back than any wedding — which is why Seth is here, hassling me, instead of being served hors d’oeuvres next to an ice sculpture or whatever this weekend was supposed to be like.
“According to Daniel you’re spending most of your nights getting tanked and then sleeping on your coworker’s couch,” Seth goes on. “It’s just so nice to see you making friends that I was wondering whose couch it is.”
I sigh and look over at my younger brother. Seth looks back at me with a perfectly straight face, but I’m not stupid.
“I just need to tell Mom something when I don’t come home,” I say, hoping it’ll be enough explanation. “She worries, but staying there gets a little old sometimes, and I haven’t found my own place yet, so…”
“So you’re letting her and Daniel think you routinely get too drunk to come home?”
I pretend to check the steaks, cursing myself for using that excuse more than once. Problem is, I haven’t come up with a better one — the second I tell them there’s a girl, they’ll all want to know who and I’ll never have a moment of peace again. Mom might start planning a wedding. Rusty will want to be a flower girl, but it’s not that kind of relationship.
What am I supposed to say to my mother about that? Don’t worry, we’re just fucking? I can’t say that to my mom.
On the other hand, there’s no way that she doesn’t know something is up. I’m lying, they know I’m lying, and can’t we all just live in this nice world we’ve created without Seth sticking his nose into the middle of it?
“I promise I’ll get my own place soon and my getting-drunk-every-night phase will end,” I tell Seth. “Did she send you over just to ask me about this?”
“I came to see if I could get the truth out of you,” Seth says, grinning. “Guess not.”
I take another long pull from the beer, then start taking the filet mignon off the grill and stacking them onto a platter. It feels weird to serve all this top-tier wedding food buffet-style for a few hundred of our closest friends, but we already had all the food, and it wasn’t like we could return shrimp and steak.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be besides harassing me?” I ask Seth, still removing steaks, piling them on the plate.