I can tell him something came up. Something I ate last night has my ass erupting like a volcano every 20 minutes. Or I can say I have a killer migraine that won’t go away. I toss the ideas around in my head. But the last thing I want to do is speak something horrible into existence. Dealing with Gavin and the bougie wedding party for a week shouldn’t be that bad.
I can’t say I was shocked when Gavin asked me. Me and the rest of the world watched the clip of him proposing to Carina on a rooftop in Greece.
I counted down the days until a text would come to my phone asking me to be his best man. Mimi was living then, and she couldn’t stop replaying that reel of Gavin getting down on one knee without bawling her eyes out.
“It would make me so happy to see you boys back on good terms,” she’d say. “We’re all we got. Life is too short to be angry at the people you love.” And I knew if she was telling me that, she was definitely telling her son. Because when the invitation to be Gavin’s best man came, her eyes glowed with something close to desperation and hope.
My cousin had asked me because of his mother, and I’d said yes for the same reason.
The ringing of my cell phone breaks me out of my thoughts.
Maybe Carina Sterling.
My chest tightens. Until now, my communication with Gavin and Carina had been through text and email. This is the first time she’s called my phone in three years. My thumb hovers over the screen before I finally answer the call. “Hello?”
“Hey, Ozzy!”
Carina’s voice comes through the phone like a silver bell. I can’t help but notice how bright and optimistic she sounds, like a woman excited that her time has finally come, like a woman who has moved on from the past.
“Carina, how are you?”
“Great! I’m checking in ’cause we haven’t heard much from you. You’re still coming, right?”
“Yeah, of course. I’m headed to the airport now.” I leave out the part where I’m running late.
“Great! Gavin owes me a hundred dollars. He said you wouldn’t show up.”
To this, I pause.
Wow.
So, this is what they think of me? Shit, I don’t blame them. I have been distant. My communication in the group chat has been null and void, and I should be taking my role as the Best Man more seriously. But no one has asked me to do anything, and I wonder if that’s why.
I didn’t miss some of the petty remarks and jokes in the chat geared toward me, but as time went on, the wedding party just ignored me altogether, and it was like I wasn’t even there. Hell, I don’t know over half of them anyway. Only Carina’s best friend, Danielle, and her cousin, Jaylah.
And I’m sure this break-up is a hot topic.
Considering…
The bet Carina and Gavin conjured up makes sense. But that doesn’t make me feel any better. If anything, I feel even more uneasy about this whole thing, because what else has been said about me and to whom? Luckily, I’ll never see any of these people again after this week.
“Are you sure you don’t want to fly with us?” Carina asks in a sing-song voice.
I know that tone all too well. And I know if she were standing in front of me right now, she’d be batting those long lashes. It was her bratty,“let me have my way”look that Carina used a lot. The look always worked. Even with me once upon a time.
“We will get there twice as fast. I’m sure your flight is probably over nine hours.”
“Ten, to be exact, and no, Carina. I’m good. I already paid for my ticket.”
“Oh, blah boo!” she blubbered nonchalantly. “It’s not like my daddy can’t make a call. Fly with us. It’ll be a lot better than flying commercial, and you can finally meet everyone in person.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
Carina scoffs in disgust, then draws a sharp breath. “Look, the wedding party is supposed to be together. I have a lot of things planned. Plus, Gavin is anxious to see you.”
Anxious. What kind ofanxiousis my cousin right now? Anxious like he doesn’t want to see me either? Or anxious, as in, “I’m glad you’re here, let’s put the past behind us, and have a great week”?
She’d just said Gavin bet a hundred bucks that I wasn’t coming. Was he hoping that I wouldn’t?
