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Austin
“We’re getting married on the beach at sunset,” Aiden tells me. “Carly couldn’t decide between the beach and the rainforest, so to decide, we,” he leans in closer, “made a game of it.”
“A game of it?” I ask before cutting into the deep-fried burrito on my plate, and then it hits me – what my brother is doing.
“Yeah,” Aiden grins and I know by his body language that I do not want to know the details of that game.
I dredge my forkful of burrito in salsa and sour cream, avoiding the mound of guacamole the waitress neglected to make sure I didn’t get before shoving it in my mouth.
Aid waits.
I continue chewing, ignoring his expectant stare, the smirk. He’s patiently waiting for me to ask questions about this ‘game’. But I know better. My brother has no problem telling me all about his sex life. In detail.
Most men I know, myself included, don’t get explicit about their sex life with their friends or brothers. Aiden does.
And while I’m not all that forthcoming with details of my own sex life, thanks to loose lips while drunk a while back when I was wallowing over what happened with a girl, he now knows more about my recent sex life than necessary, including that I like little games with girls I’m with. I regret it, because now he uses that fact in an effort to bait me into letting him give me details about his sex life.
Whatever games he and Carly get up to - I don’t wanna know. I even tried ratting him out to his girl at a family dinner, figuring she’d get angry about his locker room talk about her and tell him to stop.
She got outraged for all of three seconds before he leaned over and whispered something in her ear that made her eyes go glassy as she leaned into him. Aiden brags about his creativity in getting her to forget being pissed at him.
They haven’t been together that long and are already getting hitched. He proposed last week and are getting hitched in a couple days.
In fact, I asked her out not long after she moved to our San Diego head office. But it became clear real quick that Aiden had his eye on her and wanted me to back off. He very nearly fucked it all up in a way that seemed beyond repair, but a few months after he fixed things, he locked that down with an engagement ring and a lightning-fast destination wedding plan.
Too bad. She’s my type.
But of course I backed off, because it was quickly clear they had something – even if it looked to everyone like she hated his guts.
And good for Aid, because him getting involved with Carly Adler made a huge difference in my brother.
I don’t believe people will change for love, but I do believe love can bring out the best in a person. Aiden is a prime example of this.
My brother is someone I’d have had pegged as a confirmed bachelor who’d wait until he was pushing sixty to tie the knot, figuring he’d then marry a twenty-five-year-old with fake tits who could play nurse and later nurse him in his old age.
Carly came along, completely different from the women my brother usually went for and it was the beginning of some changes. For Aiden and frankly our whole family.
Him falling for Carly brought him back to us where he’d been doing his best to keep his distance for years.
And it sounds cliché but it’s true. He’s still Aiden, but with Carly - he’s a slightly better Aiden.
There’s been a lot going on with our family the last few months including some hard truths to face as well as hard changes, but also some changes for the better.
As for me, I’m still single. I’m single and too busy to do much about it. But truthfully, I’m probably ready to settle down, too.
The family business is growing, we’re all making money with that and our own private investments, and despite the whack of drama we’ve dealt with lately like health scares with Dad and legal drama for our mother with a DUI that went viral when she slapped the arresting officer, things are good.
The legal drama caused a public stink, a memeable one that resulted in her being the poster rich bitch and the punchline in a lot of jokes, a rehab stint for her, her and my father splitting up, and to top it off, Dad getting treated for prostate Cancer amid all that. Him getting treatment has meant me and Aid have had to step up and take on more responsibilities.
Dad should’ve taken a leave of absence; he hasn’t. The thing is, too, Dad had a heart attack not that long ago. He’s trying to still be Quentin Carmichael, workaholic, but he’s dropping balls all over the place, and my brother and I have been on clean-up duty.
