25. Liam
I need a beer. Who can meet me at Beck’s?
Harrison
Sorry. Out of town.
Beck
Wish I could, but my lovely wife has just informed me that we’re watching Love, Actually. Also, I live ninety minutes away.
Kate wants to watch Love, Actually? Did you marry a different Kate than the one we know?
Beck
Apparently she was joking. We are watching a movie about a female vigilante who traps rapists in a basement and tortures them.
Okay, that lines up.
Caleb
Fell asleep on the couch. Twins woke us up at 4 today and Lucie’s already asleep. Give me fifteen minutes and I’m there.
Beck
Liam’s never getting married if you keep telling him stories like that, dude.
Caleb
Harrison’s getting divorced, and you just married my ex-wife. If that hasn’t scared him off, nothing will.
I’m halfway through my first beer when Caleb walks in, unusually disheveled and deeply in need of a shave.
“You look like you’re coming off a four-day bender,” I tell him.
“I feel like it,” he says, pouring himself a beer from my pitcher. “When Sophie wakes up, the whole goddamn house wakes up. She makes sure of it.”
Despite all this, though, Caleb radiates contentment. I want that contentment for myself, and I’m highly unlikely to achieve it if I keep pining after Emerson fucking Hughes.
I fucking hate that she slept with him.
You’re here to stop thinking about Emmy. So stop thinking about her.
“Still can’t believe Kate and Beck eloped,” I say. “Is that weird for you?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “It’s weird but I’ve gotten used to it. I’m a little too focused on my own wedding to give it much thought.”
I nod. “How are the plans coming along?”
“Getting there. I’m just excited we’ll finally meet Harrison’s mystery girlfriend.”
I know nothing about Harrison’s girlfriend, except he’s clearly whipped as fucked. He’s in LA every weekend, and I don’t think she’s come up here once. “He RSVP’d for both of them?”
Caleb shrugs. “Not yet, but I assume he’ll bring her…I mean, God, he’s dated her for like six months, right?”
“Has he even told us her name?”
Caleb frowns. “I’m not sure he did. Anyway, since when are you free on a Saturday night? This is prime time for you.”
It’s a testament to how little I’ve seen of my friends this year that he’s even asking the question.
“I haven’t taken a girl home since last December,” I tell him. “I mean, the broken bones were responsible for a lot of that, but…I don’t know. It got old. I wasn’t willing to make an effort before and now I am.”
Caleb waves his hand through the crowded bar. “Then the world is your oyster. If you were ever good at one particular thing, it was making an effort on a Saturday night.”
Except that’s not what I want. I’m not in the mood to chat someone up, but I think the more precise issue is that what I want is a woman whose eyes flash silver when she’s mad, who’s prickly at the best of times and often far worse. “My sister sent me the number of some friend of hers she wants to set me up with. The girl surfs, apparently, and her dad is in construction.”
“That’s perfect for you,” Caleb says, “Text her.”
He seems relieved, assuming the problem’s been solved, but it feels like a mistake the moment I send the text. And why the hell is it Emerson I can’t stop thinking about when she’s clearly not thinking about me?
Jesus Christ, she pissed me off today. I can’t believe she slept with him. I really can’t.
“For a guy who just solved all his problems, you sure don’t seem any happier,” Caleb says just as Emerson walks into the bar with a friend. Of all the fucking bars, she had to choose this one.
“I didn’t solve every problem,” I say with a sigh, watching her.
Her hair is down and she’s in jeans and a very fitted tee. I’ve seen her in less—thank you, yoga—but I don’t necessarily like how many other people are seeing her as she is now. I don’t like the way the crowd parts for her, the way men continue to watch her after she’s walked past. I don’t like the fact that in a few weeks, she’ll be gone, and there will be no one here to torture me at all.
Caleb laughs, his gaze following mine. “Who’s the girl?”
I’m not even sure how to describe her. “What word would you use for a woman who’s awful and trying to destroy everything you care about, but who you also are more than a little obsessed with?”
“Nemesis or future wife,” he says. “It could go either way.”
I turn away from the bar, draining a second beer. “Well, I guess I know which one she is since she doesn’t even want a relationship, much less marriage.”
Caleb laughs. “Be that as it may, based on the way she’s looking at you, it sure seems like she wants something.”