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“He is,” I said without thinking. “Clothing designer.”
“So you have talked to him.”
I rolled my eyes at the way Xander’s voice went up a notch.
“Okay, gotta go,” I said.
“Wait, wait,” Xander cut in. “I wanted to do this in person, but since I’m likely to see Bigfoot before I see you, I guess this will have to do.”
“What?” I asked, preparing myself for the worst.
“Bennett and I settled on a date for the wedding.”
I waited for that little stab of pain I usually felt when Xander mentioned Bennett, but curiously, it wasn’t there. “Okay,” I said. “When is it?” I knew there was no way I was going to get out of attending that particular event. And part of me really didn’t want to try. Despite how much things had changed, Xander had been a good friend, and I was happy he was finally going to have the life he deserved.
“Christmas Eve. And I want you to be my best man.”
Fuck.
“Really?” I asked, somehow managing to sound surprised, rather than horrified.
“Aiden will be standing up for Bennett, and I want my best friend to stand up for me.”
My heart lodged in my throat. Best friend? God, was that really how he saw me? If so, I was the worst fucking best friend on the planet.
“Um, yeah, okay.”
Smooth, Jake. Way to sound excited.
“Okay, cool,” Xander said, his voice sounding a little lighter. “It’ll just be friends and close family. Really small and intimate, and we’re having it here at the lodge.”
I struggled to get my emotions under control. How the hell had Xander’s admission managed to gut me like this?
Maybe because he’d somehow managed to fly under the radar with me. Because he really was my best friend. I just hadn’t realized it until this moment. And while that was eye-opening, it also hurt a little because it was a reminder of how things had changed for me in the past few years. I’d become so emotionally isolated that the idea of having a best friend had become a foreign concept.
“Okay, just let me know when you need me to be there.”
“You’re still coming for Thanksgiving, right?” Xander asked.
Five minutes ago, I would have tried to get out of it. But now I merely nodded my head and said, “Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Okay, we’ll go over everything then. Unless, of course, you want to stop by sometime before then. Maybe bring me some beer?” Xander hinted.
I smiled to myself. “I might have a batch ready in the very near future. Maybe once that cold passes…”
“Good,” Xander said. “Do me a favor and keep an eye on Oz, especially if that cold snap lasts as long as it’s supposed to. I get the impression he’s kind of new at all this doing-it-on-his-own thing.”
Yeah, sure, and while I’m at it, I’ll just cut my arm off and feed it to Oz’s crazy little dog. “Sure,” I murmured. “Listen, I have to go,” I said as I glanced at the clock on the dashboard.
“Okay, I’ll talk to you soon, then. Maybe give me a call in a couple days just to let me know you guys made it through okay up there.”
“Will do,” I responded. Something in my belly warmed. It’d been a long time since I’d had someone in my life who cared about me like Xander did. I wasn’t in a position to reciprocate the metaphorical hand Xander was almost always extending me, but hell if I didn’t want to reach for it sometimes. I said my goodbyes and hung up, then got the car going.
It took about fifteen minutes to get down the mountain. As I entered Haven’s city limits, I felt something in my chest ease. While I enjoyed the wilderness guiding I did and the odd jobs that allowed me to escape into the mountains even during the winter months, nothing brought me more peace than the volunteer work I did at the Haven Cares clinic. It was complete and utter insanity to keep returning to the clinic and offering my services to the beleaguered Doc Sharma, but I found myself doing it several times a week anyway. Fortunately, Doc Sharma had figured out early on that having me help out in his clinic came with a certain set of unspoken conditions, namely that he didn’t ask me a lot of questions–or any–about my past. I still often wondered if the man wasn’t a little off in the head, because he allowed me to assist him without proof of my medical training. Of course, I never actually wrote prescriptions or did much more than basic first aid, but what I was doing was still a big no-no. However, I needed the work as badly as Doc Sharma needed the extra set of hands. Practicing medicine was in my blood, and if there was a way to excise it out, I hadn’t found it yet.
