Dreamspinner Press Year Nine Greatest Hits

by Michael Murphy

  “Not just for the day.”

  “You’re such a brat, Lacey.”

  But he smiled.

  THE LAST weekend in April was perfect for a Virginia wedding. Evan woke, like he did most mornings, to the sound of gulls and soft sunlight streaming in through the open window.

  He was alone, and that was usual too. The house he’d picked up after a foreclosure was farther down the beach from where he’d grown up. He’d crept into North Carolina; the distance from his hometown meant he could now step out of his front door and feel sand beneath his feet in minutes. It was a fair trade.

  This home was small, a step up from a trailer, not really a whole house. It was his, though, and that was the most important thing.

  Evan rolled over and glanced at the clock. He’d become an early riser over the past few years, preferring to appreciate the sunlight in the mornings rather than staying up late, straining his eyes with artificial lights as he worked. It was a little after six, meaning he could get a few hours work in before he needed to leave for the Sparrow house.

  As was his habit, Evan rolled out of bed wearing the boxers he’d slept in and wandered through to the kitchen to set his coffeemaker to brew. The house was a low, squat one-bed-one-bath that had needed a fair amount of work when he’d moved in. It had taken months to bring the building up to code, and now it was his pride and joy.

  These days there was no mold in the bathroom, and with some of his stepfather’s help he’d fixed the water pressure, meaning he could take a steaming hot shower while the coffee brewed. The tiles in here were dark blue, and he’d laid most of them, as well as the grooved wood floors that ran through the whole house. He’d even helped install the new sink unit and toilet.

  Evan ran his hand over his jaw, decided he wasn’t going to shave, and shampooed his hair. Lacey had helped him pick out his outfit for the day, so he didn’t need to worry about that until later. When he was done in the shower, Evan pulled on loose cutoff sweatpants and a tank, grabbed a mug of coffee, then went through to his studio.

  In the other houses along this street, the room he used as a studio was a dining room. Evan had no use for a dining room—he’d fixed a breakfast bar in the kitchen to do that job—but the studio was definitely a necessity.

  Before he’d even graduated from ECU he’d started freelancing. It wasn’t so unusual; a lot of his fellow students with a major in art and design had done the same thing. It had been one of his housemates, MJ, who had put Evan in touch with Casey, who was an agent. Within a few months, Evan had started work.

  His projects were varied, purposefully so. He’d inked comic books and illustrated children’s storybooks, worked on concept art for big-budget Hollywood animations and Nickelodeon cartoons, and digitally inked teeny-tiny webcomics for almost no money because he was passionate about the story the artist was telling.

  In the summer Evan would take his face paints down to the beach and spend hours turning kids into superheroes and zoo animals and princesses. Sometimes he’d take a sketchbook and easel instead and do one portrait after another until his shoulder seized up. The fact that face paints and portraits brought in more money than the work his agent sent his way was neither here nor there. Evan was an artist, a paid one, and he knew how rarely his colleagues and peers got to make that statement.

  Over the winter, he’d taken one commission after another, working with whatever medium the project required, just to keep the heat on and food in his fridge. Now, as they crept toward summer, the regularity of seasonal work would keep things a little more secure.

  Due to the variety of his projects, the studio often looked like chaos. He could have huge pieces of paper tacked to the walls, ready for another splodge of paint that looked like it could maybe be the right color. He’d painted the whole back of the door with blackboard paint so he could jot notes to himself without interrupting the flow of his work. Those little scraps of paper he’d used before always got lost, often the ideas with them.

  Evan took a deep breath. It smelled like home in here, like freshly brewed coffee and acrylics and paper and charcoal.

  He set the coffee on his side table, pulled down a fresh piece of paper, and started to sketch.

  IT WAS only because his alarm went off, startling Evan out of his focus, that he even realized how much time had passed. The morning of the wedding really was too late to be working on a gift for the bride, but he’d been busy, and it had slipped his mind. Fortunately Evan had been invited along on the wedding dress shopping trip and had a photo on his phone for reference. The other details he made up.

  The first few efforts lay abandoned to one side. Evan stretched his neck from one side to the other, appraising his sketch. He’d decided on a portrait of Lacey in her wedding dress, drawn from the back, which was probably unusual for a wedding portrait. She had her chin on one shoulder, a bouquet (and he knew what that would look like too) dangling from her fingers. The back of the dress Lacey had chosen was incredibly beautiful, with a deep scooped back edged with fine lace and a full tulle skirt.

  He’d caught it all with pencils and shading, improvising on the hairstyle and filling in with as much detail as possible while still leaving the form of the drawing fairly rough. It was meant to capture a moment, an emotion, rather than any specifics. After all, what girl got a portrait of her in her wedding dress before she even put it on?

  Evan checked the time and leaned in to correct the shading on the bridge of Lacey’s nose, then reached for his can of hairspray and gently covered the drawing in a fine layer. He’d bought a frame weeks ago for this very purpose and would carefully assemble it all before he left the house. It would take about an hour to drive back up the coast, and he wanted to leave plenty of time.

  When Evan got back to the bedroom, he noticed his phone was flashing with several missed calls, all from Lacey.

  Frowning, he hit the button to call her back and started to riffle through his drawers for clean, decent underwear.

  “Hey,” he said when she answered. “Everything okay?”

  “Oh thank God,” Lacey said in a rush. “What have you been doing?”

  “Working,” he said absently. “What’s wrong?”

  “They’ve fucked up the tables, Evan,” Lacey said, sniffling, on the edge of tears. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Fucked up how?” he asked. He wasn’t ready to panic just yet. Lacey had a tendency to be dramatic at the best of times, and this was her wedding day. He didn’t doubt her normal drama was about to be increased.

  “All the flowers,” she wailed. “The bouquets are fine, but the house looks like a three-year-old put it together. You’re the only one I trust to fix it.”

  “Okay. I can be there in an hour and a half. Can you wait until then?”

  “But the wedding’s at eleven!”

  “And it’s only eight,” he said, hopping into tight black boxer briefs. “Are the girls there yet?”

  “No, they don’t turn up until nine.”

  “Okay. Go back upstairs.”

  “How do you—”

  “Go back upstairs, Lace,” he repeated. “Take a shower if you didn’t already. Shave your legs or whatever. Calm down. I just need to get dressed, and then I’ll be out of here in less than ten minutes.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, Ev.”

  “I know.” He went to hang up when Lacey said his name again. “Hmm?”

  “In case I don’t get to say it today, thank you. For everything. You didn’t have to do this for me.”

  “Of course I did,” he said fondly. “You’re my best friend.”

  She blew a kiss down the phone and hung up.

  Evan was smiling as he set the phone down and went to the mirror to fix his hair. He still wasn’t sure exactly when he’d become so close to Lacey. When he’d moved back after college, that was for sure. She had always been around, a part of his life, so it didn’t seem weird when they’d started hanging out. Lacey hadn’t been interested in college. Ve
ry few people knew she was dyslexic. Evan certainly hadn’t. After spending years in a school system that didn’t really cater to her needs, she’d jumped the education ship as soon as she could and started training to be a dance teacher.

  These days she worked for a small studio in the city, putting her dance training to use by teaching the next generation of tiny dancers. After watching her struggle for so long, Evan couldn’t help but be proud of her achievement.

  Evan pulled on the dark gray pants he’d owned for years, meaning they fit him well and were comfortable as hell, and a white shirt. Lacey had agreed when he said he wanted to wear a tweed vest and bow tie instead of anything more formal. Informal was one of the words on her wedding mood board, after all. He had tan leather brogues to complete the look, which he decided would definitely be pulled out again at some point. Sure, it was a little hipsterish, but who cared?

  The frame for his sketch was still in its bag in his closet, right where he’d left it, thank God. Evan quickly brushed his teeth, fiddled with his hair, and wrestled the sketch into the frame before jogging out of the house to his car.

  Traffic was on his side, and after breaking only a few speeding laws, Evan pulled up at the Sparrow house. He’d been friends with Lacey long enough now that he didn’t associate the place with his childhood friendship with Scott. It had been weird at first, but not for a long time now.

  There would be assigned parking for the ceremony later, but for now, Evan left the car on the drive, grabbed the framed sketch and two Starbucks Frappuccinos, and left his sunglasses on his face as he rang the doorbell.

  He wasn’t expecting Scott to answer.

  “Hi,” Evan said, coughing on the cold drink as Scott gaped at him. “Sorry. I’m early. Lacey called me with some decorating disaster.”

  “Shit, sorry,” Scott said, opening the door wider to let Evan in. He was still wearing pajama pants, riding low on his hips, and his hair was sleep-tousled and messy. He looked adorable. “Lacey is upstairs.”

  “I’ll, uh….”

  Evan gestured to the stairs and pushed his sunglasses onto his head as he trudged up them. That was not how he wanted this day to go.

  “Evan, thank fuck,” Lacey said as he wandered into the master bedroom. She was wrapped in a soft white robe that was embroidered with bride on the back.

  “Lacey. Language,” Mrs. Sparrow—Annie—said as she leaned in to kiss Evan’s cheek. “I don’t care if it is your wedding day.”

  “Hey, Annie.” Evan handed Lacey her Frap. “Here.”

  “You’re a lifesaver,” she said.

  “This is for you.” He held the frame out. There hadn’t been time to wrap it.

  “Oh, Evan,” Lacey said as she took it, her coffee already set aside. Her eyes started to fill with tears. “Oh my God, Ev. Mom, look at this.”

  “Don’t spoil your makeup,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her head as Lacey passed the frame to her mother.

  “It’s beautiful,” she sniffed. “Thank you so much.”

  “Anything for you, princess,” he said. It had become an affectionate nickname during the wedding-planning process.

  “You even got my hair right! How did you get my hair right?”

  It was loosely curled, with tiny flowers sewn in a circle crown on top of her head.

  “Lucky guess?”

  “You’re the best friend ever,” she said, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and hugging tight.

  “Now you’re here, I’m going to go check in with the caterers,” Annie said.

  “I thought I was here to fix tables.”

  “Oh, we did that,” Lacey said, waving his concerns away as she set the framed sketch carefully on the dressing table.

  “You,” Evan growled, “are a menace.”

  She ducked out of the way when he went to grab her, dashing to the other side of the bedroom and cowering behind the bed.

  “Where are the other girls?” Evan asked, leaning back against the dresser and shaking his head as he reached for Lacey’s drink and took a slurp.

  She made an indignant noise and edged slowly back around the bed. “In my room, on the hair, makeup, and nails production line.”

  “Jeez. I ran into your brother downstairs.”

  “Tom is here already?” Lacey asked, snatching the drink from Evan’s hand.

  He shrugged and reached for his own.

  “Your other brother,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Wasn’t quite expecting that.”

  “Oops,” Lacey said. “Was he shitty with you?”

  “No. He looked like he’d just rolled out of bed.”

  She snorted inelegantly. “That’s probably about right. Are you going to be okay today? Are you ever going to tell me what went down between the two of you?”

  “Yes and no, in that order,” he said. “I’m going to go check on the bridesmaids.”

  “Okay.”

  There really was a production line going on. Lacey had six bridesmaids, which was part of the reason Evan had politely declined the offer to join the wedding party. It was already plenty full.

  Anthony had two brothers who were acting as groomsmen, plus Lacey’s two brothers, which meant he only had space for two of his own friends in the party. Evan would just unbalance things, and he really didn’t want to be part of the attention of the day. Nor did he particularly want to line up next to Scott for all the pictures that would be on the walls of the Sparrow house for the rest of their lives.

  “Hey, girlies,” Evan drawled, leaning against the doorframe and slurping his coffee.

  “Hey, Evan,” they chorused back to him, making him laugh. “How’s it going?”

  They looked content enough, even if the six of them, plus the girls from the salon, made the room more than a little cramped. The six identical ocean blue dresses were hanging from Lacey’s wardrobe doors, with six identical bouquets lined up underneath.

  “I’m going to go check on things downstairs,” he said. “I’ll see you all later.”

  Large groups of people still weren’t really his thing. Evan preferred to melt into the background rather than standing out in a crowd.

  Evan wandered through the house and out to the backyard, where the wedding would take place. The decorators had set up an arch of white roses on a small plinth underneath one of the huge beech trees Evan remembered climbing with Scott as a kid. There was plenty of space in this yard; they’d spent weeks exploring it as children, and Evan retained that sense of childish familiarity for the space.

  When they’d learned of Lacey’s wedding plans, old Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham from the house next door had insisted that she use their yard too. Earlier in the week the tall fence panels that separated the two yards had been taken down, and the marquee for the reception was now erected in the Cunningham’s yard.

  The whole area was covered in roses and twinkly fairy lights, which would be turned on after dark. The white folding chairs were already set up for the ceremony, and Evan wandered through the two yards, taking it all in. He’d been involved with planning this wedding almost since the very beginning. It felt strange for the big day to finally be here.

  The day was still starting to warm up, but by lunchtime, Evan knew he’d be grateful for his more relaxed outfit and the ability to roll his shirtsleeves to his elbows.

  “Evan,” someone called, and Evan turned.

  Thomas Sparrow really did look like his younger brother. Evan laughed and walked back up to envelop Tom in a bear hug.

  “You look good, dude,” Tom said, squeezing the air out of Evan’s lungs.

  “You scrub up pretty good yourself. How have you been?”

  Tom worked in DC with his wife, Ashley. Not too far away, but far enough that Evan didn’t see him all that often. He’d already changed into his suit for the day—dark blue with a white shirt, to blend with the Navy officer’s uniforms Anthony and his friends would be wearing.

  “I’m good,” Tom said. “Have you seen my sister yet?”


  “Yeah. She called me here early with some very avoidable disaster,” he said, arching his eyebrow and giving Tom a knowing smile.

  “Sounds like my sister.”

  “Ah, I don’t mind. Is everything ready?”

  “I assume so. I just got here with Ash.”

  “Sorry I missed her at the rehearsal dinner.”

  Tom leaned back against the deck, and Evan decided there was no way Tom could know that Evan had kissed Scott in that very same spot, almost eight years ago.

  “She was busy throwing up.” Tom looked around for possible eavesdroppers, then lowered his voice. “She’s pregnant. We’re having a baby.”

  “Congratulations,” Evan said with a laugh. “That’s fantastic. When?”

  “Middle of November. We haven’t told anyone yet. We didn’t want to steal Lacey’s spotlight, and it’s still early days.”

  “Sure. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I just wanted to tell someone,” Tom said, beaming. “And I can’t tell family, you know? Gossip travels so fucking fast.”

  “My lips are sealed. You’re going to be amazing parents.”

  “Thanks.” Tom nodded. “Okay. I’m going to go find my wife.”

  “I’ll go check on the bride.”

  “Good plan.”

  Evan let Tom pull him into another tight hug before he headed back upstairs, sure that Lacey would have found something for him to do by now.

  THE CEREMONY was beautiful, of course. Evan sat in the second row and didn’t pretend to hide his proud tears as Lacey became Mrs. Lacey Sparrow-Williams. If he spent as much time watching one particular groomsman as he did following the ceremony, then no one needed to know.

  Not that anyone could fail to notice how incredible Scott looked in his suit. It fit him perfectly—tight over his broad shoulders, the white carnation tucked into his lapel drawing the eye to his perfect flat chest.

  Scott still wore his hair a little too long, though these days it was carefully styled back from his face rather than landing in an inelegant flop. When he turned, Evan got to confirm his suspicions that those dress pants were cut fucking perfectly over the swell of Scott’s high, tight ass.