17. Chapter 16
Chapter 16
Tanner
A week later, we’re ready to leave when Vic’s phone rings. She gives me an apologetic look before answering.
“Hey,” she says. “I’m about to go out. What’s up?”
I wait for the person speaking to tell Vic whatever they’re going to say and check the time. I take a breath, because I’m a little nervous about tonight, but it’ll be fine. She’s going to like what I have planned.
Vic pulls the phone away from her ear and says to me, “It’s Spencer. He says he needs me to come by Blue Vista to sign something.”
“Tonight?” I ask.
She puts the phone on speaker.
“I know you guys had plans, and I’m really sorry,” Spencer says. “I’m here with this last-minute event and the client forgot to sign a form, and I need Vic to sign as well. This is completely my fault. I should have had you sign it in advance yesterday.”
“Is it the insurance form?” Vic asks, sounding resigned.
“Yes. I promise, it’ll only take two minutes.”
Vic sighs and looks at me. “I’m sorry. The insurance needs to be sorted before the event starts.”
I smile. “No problem. We can stop there on the way. We’re still a little early, anyway.”
She hangs up with Spencer and we go down to her car. She wouldn’t normally drive to Blue Vista, but since we’re supposed to be going out for dinner after, we take the car. When we park in the parking garage next to the venue, she says, “You don’t have to come in. This should only take a minute.”
“That’s okay. I’ll escort you inside. What kind of husband would I be if I let you walk alone?”
She snorts a laugh, and we get out. I offer her my arm, which she takes, and I lead her inside. Spencer meets us at the front door.
“I’m really sorry about this.” He hands her a clipboard and she signs and dates the form. “Since you’re here, could you come upstairs for a minute? While we were decorating, we noticed something that we might need to take care of before winter.”
Vic sighs. “Spencer, can’t it wait until Monday? I’m hungry.”
“Derek won’t be here on Monday,” Spencer says, with a wince. “And he has the contacts to get this sorted. If you check it today, I’ll talk to him tomorrow and we can get it rolling before he leaves for his honeymoon.”
Vic looks at me and I fight to keep my face as perfectly neutral as I can when I say, “Let’s go take a look. Then we can have dinner without you worrying about what it is.”
“True.” She gestures to Spencer to lead the way.
He walks ahead of us up the stairs to the reception hall.
“I’m really sorry,” she says. “What time were the reservations?”
“We have lots of time,” I say.
At the top of the stairs, there are black and gold balloons everywhere. A few tables have been set up for different activities, and a small group of people shout, “Surprise!”
“What?” Vic says, as she looks around at her friends and my brother and his wife. “I thought there was a last-minute event tonight.”
“There is,” I tell her. “Your event.”
“What about our reservation?”
I laugh, because she’s clearly not understanding. “ This is our reservation. I promise, there’s food. We got married so quickly, you didn’t get to have a bachelorette party, so here it is.”
She stares at me, her eyes wide with shock. “You tricked me!”
“I surprised you. Remember, I only use my powers for good.” I wink at her.
“What about your bachelor party? You didn’t get to have one either.”
“Oh, I don’t need a bachelor party. All my friends are here, anyway.”
She looks around at the people here. There are only seventeen, not including us. “Who?”
“Wyatt and Addison.”
She gives me that smile that tells me she thinks I’m insane. Then Lis comes up to her, stealing her away. “Are you finished being surprised? Can I show you around?”
Spencer laughs. “As the primary organizer, and her best friend, shouldn’t I show her around?”
“I’m your wife, and I’m more excited than you are. Plus, I’m carrying your baby, and I can do whatever I want now.”
I laugh, partly because it’s funny, but mostly because she’s right. Over the last several weeks, I’ve seen how much Spencer is wrapped around Lis’ little finger and how happy he is to be so. She takes Vic around the room, showing off the games they decided on, the photo booth in the corner, the food and drinks.
I watch as they go around, and Spencer stands next to me.
“Thanks for helping with this,” I say.
“No problem. It was kind of my duty as the man of honour. She said she didn’t want to bother with a bachelorette party, which is code for, I don’t want to bother people with a bachelorette party.”
I nod. Vic will often downplay the things she wants so as not to put people out. I don’t even know if she notices she’s doing it.
“Do you think,” I ask slowly, “if I need help translating Vic, I could ask you for help?”
Spencer considers me for a moment. “You still like her, don’t you?”
“Of course I like her. She’s a cool person.”
He looks at me for a moment and I understand what he’s really saying. But there is no way I’m about to tell him the truth: that “still” and “like” are the wrong words.
I scratch my chin. “That would make things kind of complicated between us, don’t you think? If I have a crush on my wife who is intent on divorcing me in less than a year?”
“Yep. That would probably make things very complicated. But that wasn’t exactly a denial, either.”
The ladies laugh, draping a Bride sash over Vic’s head. I sigh. “No. It wasn’t a denial.”
Adalie comes over with a huge smile, holding another sash. “This one’s for you. I just want to point out how difficult it was to find sashes that say Bride and Groom and not B ride to Be and Groom to Be .”
I bend down so she can settle it over my head. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“That’s okay. Next time, if you could do things in order, that would be great.”
“You are incredibly magnanimous, Adalie.” Behind her, I nod at her fiancé, Nate, and he nods back. He’s not a big talker, and I haven’t gotten to know him well over the last few weeks despite him coming out to most of the friend gatherings I’ve attended with Vic.
Spencer claps me on the back. “Shall we get you a beer?”
“Sure. What do you have?”
It’s actually Nate who takes me to the bar, since all the beer they have tonight has come from his brewery. His brother, Taylor, is there with his date, a woman named Syn, and he offers some suggestions as well. I end up with a pale ale just in time for Derek to call everyone’s attention to him.
“Welcome friends and family of Vic and Tanner. We’re here to retroactively celebrate the fact that Vic and Tanner got married.”
There is some cheering from the small crowd.
“Our gracious host, Tanner, and his talented event planner, Spencer, wisely put me in charge of games.”
Spencer shrugs. “We gotta play to our strengths, man. I’m better at keeping everything on track. You’re better at causing chaos.”
Derek flips him off good-naturedly.
“I have a few games for us this evening, including our very first semi-icebreaker, though most people here know each other fairly well already. Everyone has a drink, non-alcoholic for the pregnant ladies and the underaged?”
“I’m eighteen!” Lacey, Ava’s sister, calls. “I’m legal age in Alberta.”
“We’re not in Alberta,” Derek says and everyone laughs.
Lis gives Lacey a hug and whispers something in her ear that makes the girl smile.
“First game is called Drink If . Rules are simple. I’ll read a card, and you’ll drink if it applies to you. I’ve gone through these and removed the ones that don’t apply, considering you guys are already married.” He picks up the first card. “Drink if you’re single.”
Lacey lifts her glass. “Am I the only one here who’s single?”
“Nope.” Taylor and the woman he brought with him stand next to Lacey and tap their drinks together in a three-way cheers. “Syn and I are just friends,” he says, though I hear Adalie snort, and I wonder how true that statement really is. Taylor ignores her. “To being single among a bunch of couples.” They drink together.
Derek lifts the next card. “Drink if you’re the oldest in the room.” He points to one of his brothers-in-law who rolls his eyes and takes a drink.
“Here’s a good one. Drink if you’re still sober.”
Everyone drinks.
“Two more. I altered this one because only one person is at ten or more, but four more people are at nine. So. Drink if you’ve known the bride for nine or more years.”
Vic smiles at her friends and they all move together. Vic calls me over.
Adalie’s smile is warm when she says, “To friends who are more like family.”
We clink our drinks together.
Then Derek pulls another card, frowns and says, “I meant to take that one out.”
“What does it say?” Gina, one of his sisters, asks.
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll grab another.”
“Come on,” Trish, his other sister, says. “It can’t be that bad.”
Derek looks at Vic and hands her the card. “It’s your party. You decide if you want to do it.”
She reads the card, then looks up at me. “Drink if you’ve hooked up with someone who has the same name as the bride’s soon-to-be spouse.” She holds my gaze as she takes a drink.
Because she has hooked up with someone with my name. She hooked up with me .
And now everyone knows it. For some of the people here, it shouldn’t be a shock, considering we’re married. But of the people who know our marriage is supposed to be just on paper, only Spencer and Wyatt know about that one night seven and a half years ago.
Derek manages to contain his reaction, but Adalie is looking between us in shock until Spencer nudges her, speaking to her quietly. “It’s not weird that they’ve hooked up, Adalie. They’re married. Remember?”
She blinks. “Right. Yeah. I thought she meant she hooked up with a second guy named Tanner?” She says the lie like a question because Adalie is sweet and terrible at lying. “I mean, that would be super crazy, right?”
“It would be,” Vic says, taking another drink just because. She looks completely composed, but she’s gripping her beer so tightly her knuckles are white. “But no. I meant this Tanner.”
Derek mentions the game is over for now, that we’ll come back to it throughout the night. For now, there are other games and the photo booth, and everyone moves off to other activities.
“I’m sorry,” Derek says, picking up the cards and going through them. “I thought I took out all the ones that said soon-to-be . And the that were a little x-rated. Mostly since Lacey is here and my sisters.” He glances up at us. “But I’d like a few more details on this development.”
“When?” Adalie asks, her voice little more than a whisper.
I glance around, making sure no one who shouldn’t know is within earshot. “Seven years ago,” I say.
“Almost eight, now,” Vic says. I look at her. She’s watching me. Watching for my reaction to her letting her friends know what happened.
Adalie’s hands cover her mouth. “Oh, shit!”
“What?” I ask.
“It was when you got the job at Sterling, wasn’t it?”
I nod. “Right before.”
She rounds on Vic. “I can’t believe you! You were friends, and you slept together, then you just cut him out?”
“Adalie,” I say. “It’s fine.”
Vic shakes her head. “It isn’t. To be honest, I can’t believe me, either. It was stupid and rash and I don’t think I’ve ever apologized. I am sorry, Tanner. You didn’t deserve how things happened. I practically ghosted you, which wasn’t cool, and because they’re my friends,” she motions at Derek, Adalie, and Spencer, “they kind of stopped being yours. And that’s not fair.”
I look down at the beer I’m holding. “If we’re going for honesty here, I probably wouldn’t have been a good friend, anyway. When I started at Sterling, I immersed myself in it pretty hard.” I meet her eyes again. “I’m a grown man, Vic. I don’t have zero friends other than my brother because of you. I did that to myself.”
“But we’re friends now,” Adalie states, staring hard at each of us in turn. “Regardless of what might happen between you and Vic from here on out, you’re our friend. No takebacksies.”
I meet Vic’s eyes, because it doesn’t matter what I want. If she’s not comfortable with me being friends with her friends, I won’t be. She needs them more than I do. She nods, so I hold out my hand and Adalie shakes it. “Deal.”