Page 62 of Gin and Bear It

“I know. But this is one of the few nights when I’m not and I know you would have lost your mind if I hadn’t been here for at least part of the night.” She checks her phone. “I’m sure as hell not going out to the club, but I’m in for some food. And Malcolm and the twins can play video games and watch whatever nineties nostalgic movie he’s pulled from the vault until I get home.”

“Thank you.” Yet another reason why my sister is the best.

The host finally corrals us all and takes us to the back. Two long tables split the room, one with white decorations and one with black.

“Your husband will be with the guys. Then we’ll be able to have a proper girls’ night,” Danika says, gesturing to the table with the black decor. She might as well have thrown up some air quotes when she said husband.

Her fiancé is surrounded by his boys, who all seem to be slight variations of him style-wise. Ash couldn’t stand out more if he tried on every single level. But he composes himself and shrugs, choosing a random seat. I sit in the seat at the girls table directly behind him, just in case, and Kendra sits next to me. One of my cousin’s friends takes the other side.

A waiter brings out drinks immediately, filling glasses with sparkling wine. I hear Ash introducing himself to the guys he’s sitting next to, but he doesn’t say much else. Danika isn’t the nicest, but Scott is mostly quiet. Maybe his friends won’t be that bad?

Kendra takes a dainty sip of her wine and softly sighs.

“Are you already tired?” Danika asks her from the head of the table. “We haven’t even started.”

Kendra’s eyebrow arches up and she scans the table. She’s one of the oldest here. Not that she’s old, but Danika thought that turning thirty was like buying a rental property next to the crypt keeper. The idea of Kennie being in her early forties must make her seem ancient, even though we aren’t too far from it.

“It’s been a long week,” Kendra says instead, giving a gentle, patient smile.

“Right. Doing doctor stuff or whatever.” Danika says it like Kendra is out there playing one on TV instead of doing literal surgery and delivering babies, sometimes simultaneously. “Anyway, let’s do a toast. To me.”

“And Scott,” her friend adds after an uncomfortably long pause.

Kendra snorts under her breath and I bite back a laugh. Typical. Danika raises her glass and shushes the men, who raise their glasses, too.

“A toast to me and Scott,” Danika says. “Our wedding is going to be incredible and I’m glad y’all will be there to witness our epic love.”

Everyone clinks their glasses together and takes a sip of their drinks.

“The wedding will be nice and all, but what about the rest of their lives?” Kendra murmurs to me under her breath.

“For real.” I take a long sip of my wine.

A waiter comes around and takes our orders from the prix fixe menu on the table, then someone else tops off our wine already.

“Speaking of the rest of your life,” Kendra says, keeping her voice low. “How’s married life?”

I resist the urge to look back at Ash, and my stomach tightens. Kendra has always been someone I go to whenever I need advice. This fake marriage is the first time I haven’t been able to confide in her in tough times, and it almost hurts not to say anything.

But I can’t tell both her and Jeremiah about the truth behind the marriage. Since I can reasonably pull off the lie with her – mostly because we aren’t as tight as Jeremiah and I am -- I should. She wouldn’t tell Danika, but we should keep the truth to as few people as possible. Secrets have legs. What if my niece and nephew overhear her telling Malcolm and say something to someone they shouldn’t?

I wish I could get her insight.

What do I do now that I see Ash in a new light? Now that he’s clearly not the young man with a massive chip on his shoulder and a bad boy attitude? Now he’s just the man who looked like he was going to kick that asshole at the bar in the teeth for snapping at me. The same one who I caught baby-talking Pip, even though he claims he’s not a cat person.

I’m still stuck on the bar at trivia night, though. He genuinely seemed more upset about the guy being a dick to me than he was at the guy for basically harassing him all night. Was it some sense of duty or something that riled him up? Or was he being protective of me for show?

He’s a decent actor, but I don’t think he’s that good.

But the alternative—that he wants to keep me safe and might have feelings for me—is too much for me to process right now. I can’t even use the excuse that he’s just being nice, because Ash isn’t the type to do things like that.

“It’s been nice,” I finally say instead. “I mean, life’s been pretty busy so we’ve mostly been doing our own stuff. But it’s been nice when we can hang out.”

“Good,” she says with a nod. “You’d tell me if it wasn’t right?”

“Of course.” The lie tastes sour. Then again, if things were imploding to the point where I had to talk to someone, I’d reach out to her first.

“JJ…” Kendra raises an eyebrow.