Chapter 11
SIMON
“Well, you could have refused,” Theo said, throwing his hands up. “You just don’t, ever.”
“Maybe I could have if you’d warned me,” I pointed out. The mattress squealed under me as I sat on the edge of the bed, running a hand through my hair.
“Maybe I could have warned you if you hadn’t been so busy cozying up to my sister, who, by the way, is marrying my ex, who you just agreed to be best man for.”
“Your sister was sobbing over the seating charts. What did you want me to do?”
Theo knew, knew I couldn’t have left anyone to cry on their own like that.
“Let her!” Theo said, voice rising. “For once in your life, you could have just let someone have a problem without running in to be their knight in shining armour. Not every single problem in the world is yours to fix, Simon.”
We’d had this discussion before. Dozens of times.
Theo had never seemed mad about it before, though. He’d never yelled at me before.
I didn’t take being yelled at well. Never had.
“Oh?” I hissed. “So it’s just you I’m allowed to do favors for?”
As soon as the words escaped my lips, I regretted them. The way Theo’s face fell only made it worse, my stomach knotting up so hard I thought for a second I might throw up.
I swallowed down a wave of nausea, staring at the wide-eyed look Theo was giving me. He looked like I’d punched him in the gut.
Then his jaw tightened.
“When have I ever asked you for anything before?” he asked, eyes glinting like the edge of a small, sharp knife. At his sides, his hands curled into fists.
“You didn’t have to!” I said, and now my voice was getting louder, and my stomach was knotting up tighter, and my ears were pounding.
We didn’t fight. I didn’t fight in general, and never, ever with Theo. I had no idea how to handle this.
“You didn’t have to because you know—” You know I love you and I know you try not to take advantage, I know that, but I love you so much and all I want is for you to be happy and I don’t want to fight with you.
“You know I’d do anything for you,” I said instead, swallowing again, and a third time to stop the bile from rising in my throat.
“Except be on my side,” Theo didn’t quite shout, but he came as close to it as he could without actually doing it. He turned his gaze away from me, over my shoulder and out the window that looked onto the central courtyard. “The one time I need you to be.”
Something cracked inside me with a pain so sharp I would have thought I was dying if I didn’t have bigger things to worry about.
I stood, too restless to sit still any longer, the walls of the room starting to close in on me.
I couldn’t do this. Not with Theo. Not surrounded by people who didn’t think I was good enough to breathe the same air as them, not when he was the one person here that I even really knew, let alone the one person who liked me.
Usually liked me.
There was something about this goddamned house that fucked things up between us. It’d been the same last time we’d been here, when he’d…
When I’d…
I swallowed one more time, taking a deep breath, trying to calm myself enough not to say anything I’d regret more than I already regretted everything I’d said.
I almost laughed before I spoke at the thought of Ellie being able to see me now. She would have been so proud of what I was about to say.
Just thinking about forming the words made me feel sick, and I almost didn’t manage it.
Then Theo glanced at me again from out of the corner of his eyes, jaw flexing. Mad at me, I thought, for not immediately rushing to make him feel better.
Like I always did. Like I always, always did, because I was always on his side. Because he was my best friend in the whole world, and I’d loved him for a decade, and I couldn’t imagine him not being in my life. At any cost.
But he’d hurt me now. Really, really hurt me, for the first time.
“You don’t own me,” I pronounced, each word falling like a lead weight in the pit of my stomach. My hands trembled by my sides and my lungs felt tight.
Theo’s face fell again.
He might’ve been about to apologize. Probably, he was.
I never found out, on account of marching to the door, pulling it open, stepping through, and letting it swing closed behind me.
Then, as hot tears welled up in my eyes, I ran.
I tensed as a shadow fell over me, half afraid that when I looked up, it’d be Theo—and half afraid it’d be anyone else.
“Hi,” a familiar voice said.
Audrey.
Which was, ironically, probably the best of a host of bad options.
“Hi,” I said, voice thick. I’d stopped crying, thankfully, but I felt as though one little nudge in the wrong direction would set me off again.
“You okay?”
I bit my lip.
Audrey sat down next to me on the edge of the raised garden bed I’d found behind the house, planted out with monsteras and bromeliads and other plants normally found indoors because it was in shade most of the day.
I could hear the waves lapping against the shore of the lake the property backed onto and smell the salt and seaweed of the nearby beach on the breeze.
I’d thought no one would find me here. Clearly, I’d been wrong.
“Fine.”
I didn’t sound fine even to me, and I couldn’t quite meet Audrey’s eyes. She seemed nice enough, but my stomach was still knotted up over Theo maybe feeling like I’d been… disloyal to him.
The more I turned the fight over in my head, the less sure I was who was wrong. Neither of us, maybe. Or both.
“Uh huh,” Audrey said. “You didn’t sound fine.”
My stomach dropped. “You heard that?”
“Uh huh,” she repeated. “Don’t think I was the only one.”
I made a pained sound, burying my face in my hands. Great. Wonderful.
I’d wanted to be the perfect boyfriend for Theo. I’d wanted everyone to see him getting what he deserved, to see him being easy to love.
Because he was. He was so easy to love. We’d never fought before. Not like that, anyway. Not about anything that mattered. Not in a way that hurt.
“Wanna talk about it?” Audrey asked.
I turned to look at her in surprise. A more cynical person might’ve thought she was angling to get in while I was upset and pry me away from Theo so she could have him for herself, but I didn’t get that impression from her at all.
Theo—or Ellie, or just about anyone else who’d met me—would have said I gave people too much benefit of the doubt in general. This really didn’t feel like that, though.
All the same…
“Would you believe me if I said we never fight?”
“Yep,” Audrey said, kicking her feet. She was wearing bubblegum pink flat canvas sneakers, scuffed at the heel and toe. They matched the abstract print on her slightly oversized, comfy-looking t-shirt.
“Well—wait, really?” I asked, realizing what she’d actually said.
“Yep,” Audrey repeated, smacking her lips on the P. “I have no trouble believing that at all. Because you always just do whatever he wants.”
Okay, well. She wasn’t the first person to have gotten that impression. She might, however, have been the fastest.
“So people tell me.” I smiled wryly. “It’s really not like that. I guess it must look like that.”
“Sure does.” Audrey tilted her head, looking at me with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. “So I know you two aren’t actually dating—”
“Who told you?” I asked, pulse pounding in my ears.
Madelaine. It could only be her—or maybe Cameron, if she’d told him or he’d figured it out the same way. She’d promised she wouldn’t. I’d trusted her.
Audrey held her hands up, brow raised. “You just did.”
“I did?”
“Literally just now when you asked who told me,” Audrey said. “I wasn’t completely sure, but between the look on your face when he kissed you, the way Delilah’s mom reacted, and some things Delilah said…”
I swallowed. We’d been caught. We’d been caught pretending to date.
What did you do in that kind of situation?
“I haven’t told anyone else about my suspicions,” Audrey continued. “If Theo wants to avoid me badly enough to spring a scheme like this on you, I can take a hint. Besides, I’ve moved on.”
“You have?”
Audrey licked her lips, glancing around theatrically as though she was afraid of being overheard, then leaning closer. “Have you seen Corey’s dad? Hello Mr. Silver Fox.”
My brows shot up.
“You don’t think he looks a little like George Clooney?”
Well. Now that she mentioned it, I did see the resemblance. If I had a thing for older men, I could probably see the appeal. He had the same kind of devil-may-care charm about him Corey did, from what little I’d seen.
“And he’s divorced and kind of pathetic about it,” Audrey added. “I love men who are a little pathetic. It’s why I asked Theo’s mom to work a little magic with him for me.”
I snorted, then felt even more disloyal. Audrey broke into a grin, though.
“You can’t pretend to me you don’t like men who are a little pathetic,” she continued. “Because faking or not, you’re in love with him.”
A lump rose in my throat. For a handful of heartbeats, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“Yeah,” I croaked. What was the point in lying?
I was that obvious. I knew it. The only person I apparently wasn’t obvious to was Theo.
“Yeah,” Audrey agreed. “His mom tried to reassure me the two of you wouldn’t last because no one ever does with Theo. But you’ve been in love with him a while, huh?”
“Since the second time I saw him,” I admitted. Everything I’d said about that earlier was true. “I was too overwhelmed the first time or I think I would’ve fallen then. Wait,” I added. “You’re not after his money?”
Audrey raised a brow. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
Evidently I did not.
“Delilah’s maid of honor?” I tried.
She smiled at that. “I guess I am. Wow. I assumed you wouldn’t talk to me way back when because you were… intimidated, or whatever. I always hated that everyone seemed to be afraid of me.”
“I just didn’t get the impression you gave a shit about me,” Simon said. “Or anyone, to be honest. Sorry.”
Audrey laughed. “You know I was envious of Theo? Because he had a completely normal friend?”
I blinked at her. She shrugged.
“I am that,” I said wryly. “Normal the way you mean it, anyway.” I still had no idea who she was. Part of me wanted to look it up. The rest of me was now afraid to, if she was the kind of person who could shrug off an eight-figure trust fund.
Theo clearly didn’t know that, either. Or hadn’t thought of it.
Audrey smiled, curling her fingers around the edge of the raised bed and kicking her feet again. “How come you’re not dating, then?”
I shrugged. “Look at me,” I said. “And look at Corey. Or any of his other exes. They’re all… like you. Glamorous. I’m… like me.”
“You think he’s that shallow?”
“I don’t think he’s shallow at all,” I said, a surge of protectiveness running up my spine, making me sit up straight.
“I think he deserves to have someone… like him. Someone he actually wants, for a start. He doesn’t want me,” I added, voice cracking a little. “We established that a long time ago.”
Ten years exactly tomorrow, in fact.
Audrey hummed. I wasn’t sure if it was an I agree with you hum or an I think you’re an idiot hum.
The safe bet was probably I think you’re an idiot. Most people thought I was an idiot when it came to Theo.
Maybe I was. If I was, though, I wasn’t planning to change.
“I think—”
I never found out what Audrey thought, because at the exact same moment, another voice called out, “There you are!”
“Mrs. Hargrave,” I said, with approximately the level of enthusiasm someone else might greet their executioner. “I’ll let you talk to Audrey.”
“Oh, no, honey,” Mrs. Hargrave said, waving her hands as she strode over. “I was looking for you.”
Alarm bells rang in the back of my mind. The word honey rolled down my spine like a trickle of ice water.
Audrey patted my knee and made her escape.
Smart woman. I hoped she got what she wanted out of Corey’s dad.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Mrs. Hargrave said, which sent another shiver down my spine that curled up in my stomach and squirmed restlessly.
I didn’t like this at all.
“Theo’s always been so difficult,” she continued before I could wonder what she was sorry for.
Right. Audrey wasn’t the only one who’d heard, after all.
“And you’ve always been so good and loyal to him. You deserve better.”
Ah. That was the angle, then.
I straightened up for a second time, feeling defensive of Theo again. Okay, he’d hurt me. I wasn’t used to him doing that.
He was still my best friend. I still loved him with all my heart.
I drew a breath to speak, but Mrs. Hargrave’s hand landing on my knee stopped me in my tracks.
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” she said, squeezing more firmly than I would have given her credit for. “We’ll find someone else to be Corey’s best man.”
What?
“You must feel so out of your depth here, this really isn’t your world or your kind of people. Should I send someone to get your things? I’m sure Cameron—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said as I realized where she was going with this.
The look on her face was almost worth the sick misery twisting in my gut over the fight with Theo.
I laughed. It sounded hollow to me, but Theo’s mom didn’t know me well enough to know that, judging by the way her brows rose another notch.
“Do you think I’ve been hanging out with Theo for over a decade without knowing exactly what he’s like?”
She didn’t need to know this was new for us. She didn’t need to know how hurt I was.
Because I was on Theo’s side. Always.
“Mrs. Hargrave,” I said in my gentlest voice, putting my hand on her knee in turn. “It’s so nice of you to worry about me, but you don’t need to. I’m fine, and I’m not abandoning Theo. I’m just giving him a minute to cool off.”
My misery started to lift as I watched six out of seven stages of grief pass over her face in rapid succession. Acceptance was probably too much to ask.
“Oh,” she said as acceptance began to dawn over her features. “Well. In that case, you’re running late for a fitting.”
“Fitting?” I asked. What fitting?
“For your best man’s suit.”