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As much as I didn’t want to talk around what had happened in my living room, I couldn’tnottalk about it either.
“I don’t know what to do.” Garrett emptied his wine glass and set it down on our outside table. “Except get drunker.”
I handed him the bottle in my hand and looked out toward the lake. As we stood there with the cold encircling us, Garrett said, “What happens now?”
He leaned against the railing on his forearms and pulled his hands into his sweatshirt sleeves. “I don’t know what to say to her. Everything is wrong.”
“How about: I love you, and, we’ll work it out might be a good place to start.”
“What if—”
“Nope. That’s why I’m a publicist. I’m very good with good-sounding words.”
“So, you’re going to marrythatguy?”
“So, you’re moving back west with that girl?” I retorted.
“Touché.”
I leaned in, resting slightly against him. “I’m swaying.”
“No, Kelly,” he said, “you’re drunk. You know how to be drunk. Get it together. You’ve got another few hours of listening to Marianne and knowing that my life is in shambles to get through. We haven’t even gotten to the messiest part of dessert, when all the shameful secrets come out and we start playing truth or dare, because you know Marianne’s going to suggest it. It’s her favorite party trick. I’ve been putting up with it since high school. And since we don’t all know each other that well, it’ll be carnage.”
“We hit the truth on the head already tonight.”
Garrett laughed. “We sure did.”
“Plus, I need to be drunk to face the reality of my life.”
“You know you can leave him anytime you want. What’s next for me? My own fucking wedding? A baby? It’s a whole life that I never expected to be leading. She knows this.”
“Truth and dare,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“I think I love you.”
Garrett stood there without moving. It was as if the city stopped. The CN Tower refused to blink. The stars paused. The temperature dropped even lower. He said, “I know.”
“Well, that’s one answer.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s not. I leave him. You leave her. We leave together.”
“You’re not thinking straight, and I’m drunk, and you’re drunk, and when we get back after the break, things will be normal and we can have lunch, and this night won’t have happened, and you won’t have told me what I already knew, and I won’t have to break up with Jen, and you won’t be marryingthat guy, and we can pretend that we can just be friends, because that’s the only way I can function.”
“In complete and utter denial.”
“In complete and utter denial.”
I put my head on Garrett’s shoulder. “We should go back inside.”
“Just one more minute. I like the weight of your head there.” After a moment, I heard Marianne whoop with laughter and turned around to see Rob illuminated through the glass doors. My living room was bright and festive, but the look on his face was decidedly neither of those things. He had seen Garrett and me standing there, tangled up in one another, and did not look happy.
“We’d better get back inside,” I said.
“In a minute,” Garrett said. “I want to stand here with you imagining this is our place, and it’s our future.”
