Chapter 35
“You look like you could use a drink,” the guy behind him suggested with a smile in his voice.
Aberlour grunted in response as he kept working a divot in the bar with his thumbnail, chipping away at the wood, as this place was chipping away at his patience.
“Come on, Gav, it’s my engagement party.”
Aberlour heard a dramatic sigh of annoyance. It was so familiar. The tone, the gentle humour. He could have picked Oli’s voice out of a crowd anytime, anywhere.
Indeed, this was an engagement party to remember. Complete with over-the-top decorations and overdressed guests. The invitation he’d received was not totally unexpected. Why the fuck he’d showed up, that was for the devil to tell.
“Right,” he answered with an awkward nod.
Then Oliver’s hand landed on his shoulder. A strong, sturdy hand. Familiar and warm.
“Let me buy you a beer, yeah? For old time’s sake,” Oliver said cajolingly, and when Aberlour turned to refuse, that beautiful smile was the same as it had always been. Impossible to ignore, heartbreaking at its core.
“Sure,” he answered, giving in like always. It was pathetic. But inevitable.
Oliver placed an order with the bartender while Aberlour did some people watching.
The place was packed with way too many people.
Preppy, bougee folks who filled the high-end cocktail lounge and restaurant that served $20 cocktails.
He’d seen Oliver’s parents doing their usual kiss-ass, glad-handing first thing.
A few childhood friends were there, too, who he recognized from Oliver’s pictures.
Everyone else was a stranger to him. All dressed up for the occasion, they looked like a bunch of lawyers and politicians. Aberlour was distinctly out of place.
“Here,” Oli extended the long neck beer to him, and Aberlour took it with a quick nod and a tense smile.
“I’m so glad you came,” he said, and Aberlour wished he hadn’t.
“Sure,” he replied automatically. He didn’t really want to get into anything, so he figured he’d keep this conversation short and sweet. Tactically, it seemed wise.
“I’m being honest.”
“I’m not.” He tipped the beer back for a long swallow and tried to block out Oliver’s gaze that remained fixed on his profile.
Crowded places made him anxious and were nausea-inducing.
Being at the fairgrounds was one thing, since the booth was his own space and the environment was completely familiar.
But going to a new bar or a crowded restaurant always made him twitchy.
The compulsion to keep looking over his shoulder constantly plagued him, his sixth sense telling him an enemy combatant was ready to shoot him or stab him if he didn’t remain vigilant.
“Then why did you come?” Oliver challenged him, dragging him back to the present.
Oliver was always pushing. Never leaving well enough alone. Aberlour had shown up. Wasn’t that enough?
Aberlour wasn’t falling for this trick. He looked out across the crowd and took another swig of beer.
“This ten-dollar imported beer tastes like shit, by the way,” he commented, instead of answering Oliver’s question.
He didn’t want to, and he sure as fuck didn’t have to.
He felt Oliver’s gaze burning holes in the side of his face, but he wasn’t going to give in.
Not this time, goddammit. Not here. Not now.
“Oh, fuck you!” Oliver snapped furiously. The emotional response was so sincere, so genuine, that Aberlour forgot all about not giving in and turned to face him.
“Why’d you come if you’re going to act like a cunt?” he hissed.
Oliver goddamned Darling was incredibly angry, as Aberlour lived and breathed. He nearly smiled at the sight of all that glorious temper on display. But these days smiling took too much effort, so he didn’t bother.
“Maybe because I couldn’t quite fucking believe it when I got the nice little pink invite.”
Perhaps that was the answer Oliver had anticipated, or maybe it wasn’t even close. Either way, the anger fell away from Oliver as quickly as it had emerged. Rolling off him like water off a duck’s back. Aberlour was bitter with jealousy. Anger stuck to Aberlour like gum on his shoe.
“I told you I was going to do it. I called you,” Oliver responded defensively, like he too couldn’t quite believe the pink envelope and its laughable invitation.
He had called Aberlour. Time and time again, but Aberlour had never picked up.
It wouldn’t have mattered. The end result would have been the same.
The whole thing had been well orchestrated by Oliver’s mother from the get-go.
He’d always known how this would all play out.
And now here he was, locked in a debate that he couldn’t fucking win in this lifetime. Nor the next.
A fucking wedding. Oliver was getting married to the bitch in charge. Oliver had fucking proposed. To her. Aberlour would have laughed, but he was afraid something else would come out instead. And it wouldn’t be pretty or something he wanted to expose to the light of day.
“Guess I’m just used to you not seeing things through,” Aberlour answered, and the words hung in the air between them.
Maybe Oliver hadn’t thought he’d bring it up.
Maybe Oliver had forgotten that Aberlour never could keep his mouth shut.
Maybe Oliver had forgotten—well, most likely every-fucking-thing.
He wasn’t sure why he was so angry. He hadn’t come here with the intention of lashing out. He’d come—well, it wasn’t all that clear—but it wasn’t to lash out. So why was he doing exactly that?
“Aberlour,” Oliver said, and it wasn’t anger, not really. It was—hell, what was it? Aberlour knew it. He was familiar with this sigh, the tilt of Oliver’s head, the resigned look and dropping of his shoulders.
Disappointment. That was it. He knew he’d get it eventually. It was always what he got in the end.
“What are you boys conspiring about?”
A high-pitched voice with a strong southern accent called out from behind them, making Aberlour flinch. Cunt McQueen draped herself over Oliver’s shoulders. She hung from his neck, her perfectly manicured nails an inch from Oli’s throat.
Made up like some department store doll, she projected the very image of a perfect American housewife.
Aberlour could see why Oliver had chosen her.
She was photoshoot ready. Perfectly done, hair commercial curls, minimal but artfully done make-up.
Big blue eyes, dazzling smile, and the personality of a carrot. What else could a man possibly want?
“Abby, you remember Aberlour of course,” he said, clearing his throat. Suddenly, he adopted a remarkably different look. He straightened his shoulders and his smile became forced. Just like a Ken doll in every respect: plastic look, plastic smile, plastic posture.
“Of course! How are you, Gavin? Oliver’s so glad you came! He didn’t think you would, but I insisted he send you an invite,” she said, her tone friendly and melodious. She took professional, phony bitchiness to a whole new level.
Gavin. Nobody called him Gavin. He’d punched the teeth out of people for far less than that. He was tempted to do the same now. He wondered how Abby would look with all of her front teeth missing. That helped ease the killing instinct just a smidge.
Gavin. The fucking nerve of her. She was so fucking arrogant.
He’d been Abe before—well, before Princess McFuckface had come around.
Abby, Abe, they just sound so similar, she’d whined that night at the bar where he’d had the misfortune to meet her that first time.
Ever since, Oliver had called him nothing else but Gav, Gavin, or Aberlour.
Fucking Gavin. Fucking Oliver. Fucking bitch.
“Thanks,” he muttered, just to have something to say because he couldn’t remember what she’d said.
It might have been the wrong answer because she seemed confused for a minute, looking back at Oliver like he might translate that for her. Oliver didn’t comment.
“We’re going to go sit down for dinner soon. I sat you with some of Oli’s friends from high school, I hope that’s okay. I tried to get you next to some of Oliver’s ex-teammates, but none of them RSVP’d, so—”
“Abby—” Oliver warned. She was well trained, the bitch. Turning to look at Oliver, she projected carefully crafted confusion.
“Hard to RSVP from the grave, sweetheart,” Aberlour advised with a sneer, then chugged the rest of his beer while fighting the urge to knock her ass to floor.
“Oh—right—” she started to say, but Oliver didn’t let her finish. He gave her a small smile and a quick shake of his head, as if censuring a child who’d committed a minor mistake. Like she hadn’t attended their fucking funerals. She couldn’t be that fucking clueless. Could she? Heartless bitch.
“I’ll be off,” Aberlour said, slamming the empty bottle down on the bar.
“Congrats again, best of luck to you both,” he said, politely but emotionlessly.
He clamped down hard on saying another fucking word.
His sense of self-preservation kicked in, screaming at him that his heart and mind had to be protected from any further attacks, or he’d kill someone.
Abby stared at him without any signs of remorse or comprehension. Maybe she was the village fucking idiot after all.
“But what about dinner?” she asked in that sorority-girl whine, just as Aberlour turned and left.
He had no more words. Not for her, not for anyone. He needed another drink. A stiffer one. The kind of drink that just keeps on coming until it drowns out everything else. Beer sure as hell didn’t count.
He pushed through the front door and searched for his old truck, surrounded by BMW’s and Mercedes Benz’s, along with the occasional Jaguar, making it easy to spot.
It was cold and wet. Streetlights shone down on the rain-soaked pavement. His rapid heartbeat reminded him too much of being on the battlefield again, which was too damned close to exactly how he felt just now.
“Gavin!”
Oliver. Fucking Oliver. Never knowing when to let Aberlour walk away. His voice was unmistakeable as he chased him down.
“Gavin!”
Aberlour determinedly refused to turn around for Oliver. He’d done so too many times and look where it had gotten him. No-fucking-where. He’d learned a hard and painful lesson and was smarter now.
“Abe!”
Like a fucking weak-assed bitch, he turned around anyway. Guess Oliver was really good at training his bitches.
“Go back inside, Oli. Hard to have an engagement toast without the groom-to-be,” Aberlour growled angrily.
The moon was obscured by heavy cloud cover, and in the dimly lit parking lot, Oliver looked more like the man Aberlour had fallen for than the Ken Doll about to get hitched.
It would have been so easy to pretend he’d forgotten all this engagement and wedding bullshit.
So easy to reach out to Oli. To accept—whatever it was that he would offer just so Aberlour didn’t have to be so fucking alone anymore.
But just as he considered taking a step towards him, Oliver said something that stopped him in his tracks.
“Hard to have a wedding without a best man,” Oliver replied, with a na?ve little shrug, like he hadn’t just cut Aberlour off at the knees.
Surely, somewhere out there in the universe God was laughing his ass off right now. Aberlour just knew it. The fucker was having him on. There was no other explanation for Oliver’s statement.
Abe laughed. A maniacal sound that echoed around the parking lot.
“Is this what this little set up was about? Get me here? Feeling guilty and trapped so I’d say yes to participating in this absolutely twisted fuckery?
” Miraculously, standing out here on the wet pavement, feeling as if he was smack dab in a war zone, he was quite comfortable yelling at Oliver.
No swanky lawyer staring at him from across the room now, was there?
It felt good to just let out all that poison naturally and with deadly intent.
“I want you there,” Oliver pleaded. “You’re my best guy, you’re—” He stopped and took a deep breath.
Aberlour smiled humorlessly. That’s right, asshole. There’s no word for it.
“I need you there, Gavin.”
Gavin.
Gavin.
Fucking Gavin again. What the hell?
Oh, Oliver had almost had him. For a minute there, Aberlour had thought he might give in. Those charming puppy dog eyes. The dimples. The desperation.
But that was where Oli had slipped up. His use of Gavin had sliced cleanly through the bullshit like a Ka-Bar, reminding Aberlour of everything that gone before. Of all the reasons why this situation was so terribly fucked up and beyond any hope of redemption.
“Seems like the big city made you stupid, so let me spell it out for you in simple words you can understand,” Aberlour said, shaking his head. He laughed then, a real one. Genuine amusement at the total shit show that was his life now, thanks to Oliver. Laughing was a fuck ton better than crying.
“I’m not your anything. You want to pretend you like pussy so your mommy won’t be mad—fine. Marry the bitch, be my fucking guest, but leave me out of it.”
Oliver’s mouth dropped open in shock. Aberlour took it as his cue to go.
Oliver didn’t call after him. He didn’t even try, and dumbly—numbly—as Aberlour drove away, he did his very best not to be pissed about it.