5
Lia
Nolan: Am I driving everyone to the cape
Nolan: I’m not making two trips
Lia: youre the only one with a car
Nolan: Owen has a car
Lia: hes not gonna let me borrow it
Nolan: Just go early with him
Lia: no
Lia: im not gonna do that
Lia: answer me
Lia: NOLAN
Lia emphasized a message
Lia emphasized a message
Lia emphasized a message
Nolan: IDK what you want from me. Go with him or don’t but I’m not driving to the cape twice.
Lia: what if you and i go early and owen takes a and s
Nolan: Isn’t the stuff you bought at his place?
Lia: UGH FML
“Your chariot awaits,” Owen says through the rolled-down window of his penis-overcompensation-mobile.
“I’m getting the worst déjà vu right now.”
“There’s that winning personality.” His eyes drift down to the sidewalk next to me. “And that’s a dog.”
“Correct. Gold star to you.” I pull open the back door of his truck, tossing in both my bags, then bending to lift Archie.
“Woah woah woah—” The driver’s door snaps open and then he’s there, wedging himself between me and the car. “You’re just gonna put that dog in my truck?”
“He’s a really good car dog.”
“I have leather seats.”
“And I have a dog that can’t be left alone for three days.”
Owen looks like he’s buffering, a lock of dark hair falling out of place across his forehead. “Can—I just—wait a second.”
He reaches into the back seat for his suitcase, unzipping it and pulling out button-ups to lay in a flat row.
“You really want my dog to sit on your tailored shirts?”
“I can dry clean the shirts,” he says. “Can’t dry clean the car.”
Only once Archie is squared away, sitting handsomely in his safety harness and buckled in with a seatbelt, do I say from the passenger seat, “Nobody likes an animal-hater, you know.”
“I like animals,” Owen replies defensively, shifting into reverse.
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“I just don’t get the appeal of pets.” He shifts the gear into drive and the turn signal click-click-clicks. “Why would I elect to have another creature totally dependent on me? Like I don’t have enough going on.”
“Having a pet is one of the most rewarding experiences a person can have,” I argue. “Sounds like you’re just a commitment-phobe, my dude.”
“Yeah whatever,” he scoffs, leaning forward to turn on the radio (good to know he’s trainable) and cutting the conversation short.
We merge onto 90, then 93, then we’re leaving the Boston city limits. And I’m glad. Not just because I’m determined to make this the best weekend of Sophie and Andy’s lives, but also because running into Connor last weekend… it was too much. The distance is a relief.
“We should go over the plan,” I say, reaching forward to turn the volume down, “so we’re on the same page before they arrive.”
He just says, “Fine.”
My Notes app is already open. “Okay. Today we arrive, set up the decorations, Nolan drives Sophie and Andy down after work so they should be here by 6:30 or 7:00. Everyone will be groggy from driving so we’ll just do dinner and drinks at the Airbnb, but that means we have to get groceries before they arrive, on top of setting up the decorations.
We can save time if we order a grocery delivery instead of actually going to the store. ”
“What are we making for dinner?” Owen asks, mercifully understanding that I’ve already made these decisions. Thank God. If he tried to fight me on this we might have actually ended up in hand-to-hand combat.
“Well, both of Sophie and Andy’s favorite foods are really winter-y so I don’t think we should bother with them.”
“What are they?”
“Sophie’s is spaghetti and meatballs because she’s five years old. And Andy’s is… ?” I trail off, giving him a chance to finish the sentence.
“Are you asking me?” His eyes flick over to me from the road for a second.
“You don’t know your brother’s favorite food?”
“How would I know that?”
“You’re his best man.”
A huff of air leaves his nose. “Just tell me.”
“Owen, I would have accepted literally any kind of soup as the correct answer.”
“His favorite food is soup?”
“He’s a simple man.” I shrug. “But I’m obviously not making soup in July, so we can do a cookout with the grill behind the house instead, with burgers and corn and stuff.”
“Fine.”
I look to my left and see his jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the road, hands tense on the ten and two positions.
“Are you moping because I know your brother’s favorite food and you don’t?”
“I’m not moping, I’m driving,” he snaps. “Do you need me to be constantly talking? I thought you preferred the sound of your own voice.”
He doesn’t even realize how much of his soft underbelly is showing right now.
“Don’t mope. It’s fine. Someday you’ll know your family as well as I do.”
His knuckles turn white on the steering wheel.
I turn back to my Notes app. “Tomorrow will be the beach day. I brought floaties in case we want them, and Nolan is bringing a frisbee. Actually, I should text him a reminder about that now.” I start to do so, but don’t slow my speech.
“I just haven’t decided if we should plan to pack lunches or if there will be good enough beach food that we can grab. ”
“There are definitely places for food right by this beach, like hot dog stands, that kind of thing. But we should bring snacks too. I at least know Andy well enough to know he’ll want to eat a vegetable.”
“Well done,” I say, sugar sweet. “You must have met him at least twice.”
He flips me off, but it’s a casual gesture.
“Anyway,” I continue, “tomorrow we’ll get dinner at an actual restaurant. I made a reservation for 7:00 at a seafood place that had amazing reviews.”
“Fine.”
“And then Sunday our checkout is at 11:00, but we can clean up and load the cars and then grab brunch before we go. You and Nolan will just have to stay sober at brunch so you can drive.”
“What about after dinner tomorrow? It’s a Saturday night. Are we going out?”
“I thought about this, and I have two plans. Plan A is if Sophie and Andy are relatively sober and in their right minds at that point, then we’ll probably stay in, and we can do s’mores in the backyard.
Plan B is if Sophie and Andy are so fucking off their rockers that they actually want to go out to bars, then I have a few bookmarked. But there’s almost no chance of that.”
“Shame,” he says, posture perfectly straight. “I’d love to see what the ladies of Provincetown are up to nowadays.”
“Ew.” I roll my eyes.
Owen peers over at me with a smile that says he actually couldn’t care less about picking up women in Provincetown and just wanted to provoke me.
I reach forward to turn the music back up.
The rental looks even better than it did online: a huge colonial style mansion just off the main road through Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Pristine white paneling with pillars framing the front door, warm brown shingles on the roof, and a cool expanse of green in front, mowed in manicured lines that catch the sun in a light-and-dark duet.
It’s luxurious and cozy and supremely New England and Sophie is going to love it.
The inside is just as wonderful. All four of the bedrooms are huge and the bathrooms are newly renovated, with a spacious living room of butter-soft couches in sage green and cream.
Owen and I haul our suitcases and supply bags inside, then set out to our prep tasks.
I place the grocery order as he lines up the decorations across the kitchen island.
I have a vision. A very specific vision that I have crafted from years of knowing Sophie and Andy and going to parties with them and seeing their style and knowing what they like. Owen’s role here is supporting actor at best, so I tell him as much.
“Look, I don’t really care what we do as long as they like it,” he says. “I’ll follow your lead. Just tell me how to make it happen.”
And that’s the second time I’m pleasantly surprised by him today.
He’s good at following directions, too. I guess that makes sense, Mr. Columbia Law.
And it really is much quicker with his help.
Twisting the streamers exactly the right number of times (not too crowded and not too loose), putting a perfectly tacky amount of penis-shaped confetti across the main table, and hanging the balloon letters exactly where they should go.
“Can you tell me when it’s aligned?” he asks, holding the final G in Nerd Wedding against the living room wall.
I hand him a new piece of tape, then back up a few steps. “Up. Up more. There, stop!”
He fixes it in place, then steps back to evaluate our work, nodding in approval.
I wonder if he’s just a perfectionist in general, or if this level of attention is specifically about Andy. Some kind of penance for all the ways he’s been a shit brother. All the texts that were never sent and family reunions that were skipped and years of echoing, aching silence between them.
Maybe it’s a bit of both.
“Where do you think the photo backdrop should go?” I ask him in a gesture of good will. “Just on that wall by the couch?”
“Mmm no. The furniture will be in the pictures there. What if we do it by the back door? Then even if it’s a wide angle it’ll have that whole hallway in the shot and still look clean.”
“Okay yes.”
I start to walk that way, but Owen says, “Here, let me do it. I can reach higher.”
But he’s got maybe four inches on me—if that—so I still say, “I’ve got it.”
I reach the hallway at the same time as him.
We bob and weave a bit, a physical joke about who’s going to go down the hallway first. He fakes left, then right, and I mirror him, and it’s almost fun until he grabs me around the waist and lifts me clean off the ground and my body and brain react on instinct.
“STOP! Put me down!”
The room is a blur. My arm strikes out, but the angle’s bad—elbow knocking face, knees hitting ribs.
My feet hit the floor and I’m pushing away, desperate for space.
My body feels overhot, breaths ragged, and he’s still just there—chuckling like it’s all some fucking joke.
So I shove his shoulders, as hard as I can. He stumbles a step.
I spit, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
His expression morphs into disbelief. “It… it was a joke, Amelia. We’re messing around.”
“It’s not a joke to me. I don’t like being grabbed. Never fucking touch me again.”
A furrow appears between his brows. “Woah… hey, are you okay? I thought… I’m sorry. I thought we were cool now.”
“Well we’re not. I’m putting up with you for Sophie and Andy and that’s it. Get away from me.”
I shove past him, knocking his shoulder with mine.
And that’s when the front door to the house bursts open.
“PARTY TIME!”
Nolan is a pack mule with about seven million bags hanging from his shoulders and back. Andy and Sophie each carry one of their own behind him.
I paste on my showtime smile.
“Welcome to your bachelor/ette party!” I squeal, charging them and grabbing Sophie and Andy around the neck with each arm. Focus on this. Focus on them.
“Yay!” Sophie is immediately jumping up and down. “I’m so excited!”
“Hey guys,” Owen says, turning the corner from the hall where we just fought. “Hope you like… confetti!” He throws a handful into the air over our group and the happy couple laughs. One tiny hot pink penis sticks to Andy’s cheek. No one tells him.
And Owen’s good at this—faking it. There’s a warm smile on his face that makes it seem like the last two minutes didn’t happen at all. Meanwhile I’m still reeling, my fingertips are freezing, my adrenaline is cresting.
I offer to carry more bags than I really can, snatching them up before anyone objects just so I can leave this room. Find a moment alone. Reign myself in.
I’m so fucking mad at him for making me feel this way, now of all times.