Chapter 1 #2
He gestured for the tablet in Tyler’s hand, which Tyler was smart enough to pass over without complaint.
“Guess I’ll go change and clock out.” He turned to head into the fire house so he could hit the locker room, but Ryan edged his way into Tyler’s path, not budging.
“Actually,” Ryan said, rubbing a palm over the back of his neck. “Do you have a second? I wanted to, ah, talk to you about something.”
“Sure,” Tyler said, leaving de Costa and Faurier to finish enthusiastically organizing the hooks, Halligans, axes, and chainsaws (alphabetically, then in size order, if he had to guess).
He followed Ryan a dozen or so steps toward the open bay doors, which wasn’t a hardship since today was pretty much the most perfect May morning Mother Nature could rustle up. “What’s up?”
Ryan grinned sheepishly, which wasn’t quite on-brand for the guy, and Tyler’s intuition twanged to life. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and, well, you’ve been my best friend for literally half my life.”
“Yeah,” Tyler said, almost like a question, and oh, shit, how transparent had Tyler been the last time Carleen had insisted he sit right smack next to Chloe at Sunday dinner?
He’d channeled a lot of energy into acting perfectly normal while keeping as much distance—both literal and emotional—from her as possible, but the Dempsey dinner table was always packed.
His knee had accidentally brushed against Chloe’s three times, and his composure had been nearly incinerated by the end of the night. Was Ryan onto him?
The guy continued, “We work together. We’ve known each other since high school. I trust you more than anyone other than Addison. You’re practically my brother. So, I was wondering…hoping, I guess…that you would be my best man.”
Tyler’s jaw hit the concrete. “At your wedding?”
“Well, yeah.” Ryan laughed. “That’s typically where one has a best man.”
Tyler tried to wade through his shock to form a semi-intelligent response, but yeeeeeah, not fucking happening. “Okay, but you have, you know, actual brothers.” As tight as Tyler and Ryan were, he would never step on Jack or Miguel’s toes.
“I do,” Ryan said, nodding. “Three of them, if you count Grace’s husband, Patrick.” Grace was Ryan’s older sister, rounding out the five Dempsey children. “But I don’t want to choose between them, and they’ll all be in the wedding party, along with Hawk and Faurier and Maxwell.”
Well, that last part tracked. Tyler couldn’t imagine Addison getting married without her detective partner, Shawn Maxwell, standing somewhere at her side, even though the thought of the huge, inked up guy in a formal suit was a little wild.
“Anyway,” Ryan said, “through thick and thin, when actual life and death shit hits the fan, you’ve always got my back.
You’re the best person I know. Of course, I want you to be my best man, Tyler.
But I’ve given this a lot of thought, and it’s literally going to be the most important moment of my life.
It would mean everything to have you right there next to me. ”
Tyler’s heart slammed against his rib cage.
He hated weddings. As in, they ranked right up there with being attacked by hornets or contracting an acute case of jock itch.
But being Ryan’s best man was a whole different level of fuck-me.
If Tyler said yes, he would be on the hook for much more than just attending the wedding and hiding out in the back of the room, like he’d planned.
He would have to organize a bachelor party.
He’d have to smile for pictures. Christ, he’d probably have to make a toast in celebration of the sort of happily ever after he didn’t believe in.
The thought of all those capital-F Feelings sat in his stomach like wet cement.
“Are you sure you don’t want someone with more experience?” Tyler asked. “Like you said, it’s going to be the most important moment of your life.”
Ryan laughed. “Pretty sure no one has more experience being my best friend than you, jackass. Of course, I’m sure.” Sobering, he said, “Look, I know weddings aren’t your thing, and I get why. After what happened with your parents…well, I’d understand if you need to pass.”
“No.” The word fired past Tyler’s lips. He might have damn good reasons for hating weddings, but Ryan was right.
They were best friends. Tyler wasn’t going to leave him high and dry the way his deadbeat father had left his mom.
Ryan had been there for Tyler, no matter the ask, since goddamn high school.
Tyler needed to start acting like it, even if that meant sucking up his aversion to nuptials.
“I don’t want to pass. I’ve got your back,” he said, slapping on a smile and reaching out to shake Ryan’s hand. “Just as long as you’re okay having a jackass for a best man. Dickhead.”
“Thanks, man.” Ryan grinned and clapped him on the back. “I knew I could count on you.”
“Always, brother,” Tyler said, and that, he meant.
Ryan’s hand returned to the back of his neck, the tell sending Tyler right back to full alert. “Right. Uh, there is a little bit of a catch.”
“A catch,” Tyler repeated. This couldn’t bode well.
“Yeah.” Ryan stretched the word over two beats. “So, you know how we’ve been planning a November wedding? Well, there was a bit of a mix-up with the reception venue. They accidentally double-booked the date.”
Even Tyler, who avoided weddings with the power and intensity of ten thousand screaming-hot suns, knew that was bad. “Oh, shit.”
Ryan nodded. “Exactly. They asked us if we’d consider rescheduling—at a significant discount, of course. The wedding’s not going to be huge, and we were able to juggle the important stuff, like the church and Addison’s dress, so we figured, why not? The sooner the better.”
Wait… “How soon?”
“Four weeks.”
Tyler resisted the urge to choke on his tongue. Cool. Cool. You need to keep your fucking cool. “Wow. That’s, ah, really soon.”
“I know, but it’s all coming together pretty well, and honestly”—he broke off with a sheepish grin—“we don’t want to wait.
I swear I won’t hang a bunch of work on you, though.
We’ve already taken care of changing the date for everything.
There will be some stuff to do, but the best man duties shouldn’t be too much of a pain in the ass. ”
Best man duties. Christ, he was out of his depth. “I’ve never been a best man before. You’re probably going to have to give me a list of things you want me to take care of.”
Okay, so maybe he’d have to hang onto Addison’s ring until the ceremony and, yeah, making that toast was probably inevitable. But Tyler had never made a habit of losing his shit when things got critical. He wasn’t about to start now. He could figure this out.
“Ah, I can do you one better than that,” Ryan said, his expression brightening. “You’re going to have your very own partner in crime.”
The words had no sooner left Ryan’s mouth than a very familiar white MINI Cooper pulled into the parking area in front of the fire house, and a very, very familiar redhead got out of the driver’s seat.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no…
“Hey, sis,” Ryan called out, waving to his sister as she started heading their way, then turning toward Tyler.
“Chloe’s our maid of honor. Addison and I had planned on a joint bachelor and bachelorette party since we have one common group of friends.
It’s booked for two weeks from now. We still need to get some of the details hammered out, but you and Chloe can work together to make it easier. Divide and conquer.”
“Great,” Tyler somehow managed to say as Chloe walked up, her long legs encased in a pair of impeccably broken-in jeans and her flowy pink tank top swishing perfectly around her curves as she moved.
Her red-gold hair was up in a twist on top of her head, a few pieces spiraling out to frame her face.
Her mouth—please just kill him now—was dialed in to a smile that stopped just shy of her big, blue eyes as soon as she saw Tyler, and oh, hell, he was absolutely hosed.
He needed to keep his distance from Chloe if he had a snowball’s chance in hell of ever forgetting their kiss. And now, not only did they need to plan a party together, but he had to literally walk down the aisle with her.
“Hey, Ry,” Chloe said from a few paces away, flashing her genuine smile for a beat before cooling it right back off as she looked at him. “Hello, Tyler.” She didn’t meet Tyler’s eyes, but she also didn’t give him the finger or run screaming, so at least there was that.
“You have great timing,” Ryan said, pulling her into a hug as she reached the entrance to the engine bay, a.k.a. the spot where Tyler was currently praying for a fault in the earth to swallow him alive. “I was just filling Tyler in on the plans for the bachelor and bachelorette party.”
“Right,” Chloe said, her tone cordial but nothing more. “I guess that means we’re partners, then.”
Tyler scraped in a deep breath. He was not his father.
He was a decent guy. A dependable guy. A guy whose best friend was relying on him to partner up with his little sister to help plan a few tiny details of his wedding.
Tyler could do that. No matter how much self-control it took, he would do that.
Even if it fucking killed him to be this close to Chloe for the next four weeks.
“Yep,” he said, sealing his fate. “Partners.”
“That sounds great.”
“Mmm-hmm. Great.”
The silence that followed was so heavy, Tyler could’ve dragged it to the curb—a fact that, unfortunately, didn’t go unnoticed.
“Don’t both of you do backflips at once,” Ryan said, his gaze jumping from Tyler to Chloe, then back again, before narrowing slightly.
“Seriously, you guys. You look like you’re about to get a two-for-one deal on root canals. Is something wrong?”