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37DamonThere were a few things I knew for certain in my life. My brother, Chris, was an idiot. I loved my wife, Chelsea. I loved Luna. I hated when people walked and didn’t bother to pick their damn feet up.
But I also knew when my brother was happy. Actually happy. Last night I’d watched him dance with Belle at the rehearsal dinner, and some isolated, ill-advised corner of my heart broke a for him. That was my little brother, after all. He was clearly in deep for the wedding planner, but as far as I could tell, she was firmly on the fence about him.
It made me wish there was something I could do, and against my better judgment, I decided to go seek him out the morning of the ceremony. I knocked on the door of his room. “You alone?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Chris grunted. “Just—” he groaned with relief. “Just a second.”
I screwed up my face at the door, trying very hard not to imagine what my idiot brother was doing in there. I’d once walked in on him doing naked yoga, and I suspected I still needed to see an optometrist about updating my prescription after having my retinas burned like that.
“Okay,” he said, still sounding like he was breathing heavy.
“You’re sure you’re alone?” I asked, hesitating with my hand on the door.
“Yeah.”
I pushed it open to see Chris with his back to me. He was hunched over at the shoulders slightly and his arm was pumping up and down, shaking his whole body.
“Jesus Christ,” I said, shielding my eyes. “I need you to stop masturbating. Immediately.”
Without stopping his arm, Chris turned around with a shit-eating grin on his face. That was when I saw the protein drink he was shaking in his hand. Between belly laughs, my brother put it right over his crotch and groaned like he was enjoying himself as he shook it a few more times, then laughed harder.
I shook my head, searching the depths of my soul for the will not to laugh—not to encourage him. Unfortunately, I smiled a little, which gave Chris all the ammunition he needed to cook up yet another dumb stunt in the endless procession of dumb stunts that was his life. “Are you finished?”
Something lit up in his eyes, and I knew I’d asked the wrong question. He stuck the shaker cup out to me, raising a suggestive eyebrow. “Why, stepbro. Are you offering to help if I’m not?”
“I’m not your stepbrother, idiot. And no.”
“So,” he asked, sinking into his chair and taking a swig of his drink. “What brings he-who-must-not-be-named to my abode?”
“I felt obligated to give my little brother some advice before he gets hitched.”
Chris watched me with suspicious eyes. “Pretend hitched,” he said.
“Is that what it is to you, though?”
I shrugged. “What else would it be?”
“It might be my brother’s foolish hoping something fake could turn into something real. Have you talked to her about any of this?”
Chris grunted. “I’m not sure what we are talking about. So, probably not.”
“For once, act like you have a pair of brain cells to rub together. Stay with me here. You love the wedding planner. You’re wishing this marriage was real. You don’t know if she feels the same way, and you’re just hoping it’ll somehow work out for the best. Am I making sense?”
“Assuming you were right, which I’m not saying you are—by the way. How would you suggest a man in that position should broach the topic? Hey, want to pretend this fake marriage is a real one? We can ride off into the sunset—you on top, me on the bottom.”
Speaking to my brother required an ability to tune out portions of what came from his mouth. He couldn’t help himself, I’d learned, and it was like speaking another language. I’d learned to cut through his sarcasm and jokes to pluck the true meaning. “A man would find the wedding planner and tell her how he felt. A scared little boy would pretend to masturbate with his protein shake and hide in his room all morning.”
“Why do I feel like this just got personal?”
I sighed, then reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “Talk to her.”38BelleIt was late morning and the day was still holding a refreshing coolness in the air. In front of me, a wall of green was speckled with vibrant purple flowers and the sounds of activity filtered through the gardens all around me. Somewhere, I heard two people trying to decide how to overcome some issue in the kitchens. In another direction, it sounded like a group of kids were playing tag while their parents chatted and watched.
It was one of those rare, unexpectedly perfect moments that sometimes snuck up on me.
So I sat there in the cute little sundress I’d thrown on just drinking it in. Because I’d gradually come to realize something: happiness and good things weren’t what I’d always imagined. They weren’t facts of life you could plan your day around. They weren’t guarantees that came with iron-clad money-back promises.
