Three Stupid Weddings

by Ann Gallagher

  Yeah, I’d known it from the start, but up until this moment, a part of me had quietly held out hope that since pretending to be a couple had come so naturally, we’d just sort of segue into the real thing. No one would ever know but us.

  But now they knew. Because it wasn’t segueing into anything.

  Because it was, just like we’d agreed, fake. All of it. Everything.

  Except the way I felt about Vic and how much it hurt to know—really know—he didn’t feel the same way. That none of this had meant anything. Not the way we’d both smiled in that photo at Andrea’s wedding. Not the way we’d danced beside the jukebox last night. Not the way he’d curled up in my arms at night even though no one was around to see us. Not… Not any of it.

  I’d been kidding myself all along, and now I was… God, what didn’t I feel? Hurt, humiliation, shock, confusion—it was like every horrible emotion imaginable was spinning into a tornado inside my head.

  So why the fuck am I still here?

  I cleared my throat as I pushed my chair back. “I think I’m going to go…” What? Pack? Get some air? Did it even matter?

  It really didn’t, so I left the comment hanging.

  “Dom?” Vic called after me. “Where are you going?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Without another word, I walked out of the restaurant.

  Chapter 15

  Vic

  I stared in disbelief as Dom disappeared through the door. What the hell?

  My mother cleared her throat. “Um, Victor?”

  I turned to her, still stunned. “Huh?”

  Everyone was staring at me, confusion written all over their faces.

  Mom twisted toward me. “What exactly is going on here?”

  “I…” I looked in the direction Dom had gone. “I’m, um… I don’t know.”

  “You two really pretended to be dating?”

  I nodded numbly. “Yeah. Yeah, we… We did.”

  Mom touched my shoulder. “Does Dom know you were pretending?”

  Again, I nodded. He had known. We’d both known from day one what this was. He’d suggested it, for God’s sake.

  “I think you might want to go talk to him,” Aunt Charlotte said.

  Go talk to him? Go talk to him. Go now and talk to him. Because he was still in the building and hadn’t dropped off the face of the earth, and Jesus fuck I needed to talk to him before he did leave.

  I fumbled with my napkin and dropped it on the table. “Good idea. I’ll be back.” Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. Hopefully they all understood that I didn’t mean to be rude. I just needed to know what was going on between Dom and me.

  Presumably he’d gone back to the room, so that was where I went. When I let myself in, sure enough—he was standing beside the bed we’d shared last night, and he was zipping up his small bag. He tensed when I came in but didn’t speak.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I need to go,” he said without looking at me, his voice not as firm and certain as it usually was.

  “But… We’re…” I closed the door behind me. “Dom, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  He let go of the bag but avoided my gaze. After a moment, he swallowed hard and shook his head. “I think I got more into this than I should have.”

  Studying him, I took a nervous step closer. “What do you mean?”

  A long, uncomfortable silence hung between us before he took a deep breath and turned to me. “I guess I forgot we were faking it.”

  My heart hit the floor, and it wasn’t just the words. It was the palpable hurt in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Vic,” he went on. “I thought I could do this, and I wanted to help you while you were getting over Max, but…” He dropped his gaze again. “I really should have known I couldn’t pretend to do this.”

  I blinked a few times. “What are you saying?”

  He sighed. “I’m saying I love you. I have for… Hell, I don’t even know. A long time.” He put up his hands. “And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way. It is. I’m… I’m not angry if you don’t. But I let myself get in a little over my head, and now I think I need to back off for a bit.”

  I stared, unable to speak.

  Dom reached for the bag he’d been packing. “I’m um, I’m just going to grab a train ticket. I don’t think spending half a day in the car together is… I don’t think I can handle it right now.”

  “But…” I sputtered, struggling to find the words. “You really feel that way?”

  He shot me a glare, then quickly dropped his gaze. “No, Vic. I just said it because I wanted to make a scene at the breakfast table.”

  My lips parted. “I… But we…” I needed time to process this, but the packed bag told me there wasn’t time for that. Things were moving and happening and they were going to leave me in the dust if I didn’t catch up. “Can we talk about this?”

  “Not now.” He didn’t look at me. “I’m going to go. We’ll talk after we get back to Seattle.”

  No, no, we have to talk now! We can’t leave this hanging!

  But as he walked past me to the door, I didn’t move. I desperately wanted to reach out and beg him to stay, but I refused to be Max. I wouldn’t grab him. Wouldn’t try to get between him and the door. Letting him walk out while things were this fraught hurt like hell, but if he did stay, it needed to be of his own accord, not because I’d blocked him.

  “Dom,” I whispered. “Please.”

  He paused, hand on the doorknob, and looked at me.

  “I just want to talk. This… It caught me off guard. I…” Christ, I didn’t even know where to start.

  Dom swallowed hard. I had a fleeting glimmer of hope that he might stick around so we could unpack this together, but then he broke eye contact and turned the knob. “Text me when you’re back in town.”

  And then he left.

  The door clicked behind him. I held my breath and listened until I couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore.

  Dizzy and confused, I leaned against the wall. What the hell just happened? He’d known our “relationship” was fake. It had been his idea! How had it all gone so wrong? What had I done wrong? And what did I do to fix it?

  Because apparently I needed to torture myself, I took out my phone and thumbed to the photo my sister had sent us from her wedding. The one of us hugging each other close, my bowtie scrunched against his shirt and my head tucked under his chin and both of us smiling like everything in the world was perfect.

  Because…

  That night…

  Everything had been perfect.

  The day the wallet-sized print of the photo had arrived, I’d added it to my mirror at work, and I’d joked with Dom that he was in half the photos on that mirror already. Now that I thought about it, that wasn’t far from the truth. There was one of us at Pride three or four years ago in rainbow T-shirts with our faces painted with the asexual flag. Another from the finish line after we’d thought it would be fun to do the Seattle-to-Portland bike ride a year or so before that. At least four from Star Wars premieres and ComicCon.

  As I mentally ran through all those pictures, seeing how many places we’d gone and things we’d done, and how many times we’d hugged and mugged for cameras…

  Dom had been there for the best moments of my life over the last several years. Some of the best and some of the worst. He’d let me cry on his shoulder after Max had left. Just a few short months later, I’d taken him to my sister’s wedding and had the time of my life. I hadn’t felt like anything was missing. I’d barely even thought about Max at all except when I’d caught an unflattering glimpse of myself in a mirror.

  Last night, after my cousin had revealed a homophobic streak I hadn’t known about, Dom had happily left with me to enjoy an evening with some new friends. We’d had unhealthy but awesome food, played video games, and…slow-danced to cheesy prom songs. And it had been amazing. It had been better than the wedding ever aspired to be. If we’d stayed a
t the reception, we wouldn’t have been able to dance, but we’d left, and we’d danced, and why was it so easy and perfect to dance with Dom like that?

  More and more of the past few months flashed through my mind. Like when I’d admitted to stuffing my face as a fuck you to Max, and Dom hadn’t told me it was gross or stupid. He’d not only admitted he’d done something similar after one of his breakups, he’d been genuinely concerned that Max had really scrambled something in my brain and triggered an eating disorder. And he’d been right.

  My throat ached and tears pricked at my eyes. He hadn’t judged. He’d just known. Just like he’d always known when I needed a shoulder, when I needed to ramble, or when I needed someone to gently but firmly tell me to get my head out of my ass. When people talked about someone being a rock, they were talking about Dom. Someone who was a solid, steady presence, who didn’t budge even when things got rough, and who gave me something to hold onto when the waves were too strong.

  I slid down the wall and sat on the hotel room’s carpet as I stared into space with unfocused eyes. Over and over, I heard the click of the door and Dom’s fading footsteps, and my mind just kept throwing everything at me. Everything that I hadn’t seen despite it being right there in front of my fucking face. Like how in all the years I’d known him, Dom had never made me feel like I could stand to lose a few pounds. He’d never side-eyed me about eating something. In fact he always seemed to know exactly when I needed to hear that there was nothing wrong with the way I looked. Just like he always seemed to know when I really needed to be hugged, or when I needed to out of a crowd for a bit, or when I needed someone to pretend to be my boyfriend so my family would give me some breathing room while I got over my asshole ex.

  Dom knew me. He always knew exactly what I needed.

  Except…no.

  That wasn’t it at all.

  My heart sank as a lump rose in my throat.

  Dom didn’t always know exactly what I needed.

  Dom was always exactly what I needed.

  All this time, I’d been looking for love everywhere but right in front of me. He’d been standing there the whole time, quietly loving me while I dated people like Max, and it was only now that he’d walked away that I realized, no shit, I loved him. It was so obvious now. So painfully clear.

  And I could either sit here and feel sorry for myself, or I could go find the man I loved and hope I hadn’t fucked things up beyond repair.

  I didn’t think twice. I got up, grabbed my keys, and hurried out to the car.

  Chapter 16

  Dom

  My train didn’t leave for a while, so it didn’t even have a platform number yet. That was fine. I wasn’t in a huge hurry to get home—I’d just needed to put some space between me and Vic, and I’d done that.

  I kind of felt guilty about it, too. Wandering around the station to kill time, I debated going back and apologizing. Vic hadn’t changed the rules or said anything I hadn’t already known. It wasn’t like he’d shocked me by saying we were just posing as a couple to keep all the matchmakers at bay.

  I’d just let myself get so into the ruse that I hadn’t realized how much it would hurt to hear him say it out loud. I’d been so ready to tell him the truth about how I felt about him that, on some level, I’d forgotten the truth about our situation.

  Guilt, embarrassment, disappointment, and God only knew what other emotions tied my stomach in knots. It was probably just as well I hadn’t eaten much, or I’d have felt even worse right now.

  Rubbing my hand over my face, I sighed. I was pretty sure Vic and I could come back from this. Once we were back in Seattle and the dust had settled, we could talk. Hopefully he wouldn’t think it was too weird that I had these feelings for him. I could still be friends with him. I’d been friends with him all this time while I’d secretly been in love with him. Question was, could he handle it? The ball was in his court.

  Seattle. We’d deal with it when we were both back in Seattle.

  For now, I needed this space between us. Some time to lick my wounds and make peace with what I’d always known but had now confirmed in the worst, most public way. Couldn’t he have waited until we were alone? Let me say I love you and have him let me down in private? Did it have to be in front of his family like that? Because the rejection was hard enough without the humiliation on top of it.

  I rubbed my eyes. Last night had been so amazing. Dancing with Vic beside the jukebox, I’d been so in love it hurt. And now… Well, now I was still so in love it hurt. It just hurt a lot more without the jukebox, without the dancing, and without Vic.

  I wandered back toward the screens to see if I had a platform yet. I wanted to be on that train and heading home to my apartment, my cat, my friends, my—

  “Dom!”

  I wasn’t sure if it was the sound of my name or Vic’s voice that stopped me dead, but either way, I halted so fast someone almost crashed into me.

  I turned to see him jogging toward me, and my stomach somersaulted.

  “Don’t get on the train.” He skidded to a halt in front of me. “We need to talk.”

  “Vic…” I shook my head. “Listen, I just need a break. If you feel differently than I do, that’s fine. I can live with that. But right now I just need—”

  “I don’t feel differently.”

  “You—” I stared at him, struggling to believe he’d really said what I thought he had. “What?”

  Vic swallowed. “I’m sorry. About everything. Now that it’s all out on the table, I can’t believe I didn’t see it, you know?” He dropped his gaze and shifted his weight. “But I should have. I mean, it was so easy for us to pretend to be a couple. That…” He hesitated, then finally met my eyes again. “That should have been a clue that this is what we’ve been all along, even if we didn’t realize it.”

  I still wasn’t quite sure I’d heard him right. “Are you serious?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Dom, you’re my best friend. And I guess… I can’t even tell you when I fell for you because it feels like I’ve been in love with you since day one. Like… I’ve been looking for something all this time, and didn’t realize it’s been right there waiting for me to just open my eyes and see it.” He took a cautious step closer and whispered, “I love you. And I’m pretty sure I have from the start.”

  My heart melted.

  “I’m sorry,” Vic continued. “I can’t believe I was so oblivious when you were… I mean, you were right here in front of me, being everything anyone in their right mind would fall for, and I just…” His shoulders sagged. “God, Dom. You get me. More than anyone ever has. Everything in my life always circles back to you. Like, you’re always there when I need you because I’m hurting or because my ex screwed me up, but you’re there—and I want you there—the rest of the time too.”

  I swallowed the lump trying to rise in my throat.

  Vic went on, his voice even softer now, as if his own composure was flagging. “When I want to go out or kick back with a movie, you’re the first person I text. When there’s some ridiculous exhibit coming to a museum, same thing. Not just because I know you’ll appreciate the weird and eccentric stuff, but because you’re the first person I think of to come with me to anything. When you offered to come to the weddings with me this summer so people would back off, I didn’t even realize until now that going with you made me excited to go. Because whenever I go somewhere with you, I know it’s going to be a good time.” He looked in my eyes. “And for some reason, it took you walking out this morning for me to realize I do love you, and I want us to be a real couple, and I think we have been for a long time.”

  My lips parted and I stared at him incredulously. For years, I’d dreamed about hearing him say he loved me, but I hadn’t let myself believe it could actually happen. Or that he’d say he’d loved me all along.

  “I don’t know how I missed it,” he whispered plaintively. “I really don’t. But now I see, and if it’s not too late, I—”

  “
Too late?” I let my bag slide off my arm and gathered him in a hug. “Not even close.”

  He hugged me back fiercely. “I’m sorry, Dom. I was so stupid.”

  “No, you weren’t.” I closed my eyes and stroked his hair. “Funny thing is, before breakfast I was totally planning to tell you everything on the way home today.”

  Vic released me. “You were?”

  I could feel myself blushing as I nodded. “Especially after last night, I just… I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore.”

  He cringed. “And then I went and told everyone it was fake. Jesus, no wonder you left.”

  Somehow, this morning’s hurt and humiliation felt like something that had happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I still couldn’t believe Vic had come after me and that he’d said everything he’d said, but he had, and oh my God I could finally be open about what I felt for him.

  Vic blushed, clearing his throat as he broke eye contact. “Can I confess something?”

  “Sure.”

  He chewed his lip before cautiously meeting my gaze through his lashes. “Ever since we stayed at my parents’ house, I haven’t been able to sleep except for the two times we came to Spokane.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, sleeping by myself sucks. Being next to you is…” Vic closed his eyes and released a long breath. “It’s just perfect.”

  I touched his face. “Yeah, it is.” I lifted his chin, and as he opened his eyes again, we both smiled. “I’ve missed having you in bed too. Amazing how fast you get used to cuddling with someone at night.”

  His eyes widened. “So it’s not just me?”

  “No.” I ran my thumb along his cheekbone. “It’s not just you.”

  “Good. Because I was…” He blushed. “I was hoping we could keep doing that. Like, a lot.”

  My heart fluttered. “I’m down with that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” I stroked his cheek, and my pulse went wild as I whispered, “I love you, Vic.”

  He wrapped his arms around my neck. “I love you too.”