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The answers aren’t so readily available. Sometimes it feels like the only way to know is to screw up first, and that sucks too.
Taking my mind off my family, I send another text to Korey: Let me know if you can’t make it.
Do I even have a plan B if he doesn’t show up? No. I don’t. Maybe I could just bail on Tom and Eliot so they can have a double date instead of a dysfunctional triple date. Would that work?
“Holy fuck,” Tom says in disbelief. “No way. No fucking way.” He appraises the Grasshopper cocktail, chocolate shavings on the rim. “Is there absinthe in this shit? Taste…” He pushes it towards me.
I frown. “Why?” I sip the drink, tasting vodka and milky mint.
“Because I must be hallucinating your brother, Farrow, Oscar, and Jack.”
“Wait—what?” My eyes bug.
“Tell me that’s not them.” He nods his chin discreetly to my six o’clock. I steal a quick peek over my shoulder.
Whaaaa…? Thunderstruck, my lips slowly part at the sight of my brother-in-law. Farrow is unmistakable with pretty black ink along his biceps and his neck. Colorful sparrows near his thumbs are noticeable as he swigs from a slender-canned energy drink.
Farrow has been one of my favorite people on this planet. He’s not aware of how much hope he gave me at nine. Or why I always invited him to my birthdays before he even started dating my brother.
I always felt like a round peg in a square hole, like I didn’t fit, and my parents, my family, would never say a bad thing about me because they are a loving family. But Farrow was the first person outside of them that made it seem okay to be myself, despite the laughter from kids at school and the gossip and the mocking. He unconsciously, unknowingly, supplied a confidence in me that got me through some bad days.
I’d remember, Farrow isn’t like everyone else, and he’s okay. I can be too.
So when he scrawled some lyrics to “Dreams” by The Cranberries on my arm, I immediately wanted them tattooed in his handwriting. It was my first tattoo, unearthly reader, and it means so, so much to me.
I just don’t understand why he’s here. Across from Farrow, Oscar has an arm around Jack’s broad shoulders. The exec producer for We Are Calloway has a Canon camera slung across the back of his cushioned chair. He can’t be planning to capture footage for the docuseries. It’s still in post-production, and the new season airs in November.
Their section of the lounge has mossy walls with a neon sign spelling The Green Room. Ferns in a long-boxed planter acts like a barrier behind Farrow. Creating an ample amount of privacy, and I can’t help but think a grouping of bodyguards would choose that table over all of them.
Only one other person is at their lounge table. And that person (aka my older brother) is conspicuously hoisting a drink menu to block his face. The gray titanium wedding band on his finger is giving him away—and so is the way Farrow’s amused smile flits over to him hiding behind the menu.
Their triple date is supposed to be tonight, too.
Shock retreats a little, unfreezing me enough to turn back to Tom. “This can’t be a coincidence.”
“Eliot must’ve told them.” Tom takes a bigger gulp from his minty cocktail.
“Then they purposely chose to come here,” I say, my pulse climbing. Why? I scramble to unearth my phone from my clutch.
“This is awkward,” Tom squints towards them. “They’re like in my line of sight. Maybe we go over there?”
“No,” I say, panicked. “They’re on a triple date.” Donnelly obviously hasn’t arrived yet, but when he does, he’ll appear with his date. No section or quarter or slice of my heart would volunteer to be at his table when that happens. I would rather be lightyears away in another universe, another galaxy. Anywhere but here where I’ll see her and feel the awful pangs of jealousy.
Let me survive this night without that feeling, please.
“So?” Tom drums his knees and leans forward to me. “It’s just your brother, Farrow, Oscar, and Jack—I’ve been bar-hopping with them before. Well, pre-Jack. Post-Jack joining the Rainbow Brigade, we haven’t gone clubbing until…today.” He grins, splaying his hands out and eyeing the club around us. “Look at this, Luna. Wouldn’t you call this a scientifical, extra…ordinary coincidence? Hmm?”
“It feels like a bad sign.”
“If Eliot weren’t late as fuck, he’d tell you nonsense.” Tom sighs at his watch, not understanding why Eliot isn’t on time. He’s usually not this tardy without at least keeping Tom in the loop.
I smile a little at Tom while he’s not looking. I like how Tom speaks the least fanciful of the Cobalts, and very few realize it’s because his greatest pastime is trying to short-circuit his unflinching father.
