by A. J. Pine
I raise a brow, and Duncan blurts out a “Shite! I ruined the rest of the surprise. Okay, not all of it. I’ll let Elaina tell you we’re getting married.”
Maggie and I look at each other and burst out laughing. Then we look at Duncan.
“Shite!”
We ride the elevator up to the ninety-sixth floor, the whole time Duncan pleading with us to act surprised not only to see Elaina but also when she tells us the big news. When Duncan gets distracted by a text he missed from the future missus, I take it as a moment alone in a space with no privacy.
“You wanted to tell me something downstairs, before Duncan showed up. Didn’t you?”
She shakes her head. “It can wait. This is your night. Let’s enjoy it.”
Her eyes shift to Duncan, who furiously types a message into his phone, one that probably won’t get to Elaina before we do.
“I will,” I say. “We will, but on one condition.”
“What’s that?” she asks.
“One more WILD card, when we get back to the room tonight.”
The elevator rocks to a gentle halt, the three of us emerging into the Signature Lounge. Duncan leads us to the small section cornered off for the Aberdeen representatives and alumni. I look for the unassuming, pixie-haired girl I knew two years ago but don’t see her. Instead I’m greeted by a beautiful, vibrant woman with long, dark, wavy hair, brimming with confidence. Her arms are around me before my brain registers that it’s her.
“Jordan? Holy shit. Look at you. You’re beautiful.” I speak the words into her hair, returning her embrace. It feels good to hold her, all my uncertainty melting away. Because while I can’t believe this is Jordan Brooks in my arms again, the only feelings I have are those of gratitude and joy at seeing my friend again. My friend.
So fucking much has held me back from Maggie—my history, my family, any excuse I could come up with to look for an easy way out because I’ve always known, even growing up where so much seemed handed to me, that everything has its price. But it’s always worked for me, never investing myself one-hundred percent—anywhere—so I’ve never risked the pain.
I was so sure coming here tonight would ignite old feelings, feelings I risked for Jordan that weren’t returned, that couldn’t be returned. Instead, holding her like this, it’s fucking clarity.
Jordan and I release each other, a mutual letting go of the hug, and I grab Maggie’s hand, hoping she can read something new in my touch—a promise that she’s worth the risk, the potential for pain. I’m not letting go this time.
“Jordan…this is Maggie.”
Jordan scoops Maggie into a hug. “I am so happy to meet you,” she says.
Over Jordan’s shoulder, Noah approaches, a slight tension in the set of his shoulders. If this meeting had happened a month ago, I may have responded the same way, apprehension in seeing the guy she chose instead of me. The one who gave her every reason to run, to say it wasn’t worth the pain. I get it now, enduring the pain for all the good that comes with it. And here they are, two years later. Together.
Okay, so the sting of rejection might still linger.
“Hey, man,” he says, his hand outstretched.
“Hey.” We shake, and that’s when Duncan and Elaina swarm in on either side of us.
“No. No. This will not do,” Elaina says, yanking our hands apart.
“Not a’tall,” Duncan chimes in. “I can’t spend the bloody night watching you two wankers act like you’re still in Aberdeen. It’s been two years, aye?”
Neither Noah nor I respond, and Elaina continues, her thick Greek accent emphasizing her insistence that whatever is between us doesn’t go any further than right now.
“Noah, are you and Jordan happy? Remember, my offer still stands to kill you in your sleep if you hurt her. You can see that I am not above traveling long distances when the reason is important.”
At this, Noah cracks a smile, and Jordan materializes next to him, her and Maggie somehow forgotten by us for the moment. Maggie stands to my right, hesitating.
Jordan wraps her arms around him, edging Elaina out of the way, and the glint in her eyes says it all. She is happy, a type of happy I wasn’t capable of giving her, not then. Any doubt I had about Noah, about what he was willing to give to her, vanishes when I see him return her look, like she is the only person he sees, even after two years. And that’s all it takes for the tension to vanish.
“I’m really happy for you guys,” I tell them, ending Maggie’s hesitation by grabbing the belt loop of her coat and yanking her close, so there’s no more visible space between us.
“I’m Maggie,” she says, beating me to the introduction, her words coming out with a laugh.
“Maggie,” Jordan says, “this is Noah, and the bossy one is Elaina.”
Elaina’s brows shoot up, but then she says, “It is true. I am the bossy one.” Elaina glances pointedly at Duncan, then back at us. “Why does no one look surprised to see me?” But she doesn’t wait for an answer.
She wraps Maggie in a hug and kisses her on the cheek.
“He is a good one,” Elaina says, nodding her head at me. “He drank my coffee, the first time I offered.” She crosses her arm and huffs out a breath. “Jordan never drank my coffee. Where I come from, it is a great dishonor to refuse food or drink offered to you.”
“What?” Jordan interrupts. “You never said…dishonor?” Her expression looks crestfallen.
Elaina smiles. “I am fucking with you, pussy lightweight. Let’s see how you can hold your alcohol after two years of practice, yes?”
Jordan pouts, but a smile hides underneath the expression.
“No snakebites here,” I say. “You have to have one of their specialty drinks even though they cost, like, a hundred dollars.”
“Or…” Duncan says, resting his head on Elaina’s shoulder from behind. “We could all share the bottle of expensive champagne I ordered. Because Elaina has something she wants to tell everyone.”
Elaina pats his cheek lovingly, and I do my best to forget what she’s about to say so I can act surprised.
Her smile takes over her entire face. “I am going to wear a dress to my wedding…and the groom is going to wear a skirt.”
Maggie nudges my leg with her knee, reminding me this is where I’m supposed to say something, to react, but I already know I won’t get anything past Elaina’s radar. When I do open my mouth to finally speak, Maggie beats me to the punch.
“You’re getting married?”
The question is tinged with sweetness, with joy, and I know Maggie means it, despite her already knowing the news. While I want to hug her for rescuing me, I realize that no one is any match for Elaina.
Her eyes narrow on Maggie, who flinches at her stare. When Elaina’s gaze shifts to me, I’m positive she reads the word guilty stamped on my forehead. It’s when she cranes her neck to look at her fiancé that I want to run for cover. Nobody should watch what’s about to happen to Duncan.
“You told them?” Elaina’s voice is a low tremble. Then she does the strangest thing. She…smiles. “Who the fuck cares? I am getting married, and I am happy, and I want to share it with all of you. Let us drink the champagne and then decide if Jordan is still a pussy lightweight!”
“She is,” Noah assures us.
“I am,” Jordan adds.
At that, all of us burst into laughter as a server brings over a bottle and champagne flutes.
“Let me take your picture!” Maggie says, attempting to line us up in front of the unbelievable floor-to-ceiling windows.
“No fucking way,” I tell her, grabbing the camera from her hands and then tapping our server on the shoulder as he’s about to head back to the bar.
“Hey, man. Can you take our picture?”
“Sure,” he says, taking the camera and backing up while we get resituated.
I wrap my arms around Maggie, her back against my chest. When I lean down, intending to say something in her ear, she’s the one who
speaks first.
“This isn’t my place, Griffin. I don’t belong here, as part of this special moment.”
Her voice strains, and it’s more than a need to keep the conversation private. She believes what she’s saying.
I start to answer, and she cuts me off again.
“These are your friends, from this amazing year that I wasn’t a part of, and…”
“Pippi,” I interrupt when she pauses for breath. “Can I say something now?”
She exhales and nods against me while we face the server, who waits while Elaina decides which angle best shows off her ring.
“You are here with me tonight because it’s exactly where I want you to be…and where I hope you want to be, too. That means every part of tonight includes you—with me. Every part. Because this is where you belong.”
She stills against me, which means she’s not running away, at least from the picture.
Our server clears his throat. “I’m really sorry. I have another table’s order I was about to pick up. I can come right back…”
Duncan stills Elaina against him in an embrace, placing her left hand, ringed finger and all, on his right shoulder facing the camera. Jordan and Noah stand, arms locked around one another, and I straighten, my hands clasped around Maggie’s middle, enjoying the rise and fall of her slowly steadying breaths.
“Aye,” Duncan says. “We’re ready, mate. Sorry for that.”
“Take three pictures, if that’s okay,” I tell him. “We’re all going home to different places tomorrow. I think each couple would like a copy.”
I don’t realize the implication of the word couple until it comes out of my mouth. For years it has scared the shit out of me. But here I am, saying it and not wanting to swallow the word back up before anyone registers any meaning.
“Sure thing,” waiter guy says, and I squeeze Maggie against me. She yelps with laughter, and I’m not far behind. He snaps three photos, waiting long enough for each to spit out the front of the camera. Each of the girls grabs her copy to watch it develop while waiter dude rushes off to his next table.
“See?” I ask, as the image of our combined laughter jumps off the face of the photo. “Right where you belong.”
Chapter Nineteen
Maggie
Watching Griffin with these four friends, he’s the most comfortable with himself I’ve ever seen. This is him removed from the bullshit—the real Griffin. And it hits me. He can be who he wants to be if he can get out from under the crap he lets weigh him down. He has choices I don’t. It’s not that I begrudge him this, not one bit. But when I look at him, at the smile shining in his eyes, I want to think he can be more than the expectations he lets others put on him. What scares me is wanting to be a part of it all. If he chooses happiness, does that mean me? Could I give him what he deserves?
Most of the other attendees of the small reunion are Aberdeen representatives and students from years other than when Griffin was there. The only people he knows are the ones we are already with, so we crowd around a small table, ready to toast the newly engaged couple.
“Who’s celebrating?” Duncan holds up a bottle of champagne, foam bubbling over the top. “I just spent one hundred fifty American dollars on this, so it must be good. But if it’s rubbish, I won’t know the difference because I’ve never had champagne.”
We all stare at him.
“What? They don’t have the bubbly stuff on tap where I come from.”
Elaina laughs, patting him on the cheek with her palm.
Everyone holds up a flute. My hand rests on the stem of the glass in front of me, and when Duncan’s brows raise in question, Griffin answers before I can.
“Maggie doesn’t drink.” He says it so matter-of-fact, like it’s no big deal. So why does it feel like a big deal? Like maybe I was finding a place where I belong only to be reminded of all my restrictions, of not being like everyone else—like I was before all of my bullshit.
My doctor never told me I couldn’t drink, only to avoid foods and beverages I thought could trigger or worsen a migraine. Sometimes I get one even when avoiding triggers. I’m well-rested, well-hydrated, and in case of emergency, I have my injection cartridges ready to go in my bag. All signs point to stepping out of my safety zone.
“Tonight I do,” I say, raising my flute. “It’s a celebration. I can’t say no to what probably costs more than a dollar a sip.” I smile at Duncan, and he beams. When I look to Griffin, he does the same.
“And here I thought you judged me when I drank,” he says.
“I don’t judge you. But I can’t stand to see you abuse your body in a way that’s self-destructive instead of celebratory.”
“Hmmm…” he muses, his grin turning wicked. “Abusing my body for celebration. I kinda like the sound of that, especially if you’re involved.”
“Stop,” I say, sliding my glass of bubbly toward me, waiting for everyone else to get filled and for what I expect will be a short toast from Duncan.
“Stop talking about it, or thinking about it? Because I can do one, but not the other.”
I snort, and thank God Griffin is the only one who hears, but then he says, “You’re sexy when you make barnyard animal sounds,” and my skin catches on fire, both with embarrassment and with the thought of his bringing out sounds and sensations in me I’ve never experienced before.
He leans in, making sure I’m the only one who hears him. “You’re sexy no matter what sound you make, Maggie. Everything about you drives me crazy.”
I suck in a breath, unable to respond, relief flooding me when Duncan begins his toast.
He stands, framed by the window and lights of the city, a sentimentality in his expression that seems out of character for the short time I’ve known him.
“When Jordan told me about this Aberdeen reunion, I think she was half taking the piss when she asked if we’d come. But when I realized it meant we’d all be here together, it wasn’t even a question. I may have been pissed as hell on my birthday two years ago, but Elaina gave me the only gift I wanted—a kiss from her. The only reason she made good on her promise to give it to me was because Jordan and Griffin talked her into it.”
Griffin’s eyes meet Jordan’s, and they share a conspiratorial grin. There’s this whole life he has, and I know nothing about it. I envy her for having shared more of him than I’ve been given. But something shifted with us back at the hotel and then in the elevator here. For nearly a month we’ve been only what the other needs, an escape from who we are. What if we could be more? What if after we leave the city Griffin could be the guy he is tonight? My coat hangs over the back of my chair, and I shove my hand in the pocket, my fingers poking on the edges of the photograph of the six of us, of the names and faces too ingrained already to forget because they welcomed me like I fit. Griffin makes me feel like I fit. Me being here? This already is something more.
“So this toast is not only because she said yes.” Duncan looks at Elaina seated next to him, his eyes shining with the threat of tears, and Elaina’s cheeks already covered with them. “It’s because we wouldn’t be here without the two of you.” He nods to Jordan and Griffin, and they both raise their glasses. “Now it’s time to show I have the bloody testicles to share a secret with my soon-to-be wife.”
Elaina blinks her tear-soaked eyes, and they widen. “Did you just use testicles in our engagement toast?”
Duncan laughs and continues. “Elaina.” He clears his throat. “A year and a half ago, when the four of us traveled Europe for the summer—you, me, Jordan, and Noah—we flew to Greece when the Americans went home.”
“Yes, I know this,” she says. “But you still said testicles in our engagement toast.”
“I told you I didn’t know any Greek, but I lied.” Elaina’s mock annoyance fades as her eyes lock on his. “I was happy your dad spoke some English, but I wanted to do it properly. And one night when your mum and you were having a coffee with a neighbor, I asked him, ‘Boróona pantrépsei tin
kóri sas?’ I said I didn’t know when but that someday I was going to ask you, and I had to ask him in person. So I did, a full six months before.”
Elaina’s tears flow freely now, and she stands on her toes, meeting her lips with his. Then she turns to us to translate. “He asked my papa for my hand eighteen months ago!” Her eyes go back to Duncan. “Okay then. My turn,” she says. “Jordan and Griffin never had to talk me into it, not that I would have admitted to that. I was always going to kiss you on your birthday…and every night after that.”
Duncan gasps, the first I’ve seen him lose his composure tonight, and the two kiss again to the applause of the four of us and quite a few patrons nearby.
“Don’t mind us,” Duncan says between kisses.
Jordan holds up her glass next, keeping the toasts going, a look of hesitation in her eyes I know is for Griffin’s sake, but when I look at him, he smiles at her without holding back. His hand finds mine in my lap, and he squeezes it softly.
“I love you, Noah. I know I’ve said it a thousand times before. But what I’ve never said is thank you. I am grateful for your patience, for always putting us first even with your teaching, and when this master’s program kicks my ass and I feel like the most selfish person in the world. Thank you for loving me through my self-doubt as a writer, through my crazy weekends of too much coffee, not enough sleep, and probably one shower too few. There’s no one I’d rather navigate the crazy with than you.”
Noah cups her cheeks in his hands. “You’re welcome, Brooks.” He kisses her. “I plan to navigate the crazy with you for a long time to come. I know it’s not our time yet, but I am going to marry you.”
Jordan nods and whispers almost too soft for me to hear, “As you wish.”
As much as my heart is filled by watching these couples express their love for one another, I’m starting to feel less like I fit and more like an intruder, not on their lives but on Griffin’s. We don’t have these things to say to each other, at least not that I can admit. Not until he knows what it would really mean to be with me. I look at Jordan and measure myself against what seems an unattainable sort of perfection. Of course Griffin fell for her. I don’t expect he’d have words like that for me. But with less than a beat, he turns to me, glass raised.