AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“A wedding date?” my mom parroted with a wide smile on her round face. “Like that cute movie with Dermot Mulroney? I love that movie.”
Aria nodded. “Exactly. Well, not the male escort part. He’s literally just a wedding date. He goes to weddings for people when they need a plus one for whatever reason. It’s a side gig. But he’s got great branding and comes highly recommended.”
There was enough sand in my throat to fill the Sahara as I processed her words. My little sister, the girl I thought couldn’t be more annoying if she tried, had grown up to be even more annoying than when we were kids. If we were seven and five again, I’d kick her under the table. But it seemed wrong to do that as a grown man.
“What’s the deal, Paul?” Aria asked, cocking her head to the side and looking at me curiously. “You were going to the wedding with your girlfriend when I set this whole thing up. Sure, maybe if you weren’t, it would make sense for the two of you to go together as friends, but it’s not a big deal, right?”
I shook my head on the outside, but on the inside, I was nodding and yelling, Yes, Aria, it is a big freaking deal, because I love this woman and now you’re going to make me watch her go on a date with a gigolo.
“Well,” my mom said, smiling again, “I think it’s cute. Who knows, maybe this will be the start of your very own love story just likeThe Wedding Date.”
“Plus,” Aria piped up, “His day job is pretty great. He’s a Marine stationed here.”
Will and I shared a look. This made it so much worse.So much worse.If I knew the guy, I’d be mad. If I didn’t know the guy, I’d instantly want to invade his privacy by looking up his records in the online Marine personnel system. And wow, if they hit it off and started dating and I worked with him, then I’d want to shove him into a parachute pack and get arrested for attempted murder, among other things.
“Lovely,” I heard myself say. “That’s great. Swell. Super. Excuse me, I’m getting a phone call.”
Thank goodness for the existence of silent mode, since I was able to wave my phone in the air as if it were ringing even though it wasn’t. I walked away from the table without a backward glance and stepped onto the front porch, resisting the urge to slam the door behind me.
Wow.
Just. Wow.
I’d handled that like a complete child. I used to be a pretty chill guy. I was calm, cool, and collected. I didn’t anger easily, and I was slow to judge people. But ever since my very public proposal-fail and my whirlwind of changing feelings for my best friend, I was quickly becoming the opposite of all of those things. Was this what a midlife crisis felt like? Was this a spiral into a bout of insanity?
I paced the porch, running my hands through my hair. When the door opened behind me, I half expected it to be Will. But when I turned around to yell at him for setting me up for that nonsense with another one of his amazing suggestions, I stopped in my tracks. It wasn’t Will who’d followed me onto the porch. It was Shelby.
“Hi,” she said in a small voice. “Are you okay?”
“Me? Yeah. I’m great. Peachy.” I winced. What was with all of these freaky adjectives? I really needed to get it together.
“Okay. Well, you seemed kind of weird in there, so I wanted to come check on you.”
Oh, goody. My fantasy from earlier was coming through. Suddenly the idea of telling her it was because I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing her seemed like the wrong move. “Weird? Me? No. I’m cool.”
A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she looked me over. “I see.”
“Yep. So, uh, that’s pretty cool about you and the professional wedding date guy. That’ll be cool. You’ll have fun. I bet he’ll be a cool guy. He’s a Marine, after all. Marines are very cool.”
“Paul.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think saying the wordcoolover and over will suddenly make you cool? Because right now you’re kind of the opposite.”
I couldn’t help but laugh with her then, and it turned into something of a frustrated groan as I turned away and put my hands on the railing of the porch. I stared at the house across the street. All the houses in this neighborhood looked pretty much the same. There were only about six floor plans in the whole development, and Will’s was right next door, a smaller version of ours in a darker shade of blue. Shelby and her parents had lived in a green three-bedroom model two streets over.
We had a lot of memories on this porch, back when things were easy. Well, actually, they were decidedly harder since Shelby was still getting used to her diagnosis, and it was really difficult for her at the time. But things between us were easy. Now those two things had completely flip-flopped.
“Sorry,” I said, not looking at her. “I think this thing with Roxy has me really messed up.”
It was true. It wasn’t the whole truth, but that was definitely where it all started. And if I were being one hundred percent honest with myself, I really didn’t think I was ready for more rejection. Not from Shelby. Not after everything else that had happened this week. I hadn’t trusted my instincts, and it led to my life getting completely turned upside down. Right now, my instincts told me not to do anything rash. And I was inclined to listen this time.
“That’s totally understandable,” Shelby said. “Have you talked to her?”
“Briefly. She came over and did the ceremonial trading of the boxes of stuff. You know.”
My chest tightened when I thought back to earlier today. Will had just left on a run, and when Roxy had knocked on the door, I’d thought she was Will and he’d forgotten his keys or something. Imagine my surprise to see Roxy standing there with a box of my crap in her hands. She had an apologetic smile on her lips when she walked in, and we tried to make small talk while we went around my apartment gathering her things. It wasn’t like she’d texted me ahead of time asking me to do that before she came. That would have been a lot less uncomfortable.
