The Best Man Problem

by Mariah Ankenman

  “I’ll only be a minute,” he said, grabbing his bag of clothes and heading back into the bathroom.

  Lilly took a giant step backward as he approached. He didn’t miss the significance of the move. The woman didn’t want him within touching distance. He couldn’t say he blamed her. He was being an ass.

  “Be quick, please.” She lifted her chin, tossing back her shoulders. “I’m going to make a final check of the house, and I need to lock up after all parties leave the premises.”

  All parties, she’d said. Not them. He’d gone back to being a client relation. How the hell could he have screwed this all up so badly? He needed to talk to her, to explain where his knee-jerk reaction had come from. But doing that would open up a wound he wasn’t sure he was ready to reveal to her.

  Still, she deserved some kind of explanation.

  “Lilly, I—”

  “Make sure you don’t leave anything you value behind or it will be thrown out.”

  With those parting words, she turned and headed out of the room. Lincoln made his way into the bathroom and quickly dressed. He packed up all his stuff, checking the room once more to make sure they left nothing behind.

  The bed was rumpled, sheets askew. He grabbed the comforter from the floor where Lilly left it and tossed it on top of the bed. It hung off the edge at his lackluster throw, then slowly slipped to the floor. The perfect metaphor for how this morning had gone. From sex-strewn sheets to a huge, suffocating blanket slowly sliding, all the pleasant memories crashing to the floor.

  He left the room and headed for the front door, where an impatient Lilly waited, foot tapping in her black pumps.

  “I hope you have a scraper in your car, because the storm covered it in snow.”

  Lilly had driven up with Mo for the wedding, and since the woman left the night of, that meant Lincoln would be driving her home. A fact that had excited him just a few hours ago but now sounded like the worst drive of his life. He knew by the set of her shoulders that she didn’t want to hear any explanation for his behavior this morning. He wasn’t even sure he could give her one right now. Her reveal was too fresh in his mind.

  It was going to be a long, silent, tense drive back to the city.

  “I do.” He grabbed his keys from his jacket pocket. “It’s in my trunk. Wait here while I take care of it.”

  She nodded, eyes focused on the snow outside. He made his way into the chilly February-morning air. The sun shone brightly, a mocking juxtaposition to his current mood. He opened the driver-side door to insert the key and start the car, blasting the heat and defrosters so the vehicle would be warm once he finished scraping.

  After tossing his bag in the trunk and grabbing the snow scraper, he went to work brushing the fluffy snow off the car’s windows, roof, and hood. It took a few more minutes for him to scrape the ice that had frozen overnight. Once he finished and the car was ready to hit the road, he replaced the scraper in the trunk, turning to get Lilly. But the woman already stood outside, locking the cabin door. She strode toward him as if she were walking a red carpet instead of trudging through a few feet of snow. He noticed she prudently placed each of her steps in the footfalls he’d made.

  “Hop in. I’ve got the heater going. It should be warm.”

  She said nothing, moving to the front passenger side and sliding in. She buckled up and placed her bag on her lap, grip tight as she leaned to the side, as far away from the driver’s side as possible.

  Yup. This was going to be a really long drive.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Men are stupid.

  Lilly had no idea why her confession turned Lincoln from fiery lover to ice man. He hadn’t once tried to contact her since he dropped her off at her building two days ago. Not that she’d tried to contact him, either, but he had been the one who said they should go on a date, the one who pursued her this whole time, the one who bought her a drink in the bar all those weeks ago. Why was he suddenly Mr. Silent now?

  Because you slept with him. Didn’t you learn anything from your mother?

  No. She would not listen to that nasty little voice in her head. Lincoln wasn’t like all the men her mother dated. He wasn’t the type of guy to get his jollies from a woman, then ghost her. He’d already had her once. If he didn’t want something real, a true relationship, he wouldn’t have kept trying to start something up again.

  Right?

  Maybe she was just as delusional as her mother when it came to men.

  “Okay, spill.”

  At Mo’s demand, Lilly glanced up from the open file she’d been staring at but in no way reading.

  “Huh? Spill what?”

  The smaller woman rose from her desk, making her way across the office to pop her hip on the edge of Lilly’s.

  “The reason you’ve been all mopey the past two days.”

  She scowled at her roommate’s assumption. “I have not been mopey.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” Pru said, rising to join Mo. “But you kind of have been a bit of a grumpapotamus.”

  Mo arched an eyebrow. “Grumpapotamus?”

  Pru winced. “I’m really trying to clean up my potty mouth before the twins start talking. Finn swears Simon said ‘dada’ the other day, but I think he was just burping. We’re trying to cut out the naughty stuff so we don’t have toddlers shouting the f-word in the aisle of a crowded restaurant.”

  Lilly smiled. The first genuine one she’d felt in days. See, who needed a stupid man when she had her friends?

  Mo chuckled. “I think I was that toddler.”

  “Big surprise,” Pru deadpanned.

  The image of toddler Mo sitting in a restaurant, swinging her legs while innocently shouting obscenities, made Lilly lose it. She tipped back her head, boisterous laughter escaping her lips. She slapped a hand over her mouth, but that just made her snort out her nose, which in turn led to more laughter. Mo quickly joined in the hilarity. Lilly had no idea if her roommate was laughing with her or at her, but it didn’t matter. It felt good to laugh again. The past few days, she’d felt like a dark storm cloud hung over her head. Raining on every thought she had. Dampening her mood, no matter how hard she tried to smile.

  “I wish my parents found it as funny as you, Lilly.” Mo smiled. “They took away my favorite crayons for two days when I said ‘shit’ during dinner with Nonna. On the bright side, it got you to smile for the first time since you came storming into the apartment the other morning.”

  Lilly sighed. Mo could be a bit overdramatic. “I did not storm.”

  “You most certainly did.” Her roommate pointed a finger in her face. “You stormed to your room while muttering something about stupid men and slammed the door behind you before I could even get in a hello.”

  Affronted at the accusation, she gasped. “I didn’t slam the door!”

  “Fine. You shut it very firmly. But it was obvious you were—and still are—upset. Spill. Did things not go well with Lincoln? Was the sex not as good as you remembered? Did he ask for weird stuff?”

  “Oh please, Mo.” Pru chuckled. “Like you wouldn’t do weird stuff.”

  “I would, but Lilly wouldn’t.”

  Hey, she’d do weird stuff! Maybe. Depending on what it was and who asked. To be honest, she’d be open to a hell of a lot with Lincoln. She trusted the man. Or she had. Before she shared the worst moment of her life with him and he acted like she was the one to blame.

  She glanced at the two women before her. Her business partners, her friends. These women who had stood by her side through thick and thin for more than a decade. They were closer than friends. They were sisters. They were family. A family of their choosing, and that made them bonded in a way unlike any other.

  She knew they would always be there for her and vice versa. It hadn’t been fair of her to shut them out the past few days. She should have discussed thing
s with them right away, but a small part of her felt ashamed. Worried she’d fallen into the trap of her mother.

  Her friends weren’t here to judge her. They didn’t do that. They helped one another. The time had come for her to accept their help and start sharing. If nothing else, talking about it out loud might help her solve the hot-and-cold mystery that was Lincoln Reid.

  “He didn’t ask for any weird stuff,” she started. “And, no, the sex wasn’t as good as I remembered.” Mo’s lips turned down into a little frown until Lilly added, “It was better.”

  “Hot damn! I knew just by looking at him that man could set fire to a bed.”

  He could indeed. He could also pour a giant bucket of ice-cold water all over it. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

  “If things were so great, why the storm clouds?” Pru reached out to place a sympathetic hand over Lilly’s.

  Of course, her friends would be able to tell she was under a gloom cloud. When you lived with someone for a decade—as they had done—you got to know a person really well. There was no sense in hiding anything from them.

  “Everything was going great.” She lifted her shoulders, shaking her head as she recounted the weekend. “The wedding went off without a hitch. After everyone left, I went to Lincoln’s room to…um, you know.”

  “Screw his brains out?”

  “Classy, Mo.” Pru shook her head, motioning for Lilly to continue.

  “Anyway, we had…an amazing night.” There was no other way to describe it without setting off the sprinklers. “Then, when we woke up, the storm had really rolled in.”

  Pru gasped. “Did you get stuck up there?”

  She nodded. Mo knew that from her text saying she wouldn’t be home, but Pru didn’t live with them anymore, since she got together with Finn. As happy as she was for her friend starting a family and getting married, a part of her grieved the loss of the tight-knit sisterhood the three of them once shared. But that was the way of life. Things changed, people moved on, relationships shifted.

  “Oh, I get it now!” Mo exclaimed. “You all got stuck up there, but Lincoln only brought one condom and you couldn’t get your freak on anymore. Men are idiots. So unprepared. That’s why I always carry a box of condoms in my purse. Never rely on your partner for protection.”

  “No.” Lilly bit her lip, cheeks flaming as memories of just how prepared Lincoln had been filled her mind. “We were very much covered in that department.”

  “Oh really?” Mo bobbed her eyebrows. “Care to elaborate?”

  “Ignore her.” Pru lifted a hand to block out their brazen friend. “Continue with your story.”

  Skipping the more intimate details, she launched into the activities they’d done to keep themselves busy during the storm. How comfortable they’d been chatting, scrounging for food, playing games, watching movies. It amazed her how normal it had all felt. Like they’d been doing it for years. Hanging out with Lincoln, even when they weren’t having sex, felt good. Right. Like home.

  Mo scrunched up her nose when Lilly finished. “Okay, soooo what happened? Why the Debbie Downer routine?”

  “I told him.” She swallowed past the painful lump of emotion clogging her throat. “About what happened. The worst man we do not speak of.”

  “That bastard,” Mo spat. “I still wish you would have let me kick him in the balls for what he did to you and his wife.”

  She gave a watery laugh. “I’m over it, Mo. Really.”

  And the odd thing was, she was telling the truth. For years, she’d blamed herself, thinking she should have seen the signs, but the truth was she’d believed a person she had no reason to doubt. That wasn’t being naive; it was just being human. She might always feel bad about what happened, but over the years, and with the constant support of her friends, Lilly now knew what happened wasn’t her fault. She’d simply chosen to trust the wrong person.

  Happened to a lot of people.

  “But when I told Lincoln, he…tensed.”

  Pru tilted her head. “Tensed?”

  “Yeah, and he… I can’t be certain because he didn’t really say anything, but I got the feeling he…”

  “He what, sweetie?” Pru asked.

  She glanced at her friends, her heart cracking as she spoke the words out loud. “I get the feeling he blames me for what happened.”

  “That bastard!” Mo swore again. “Let me make him some of my special brownies, Lilly, please.”

  Since she knew her roommate’s special brownies were not the kind sold in the dispensaries around Colorado but instead could be used for backed-up seniors at the retirement homes, she shook her head with a smile. She wouldn’t stoop to such an immature level. No matter how much she secretly wanted to.

  “Thanks for the offer, Mo, but no. My first assessment was right.” Taking a fortifying breath, she lifted her chin. “Lincoln and I aren’t a good match.”

  “So what?” Pru said. “Take a look at the three of us. Look how different we are. Would anyone ever think we’d be best friends?”

  Pru had a point. She loved her best friends fiercely, but their personalities and interests were in direct opposition a lot of the time. “Friends and romantic relationships are different.”

  “Says who?” Mo argued. “Both bring joy into your lives. Both are there to support you, encourage you, share ups and downs with you. The only difference with Lincoln is he satisfies your carnal needs as well as your emotional ones. Who cares if you don’t have every single thing in common?”

  She wanted to believe that. So very badly, but… “We had some fun, but now it’s over. Time to move on. Better now than before any serious feelings started to develop.”

  “Oh please,” Mo snorted. “That ship has already sailed, Lil.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You guys spark.”

  “We what?”

  “Spark.” Mo smiled, her eyes filling with excitement. “Any time you were in the room together. No, actually, any time you even thought about each other, everyone could see it on your faces.”

  She scoffed but couldn’t stop from asking, “See what?”

  “The spark of utter and complete happiness you ignited in each other.”

  What a load of nonsense. “It’s called lust, Mo. It’s not real. A temporary chemical reaction people share when sexually attracted to each other. It fades and dies, usually not at the same rate for both parties, and someone ends up getting hurt. Just ask my mother.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” Pru shook her head. “You know we would never say anything bad about your mom, but she’s not a good person to judge relationships on. She doesn’t have a spark with every man she dates. She has an inability to differentiate lust from love.”

  Lilly bit her lip, clearing her throat as it clogged with fear and blinking back the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “And what if I have the same problem?”

  Mo laughed, not harshly but with soft love. “Lil, in all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you lose your head over a guy like you have with Lincoln.”

  “You always keep people at a safe distance. Even us, sometimes,” Pru chimed in. “And that’s okay,” she rushed to add as Lilly started to protest. “We know it’s hard for you to open up emotionally. We all have baggage from our past to deal with, but we love you and you love us.”

  She nodded, a few tears slipping free.

  “And as much as I was resistant to it before,” Pru said with a small smile, “I think you might care, deeply, for Lincoln?”

  Again, she nodded. But she feared what her friends were leaving unsaid was true. She didn’t just care for Lincoln. She loved him. And that’s why his dismissal hurt and confused her so much.

  Dang it! She had told her heart to stay out of this, and the damn thing refused. This was supposed to be a fun thing, not a falling-in-love
thing.

  Then why am I so sad it’s over?

  No. Not sad. She was devastated. More than any other loss she’d felt.

  Exactly when and where had she fallen in love with Lincoln? Ugh, she’d like to go back to that moment and smack some sense into herself.

  Too late now. Apparently, according to her friends and her heart, she was in love with a nerdy computer geek who told bad pirate jokes that made her laugh, kicked her butt at pinball, and made her feel more than any man she’d ever known. Maybe her friends were right. Life didn’t always set you up with who you thought you should fit with. So what if they didn’t match in every area of life? Not everyone had to be perfectly compatible.

  She wasn’t even sure that was a possibility anymore. All she knew was that without Lincoln in her life, something felt…wrong. A part of her was missing, and she didn’t think she’d be whole again if she didn’t get it back.

  Would she ever be able to tell him how she truly felt?

  “I’m sorry if I ever pushed you two away.” She spoke through her tears, not wanting to miss an opportunity to tell the people she cared about exactly how she felt. “I know it’s sometimes hard for me to show it, but I do love you both. And I’m really happy I have you in my life.”

  “Awwww.” Mo pressed her hands to her chest, rushing around the desk, opening her arms wide. “Come here, you.”

  “Group hug!” Pru squeezed her from one side while Mo attacked her on the other. “We love you, too, sweetie.”

  She endured the hug for fifteen seconds—emotional vulnerability was one thing, but she really liked her personal space—before gently rolling her chair back and breaking out of the embrace.

  “What do you think I should do?”

  Her friends shared a look, silently communicating before turning back to her.