3. Barrett
“There you are! Chloe said you got here a little while ago.” Olivia smiled brilliantly, coming our way with her arms spread wide once we emerged from the house. “We thought maybe you got lost.”
After a brief hug, I turned to Ari, who wore an expression I recognized. Now that the big day loomed over him, he was overwhelmed, maybe even nervous. I’d felt similarly in the days leading up to my wedding. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind I was making the right move. If anything, I would’ve married Lourde sooner, but there were things like reservations, florists, and shit like that to work out.
Still, there was something about the word forever and joining your life to somebody else’s and being responsible for their happiness until your final breath. It was a big fucking deal and not something to take lightly.
“Not getting cold feet, are you?” I joked as we shook hands. “Does your best man need to make sure you don’t make a run for it?”
“Knock that shit off,” my sister warned. Evelyn rose from her chair, giving me a wry smirk before pairing it with a tight hug. After two years, there were still times when it surprised me to find her walking smoothly without the limp she’d struggled with for so many years. No one would ever guess there’d been a time when she felt isolated and small, not when she was so vibrant and outgoing after emerging from her cocoon.
Being her brother, I couldn’t resist the impulse to annoy her. “I’m just making sure we don’t have a runaway groom!” Magnus laughed loudly enough that his wife shot him a withering look that shut his mouth.
“Enough ball-busting,” Olivia announced, her arm looped around Lourde’s as she led us to the table beneath a large, striped umbrella. On it sat crudités, bruschetta, and other finger foods, which Lourde happily started to enjoy.
“I don’t know how you do it with two kids at a time,” she confessed to Evelyn around a mouthful of bruschetta on a slice of crostini. “I forgot to eat this morning. I was so busy making sure I had everything in place.”
“You know, that’s why Naomi is here,” I reminded her before accepting a glass of scotch on the rocks from Ari. As I expected, my words fell on deaf ears. Lourde enjoyed being a hands-on mother and juggling her interior design business as much as I enjoyed running my empire.
Evelyn and Magnus shared a weary but loving glance. “We definitely rely on all the help we can get,” Evelyn admitted with a soft laugh. “Between my hours at the nonprofit and the two of them growing like weeds and running around like crazy, there wouldn’t be any handling it on our own.”
“They’re napping now,” Magnus added before yawning loudly and making us all laugh.
“Maybe you could use a nap, old man,” I suggested before taking a seat. The sun had broken through the clouds, now sparkling on the water which spread out before us. The air was sweet and balmy, and being with my friends made everything just about perfect.
One thing was missing. No, two things. Lourde glanced my way before asking, “So where are my idiot brother and his patient fiancée? He’ll be late for his own funeral.”
“No idea.” Ari shrugged as he sat on my right with a scotch of his own. “I got a quick message from him last night saying they would see us today.” Ari sounded unbothered, but then there was no reason for him not to.
Lourde shot another worried look my way before addressing the group. “Has he seemed okay lately?” Has anybody noticed anything off?”
“In what way?” Evelyn asked.
“Oh, I don’t know.” I watched as my wife did her best to play it off like there was nothing to worry about. It was a little too late for that, judging by the looks of concern everyone else wore. “Don’t listen to me. Just worrying about my brother for no reason.”
A brother who, as it turned out, was on his way across the terrace with an arm around Pepper’s waist. “Your ears must be burning!” Olivia called out, waving an arm over her head. “We were just talking about you.”
They both hesitated half a second before resuming their approach. “I don’t know if I like the sound of that,” Connor offered, removing his Ferragamo sunglasses and perching them on top of his head as he shot questioning looks at all of us.
“Just wondering where the hell you were.” Lourde made it a point to jump up and hug her brother, effectively ending the topic. “You look too skinny,” she decided, holding him at arm’s length.
“Listen to her.” Connor rolled his eyes at me before chuckling. “She pops out a kid, and suddenly, she’s everybody’s mother.” The gentle shove Lourde gave him made him laugh harder.
“Fine. See if I care. Wither away.” Lourde sat on my lap to free up a chair for Pepper, who sank into it with a sigh.
“Traffic was a nightmare. We should have flown,” she told Connor, who could only shrug. “Anyway, here we are. Hopefully, we didn’t miss anything.”
On the surface, everything seemed normal. Pepper still wore the engagement ring Connor had given her, and they sat almost as close to each other as Lourde and I did. Connor draped an arm around her shoulders as they settled back into their chairs, and Pepper reached up to take Connor’s hand, resting on her shoulder—the sort of careless, intimate gesture born from years spent together.
What was I thinking? I was letting Lourde get in my head. Just because Connor went to Vegas didn’t mean he was cheating on Pepper. All right, so I might have liked being invited on a guys’ trip, but that wasn’t grounds to declare their relationship null and void. “What have you been up to lately?” I asked Connor while Lourde loaded a plate with cheese, crackers, and meats from an elaborate tray. “You’ve been a ghost.”
There it was. Connor’s gaze shifted. One second, he was looking at me. The next, he was staring over my shoulder. “Oh, you know,” he murmured, sounding vague. “I’ve been busy.”
“Anything interesting?” Lourde prodded, and I was proud of how casual she managed to sound.
“You know how it goes,” he told her with a chuckle. “Business, business, business. I have to keep reminding myself not to turn into a boring old prick like Dad.”
“Don’t worry.” Pepper snuggled a little closer to him. “I won’t let you. If you get boring, we’re done.”
“With all that work…” I mused, “… it’s good for you to get away like this. When’s the last time you got away for a little while?”
This time, Connor stared into his glass Ari had provided. “Oh, I don’t know. I can’t remember.” He looked to his fiancée, who shrugged.
“No idea. We’ve both been so busy,” she replied.
A general sense of unease tinged the breeze that stirred the fringe on the umbrella overhead. Something was off, and it was clear from the looks Evelyn and Magnus gave me that they felt it too.
Olivia clapped her hands, grabbing everyone’s attention. “Okay, boys, I know none of you are interested in the finer points of wedding arrangements, so I’m going to take the girls inside to see my dress!”
Lourde was off my lap in a shot, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. “I can’t wait!” she squealed, and soon the women scurried off, giggling and gushing over how wonderful everything was going to be.
I looked Ari’s way in time to catch his loving grin as he watched them retreat. “That makes it all worth it,” he murmured loud enough for only me to hear. “Watching her like that. All the questions from the planners, the scheduling conflicts, and the invoices. It’s all good, so long as she’s happy.”
“Now, just keep that in mind for the next fifty years, and you’re golden.” I raised my glass to him, and he did the same.
In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder when to pull Connor aside and ask what the hell he was trying to hide from us.
* * *
Magnus looked murderous, and the flickering glow from the bonfire heightened his stormy expression. “You’re fucking kidding me. What an asshole move,” he growled out.
I scowled and shook my head slightly, then looked across the fire to where Connor lounged on a blanket. He and Ari were deep in conversation about extra arrangements Ari had made to surprise Olivia. He was flying her favorite singer in just for the reception, and all the arrangements left him checking his phone seemingly nonstop.
“We still don’t know for sure what it’s all about,” I reminded Magnus in a tight, hushed voice. “And we don’t want to ruin anything. I’m not sure what to do. Do I reach out to TMZ and pay to kill the story? What if it’s all over nothing?”
“They seem fine,” Magnus pointed out. The girls were sitting together on the terrace, and their laughter floated our way on the evening breeze. They were already well into another pitcher of sangria from the sound of it.
“Do they, though? He’s been weird all day. Sort of spacy,” I observed, watching Connor talking with Ari. He seemed fine at the moment, but throughout the day, I’d caught him staring off and sometimes frowning like he had something on his mind that pissed him off.
“That’s true,” Magnus agreed, sounding disheartened. “He zoned out on me twice during dinner in the middle of a conversation.”
“Lourde is beside herself.” As if on cue, the familiar sound of my wife’s laughter reached my ears. “Granted, I think the sangria is helping,” I added, making Magnus laugh.
“I say we pull him aside,” he decided. “We don’t have to make a big deal about it, but he needs to know what’s coming. If those pictures come out and he’s blindsided, I’ll feel like shit. Even if he deserves it a little,” he adds with a growl.
“We don’t know that he did anything wrong,” I reminded him.
“Fuck that. He deserves it for not inviting us.” We shared another laugh that went a long way toward easing my tension. That was the thing about being with old friends, shooting the shit, talking about old times the way we had been all day. I could laugh despite the indecision playing tug-of-war in my head.
“Hey, you.” The presence of a woman’s sultry voice drew my attention, and I watched as Pepper bent down and wound her arms around Connor’s neck. “There’s something we need to discuss.”
“Can we discuss it later?” he asked, but she only took him by the hand and began to tug until he finally relented and stood, brushing sand off his khakis.
“Don’t worry, boys,” Pepper purred, leading her man away with a swing in her hips. “I’ll have him back to you in one piece before you know it.” Meanwhile, the rest of the women whistled and laughed on the terrace.
It appeared we would have to wait to find out the story behind Connor’s wild trip. One thing was for sure—things seemed perfectly fine between him and Pepper, and it was enough to give me hope that all of this was easily explained.