25. Beau
BEAU
Iknew marriage was going to come with a new way of life. Compromising on things to make sure co-habitation is possible.
But I never considered the lies I’d have to tell my wife about my baking club.
It started yesterday when she asked me about Betty.
I was an idiot and forgot to hide her. I had her out because I knew I was going to be baking tonight and I was making my dough while Shelby was at the course for a long practice round.
I mean, when else is a guy supposed to do his secret stretch and folds?
I finished the dough before she got back, and might have put it in my bedroom to proof because it’s the one place I knew Shelby would never go. But I was an idiot and forgot about Betty.
Then there was tonight when I was getting ready to go. How dare she ask me, “What are your plans tonight?”
I mean, the audacity of my wife. Asking where I’m going in a nice and curious way. How very dare she.
I panicked. Blurted out that I was playing poker with the guys, left my dinner half eaten, and bolted out of the house like my ass was on fire, thankfully remembering to grab my dough out of my bedroom before I drove to Sugar and Sweets.
It’s why I’m forty-five minutes early to Poker Club. And when Shelby asks what was wrong earlier, I’m simply going to say I lost track of time and I didn’t want to be late.
Good lie? No. But it’s what I could manage in the face of utter panic.
I turn my car into the back parking lot of Sugar and Sweets, and am shocked that I’m not the first one here.
I’m always first. I’m the one who unlocks the doors and gets all the ingredients out.
Which is why it doesn’t make sense to see Maddox and Asher’s cars already parked.
But what’s throwing me even more is that Theo’s car is also here.
Theo, the baseball player who should be in Florida right now finishing spring training.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask myself as I get out of the car. “More likely, what the hell are they up to?”
I slowly exit my SUV, looking around in case they're ready to pull some sort of prank.
I wouldn't put it past them. The night we inducted Maddox into this group, I staged it to look like he was walking toward a ritual of some kind.
All that was missing were literal cloaks and daggers. This could be payback.
When I open the back door, there isn't a sound to be heard. As I make my way to the kitchen, the only light comes from the floodlights on the walls that illuminate the back hallway.
"I know you fuckers are here somewhere," I yell out. "If you're gonna try to surprise me, at least hide your cars."
It's another five steps for me to reach the light switch. And I jump out of my skin the second I flick it on because of what the lights come with—judging by the small pieces of paper that are now raining from the ceiling, I'm guessing a mini confetti cannon.
"Happy Wedding-slash-Bachelor Party-slash-Maybe Divorce Party!”
I shake my head at my friends’ antics. “You know you guys are going to have to clean this up.”
“Worth it,” Theo says, walking over to bring me some sort of party hat. “I know it says birthday, but there aren’t a lot of party hat options for your special circumstances.”
"Why are you here?" I ask. “You aren’t supposed to be home for another few weeks.”
“Thank the Florida weather,” Theo says. “One hundred percent chance of rain through the weekend, combined with the family emergency I had, and the BlueBirds said I could come back. I was on the first flight out of Tampa.”
“Family emergency?”
“You married Shelby. You’re basically my brother. If that doesn’t constitute an emergency, I don’t know what does.”
I knew tonight's poker club was going to be focused on me and Shelby. I haven’t talked to any of them since I’ve gotten back, and the only real communication we’ve had was the group text the day after the fight.
I know they’re champing at the bit for details.
If one of them randomly came back from Vegas married to a woman they hated, I’d be wanting the same thing.
“Okay, let’s get this over with,” I announce. “Ask me every question you have while I preheat my dutch oven.”
“Did you actually know you were married when she beat you up?” Maddox asks.
Theo is next. “Has she beaten you up again since y’all found out?”
“How drunk were you when you did this?” Asher asks.
Those are the initial three questions, so I answer them accordingly, and then fill them in on the events that apparently happened. We’re still putting pieces together as we remember them—the video helps—but there are some parts we might never know.
While I form my dough, the follow-up questions ensue.
What did Ethan say to us to convince us to stay married?
What are the logistics for the PR marriage, complete with a follow up of them getting the talking points down in case they’re ever asked about us.
Has Shelby tried to poison my dinner?
Have we fought over the temperature of the house?
I answer all the questions they throw at me, which are shockingly tame. But just as I think that, Theo throws down the question of the night.
“Now, the biggest curiosity on all of our minds, and one that all three of us have a very heavy interest in…” Theo pauses, laying on the dramatics. “Have you had sexual relations with your wife?”
If this were any other group of friends, one would assume this was locker room talk. Guys asking guys about things they have no business knowing.
Except for us, that question comes with a two hundred dollar each payout.
“I’m going to take your silence as a yes,” Asher says, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “Pay up, Devereaux.”
“Can I defend myself?” I ask, even though I know I can’t.
“Depends,” Maddox says. “Did you sleep with Shelby?”
“Yes. But—”
“No buts. The terms of the bet were, and I quote…” Theo brings up something on his phone, which I’m going to guess is word for word what I said, because he’s an ass like that. “‘I will never—emphasis on never—fuck Shelby LeBlanc.’ Did you not say those words?”
I let out a groan. “I need new friends.”
“Probably, but until then, go get our money, asshole.”
I shoot a glare to Asher as I walk back into the office, unlock a drawer, and grab the envelope where we stashed this cash six months ago. Back then, I thought it was a sure-fire bet.
I was an idiot.
When I come back out, I’m relieved to hear them talking about something other than my impromptu wedding or that I had sex with Shelby. And it only takes me a second to realize the attention has shifted from me to Theo.
“So, Mr. Lawson, while you’re home, any bride’s-man duties?”
Theo throws a lump of dough at Asher. “If you must know, yes, I will be seeing Ellie. And yes, it happens to be at the cake tasting.”
“Are you serious?” I ask as I take out my bread to score it.
I think I’m going to go with an x-pattern tonight.
“Granted, my wedding didn’t come with any planning, but I have to imagine that in a traditional setting, the groom usually attends with his future bride. Not the man who wants to be the groom.”
A matching ball of dough comes sailing my way, and I’m just able to duck before it hits me in the shoulder. I consider that a win for me. The man’s a center fielder. He has a hell of an arm.
“I don’t want to be the groom,” he says with a little too much fight in his words.
I hope this isn’t how I sounded when I said I’d never sleep with Shelby.
If I did, I wouldn’t have believed me either.
“I don’t know how many times I need to tell you, Ellie is my best friend.
She’s always been there for me, and in turn, I’m there for her.
So, when her fiancé can’t accompany her to appointments, I step in. What’s weird about that?”
“What’s weird is that you made this trip home on a whim and suddenly there’s a cake-tasting appointment her fiancé can’t go to?” Maddox points out. “Seems suspicious to me.”
“For real, who invited you?” Theo scoffs.
We all laugh at the dig before Asher offers his two cents. “If that’s all this is, then we’ll stop giving you shit.”
“Thank you.”
“I wasn’t done. But if you love her, and she doesn’t know, and you’re going to watch her get married—stand next to her at the altar while she says ‘I do’ to another guy—then she needs to know how you feel. You can’t have any what-ifs. You can’t have things left unsaid. They’ll eat you up inside.”
The room gets quiet. When Asher speaks like that, from the heart and with meaning in his tone, we know this is his way of working through his wife’s passing.
It’s been three years since he became a widower, and while most days he seems to have it together, every once in a while he’ll say something that reminds me he’s still healing. That he’ll likely always be.
“I appreciate the advice, Asher. I really do. But there’s nothing to tell. There’s nothing to get off my chest. Yes, I love Ellie, but not in that way. She’s my best friend. And if she asks me to go taste cakes, then I’m going to go taste cakes.”
No one says anything else, even though I have a feeling we all want to yell “bullshit” through a cough.
“So, Maddox, what’s been going on since Vegas?” I ask, needing to change the subject and not wanting it to come back to me.
“Nothing much,” he says quickly. Like very quickly. Which is weird. That guy is always ready to talk. “How about you, Asher? How’s the season going?”
I don’t miss how Maddox asks about the season, steering us away from Asher’s personal life. The newest Poker Club member has learned early that asking Asher anything about a personal life earns either an immediate cuss out, or Asher just picking up and leaving.
Which, I get. The man has grieved his wife every day since she passed. He’s raising their daughter on his own—a daughter who wasn’t old enough to ever know her mother. I can’t blame the man for not wanting to date until he’s really ready.