AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He had the nerve to look confused. Bastard.
“Mate, you were there, too,” he said.
“Goddammit!” I threw my hands into the air. “Am I the only feckin’ one who doesn’t remember this bleedin’ wedding?”
“Rachel remembers?” Rian asked.
“You remember her name?” I bellowed.
Rian shrugged. The bastard. Have I said already he was a bastard? Have I said that yet?
“I was the witness and I was sober,” he explained. “Somebody had to be. You two were plastered. Absolutely plastered. It was a beautiful ceremony though. Touching. I was Rachel’s flower girl, too, by the way. She said I was the best flower girl she’d ever seen. Really, very touching all around.”
I tugged at my hair.
“Rian, why didn’t you tell me?”
He frowned.
“Tell you that you were married? I kind of thought you knew…”
All this time. All this time and Rian knew. Why, oh fucking why couldn’t Conor have been my sober witness? He wasn’t exactly a talker by any stretch of the imagination, but surely he would have brought it up after a glass or two of whiskey sometime over the years?
My head hung heavy between my shoulder blades. Through gritted teeth, I said, “Why didn’t you say anything? When I came back without this wife you knew all about? Why didn’t you say fucking anything?”
“Because you didn’t say anything. I thought…well, I thought it ended. I mean, why else wouldn’t you talk about your wife?”
That was fuckin’ it. I was going to take Rian’s head off.
Conor leapt to his imposing height and stepped between us.
“Woah,” he said, holding up his hands to me. “Hang on. Okay. So, alright. Alright. This is all kinds of banjaxed. Obviously. But look, Mason, there’s a solution, right?”
I stared at him.
He shook his hands vaguely. “Ye know. Divorce papers. Some shite like that.”
“Yeah,” I said darkly.
“So, problem solved. Then she’s gone, right?”
“Rachel has some…business in town,” I said. “She’ll be sticking around for a few weeks.”
“Right,” Conor said. “But what I mean is, it’s not a big deal, right?”
I glanced toward the stairs. At the top was a hallway. At the end of which was a door. Behind which was Rachel. My wife.
“It sounds like it was just a drunken thing, right?” Conor said. “Everybody’s done daft things when they’ve been on the gargle, you know?”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see everyone nodding. Agreeing.
Conor appeared at my side. His hand gentle on my arm. That was a lot for him. His voice was soft. Also a lot for him.
“That’s all it was, right?” he asked. “A stupid, one-time drunken thing? Right?”
I turned to him and forced a smile.
“Right.”
