Three Grumpy Groomsmen

3. Liam

CHAPTER 3

Liam

Today was supposed to be a day I was going to just get through. Suck it up, tough it out, don’t be a selfish dick and be there for Ivy on her big day.

Not happy for her.

That was never going to happen.

But supportive.

Not for one single second did I ever want her to marry Brad, who is definitely all wrong for her. He’s a narcissist, and she’s…Ivy.

Brilliant, sophisticated, loyal, confident and caring. Artistic and polished and talented, not to mention drop dead gorgeous. Even now, having been rejected and left in a very vulnerable position, she’s rocking that wedding gown, her body shown off to absolute perfection in the white silk.

I am so fucking proud of her for holding her head up high in the face of Brad’s horrible betrayal. I never liked the guy, but to stand her up on their wedding day?

He’s lucky he’s on a plane right now.

I lean against the doorframe at the edge of the dance floor and watch her dancing with a group of her girlfriends and her little sister, arms raised above her head as she dances off beat.

Okay, so maybe she’s not perfect. She really can’t dance, which I have on occasion informed her of, because I’m nothing if not brutally honest. That is, I am about most things.

I’ve never been totally honest with her about my feelings for her.

I’ve never shared with Ivy that I don’t just love her as a friend, that I’m in love with her. Even if once upon a time, for a brief moment, I’d thought maybe she and I…

But no. It never happened.

When Ivy and I first met three years ago at a launch party for a new celebrity-owned gin, I was dating Anthony, an Italian model. Once I realized that he was all beauty, no brains, and ended it, Ivy was casually dating some guy she met playing beach volleyball. That didn’t last long, but by then I was casually seeing someone else.

I’m attracted to women but I haven’t dated them as often as men because they usually try to change me. They want more emotion from me, more romance. That isn’t me. Never going to be. That’s one of the things I love about her. She accepts me exactly as I am—brooding, deep, a little prickly, but fiercely loyal.

For the last few years, the only woman I’ve wanted is Ivy.

But while I was trying to extract myself from the disaster that was Paul, the podiatrist, Ivy met Brad on set at his cooking show and that was that. Love at first demi-glace.

So because she’s my best friend, and she was going to marry Brad, I was going to grit my fucking teeth and endure it because I want her to be happy. More than anything else in the entire world.

Besides, you can’t talk anyone out of anything.

Even if they’re mistakes.

Like fucking Brad.

Who is still too much of a coward to answer his phone or his text messages.

When he gets back to L.A. he has some fucking explaining to do.

“Let’s hear it for the bride!” the DJ says enthusiastically as he launches into a remix of early two thousands pop music.

The guy is trying. I’ll give him that.

And truthfully, so is Ivy.

She almost might be drunk.

Ivy yells, “Woo!” with her arms up. Her breast almost pops out of her gown, and she grabs at her dress, almost toppling over.

Okay, she’s definitely drunk.

No one can possibly blame her.

The one hundred or so guests who stuck around for the party all clap and cheer.

They’re here to support Ivy, because they love her, and probably not because they want to dance to Usher’s “Yeah.”

Though her aunt Becky is really getting down right now. But mostly, they’re out there on the dance floor to protect her, to surround her with her people. Ford is out there, dancing as poorly as Ivy, but he’s giving it his all.

Brad’s family has left, which was for the best.

Since dinner, this has been my post, watching over Ivy on the dance floor, simultaneously studying her to make sure she’s okay and tamping down my feelings of complete and utter fucking relief that she is not married and hours away from wedding night sex in a hotel suite with a guy who isn’t me.

Sex with Ivy…yeah, I’ve thought about it once or twice or a thousand times.

I sip my whiskey.

Or rather, Harrison’s whiskey.

The thought makes me smirk to myself. I’ve been carting this bottle around all night at great inconvenience to myself just because I refuse to let him have it back. It’s stupidly expensive bourbon, but he can afford another bottle.

He loves to dig at me, so this is my petty revenge. Bourbon theft.

That’s another reason I was going to just grin and fucking bear it today.

Harrison.

If my feelings for Ivy are straightforward—I love her but the timing was never right between us—my feelings for Harrison are a tangled and twisted mess.

As an introvert, I’m drawn to the opposite, and Harrison is definitely that. When I first laid eyes on him, my impression was that he was hot as fuck and a lot of fun.

He’s both.

The things he can do with his talented tongue…

I shift and clear my throat, wishing I could adjust my dick in my tux pants. I never bothered putting on my tie or jacket.

But after a night filled with laughter and then a whole hell of a lot of naked fun, Harrison sneaked out of my apartment at dawn before I woke up and then didn’t answer my calls. I felt like a complete idiot for misreading the signals. I’d thought we had a connection. I’d woken up prepared to make breakfast for him and I don’t even cook.

Maybe I’m more of a romantic than I like to think.

Not Harrison.

It was rude as hell.

Even if it was a casual hookup to him, I still think someone who got naked with you deserves the courtesy of a goddamn goodbye.

I’m an adult, I can handle a “this was fun, but nothing else” brush off. But say something.

Then again, Harrison is best friends with Brad, the disappearing groom, so there you go.

“Fuck ghosting,” I mutter aloud.

Even as I say the words, I’m looking all over the barn to see if I can find Harrison. He’s nowhere to be found.

“Damn right,” Patrice says, sidling up alongside me in a plunging red dress with earrings shaped like champagne bottles. “Fucking ghosting. But that’s L.A. for you.”

Ivy has known Patrice longer than me and they’re friends, but Patrice is a little flaky. She is just as likely to do the ghosting as to be ghosted.

“Bourbon?” I hold the bottle out to her. My wrist is getting tired from gripping the neck and picturing breaking it over both Brad’s and Harrison’s heads.

I glance over at Ivy. She’s throwing back a shot of something, which makes me frown. I feel like she’s already had enough to drink.

“I thought you’d never ask.” Patrice accepts the bottle and takes a sip. “By the way, it’s not weird at all that you’re standing on the edge of the dance floor pining for your best friend at her wedding with a bottle of liquor in your hand and your hair artfully disheveled.” She reaches over and ruffles my hair. “It’s actually a rom com, Liam.”

I yank my head away from her touch, frowning. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you don’t.” The look she gives me smacks of pity. “The whole sad writer thing is really working for you.”

“I’m not a sad writer. I work on a science fiction show.” I also happen to be secretly giddy that Ivy isn’t married.

Patrice eyes me up and down. “Uh-huh. Sure. Hey, did you know that if you wear a red dress to a wedding as a guest, it means you fucked the groom?”

That yanks me out of my complicated thoughts. I stand up straight, turn, and stare at her. Patrice has chaotic layered black hair, thin lips, and heavy eye makeup.

Patrice is wearing a red dress. “Did Brad cheat on Ivy with you?” I demand.

If he did, I will track him down and rip his balls off with my bare hands.

She bursts out laughing. “Kidding. Oh my God, what? I would never do that to Ivy, stop. Learn to take a joke. You are sooo obvious.”

I rub my forehead and sigh. I have a headache. “That’s not funny.”

“I literally just heard that tonight. I’ve never heard that before and someone just told me. Like, what? Have you heard that? Obviously, I would not have worn this if I’d known that. But I thought, like red goes with a barn, right? Rustic?”

She’s making my headache worse. I need to get some water and ply both myself and Ivy with it.

“I’ve never heard that. Keep the bottle,” I tell her.

When I turn, I almost run into Harrison. I rear back.

Being in his presence makes me hot and angry on a good day.

Today is a complicated day. Filled with concern for Ivy and yet, relief for her too, because Brad isn’t good enough for her. Hope for me that maybe if I open my fucking mouth in a few weeks when she’s recovered from this debacle, I can convince her to give me a shot.

There’s also irritation that I think Ford might have a crush on her. The way he looks at her…not cool.

And then here is Harrison, grinning at me, and looking muscular and sexy and casually rich.

There’s no fucking way I want to deal with any more of his snarky comments right now.

He opens his mouth—that mouth I can’t seem to forget about—to, I’m sure, say something he thinks is funny and that I’ll hate.

But the DJ’s mic screams with reverb and we both wince and turn. Ivy is wrestling the mic from the DJ.

“That can’t be good,” Harrison says.

I glare at him and just walk away, heading straight to Ivy to conduct an intervention if necessary.

“Welcome to Ivy and Brad’s happily ever after!” she announces with a tipsy cackle. “That didn’t last long, did it? No, seriously, thank you all so much for being here, sacrificing your Saturday just to witness me being dumped by a man child.”

I start walking faster, hoping she’ll spot me in the crowd so I can convey to her that she needs to step away from the mic. Slicing motions across my throat should do it.

But her eyes are darting all around the room, a cocktail glass in her hand. Liquid splashes over the side as she waves it in an attempt at a toast. “Whoops,” she says, lifting her hand and licking the back of it. “Never let good alcohol go to waste.”

I sense Harrison is on my heels. I walk faster.

“We love you, Ivy!” Patrice calls from the back of the room.

“Thank you, babe. At least someone does.” Ivy takes a long swallow of her half-empty glass.

I’m jogging now, my heart hammering in my chest.

“Why is this fucking barn so big?” Harrison asks behind me, echoing my own thoughts.

But I refuse to admit that. “Because it’s a barn,” I snap. “Why is no one else stopping her?”

Her mother is standing to the side, a hand over her mouth, sobbing. Ivy’s father is comforting her mother. The girl I recognize as Ivy’s cousin is draped all over Ford, who is trying to shake her loose.

It’s time to pull the plug on this night.

“You know, I never wanted to get married,” Ivy muses into the mic, swaying on her feet. “I honestly never cared about that. I just wanted to be happy . There were red flags with Brad, you know. That I ignored. Big ones, giant red flags, and yet I ran right toward them like a bull to a…what are those guys called? With the black velvet pants?”

I’m sweating as I reach her and yank the mic out of her hand. “Matador! That’s what they’re called!” I boom into the microphone, way louder than I intend. My fake cheerful voice makes me wince. I turn toward the guests, blocking Ivy from their view. “Wow, okay, this has just been amazing to see how loved Ivy is. Thank you all for being here and supporting her. We’re going to wind things down now, so uh, good night.”

Harrison is now murmuring to Ivy, who is protesting loudly. “I want to stay! I’m fine !”

“Party’s over,” I tell her.

I hand the mic to Harrison. “You’re better at this than me. Get everyone out of here.”

His eyebrows raise. “A compliment from you , William? That was almost worth today.”

I ignore him and take Ivy’s hand. I try to gently tug her forward. She resists, digging in her heels. “Liam, stop. I’m staying.”

“No, you’re not.”

She’s left me with no choice. She may be mad at me now, but she’ll thank me tomorrow.

Bending my knees, I scoop Ivy up under her perfect ass and lift her up.

Then I haul her kicking and protesting out of her wedding reception.