The Worst Best Man

by M. J. O'Shea

  She’d postponed her honeymoon. Christopher had gotten her to say that much to him in the past few days. He didn’t know what she was going to do after that, but she was very angry with Edward. And him.

  “I know.”

  He walked in the door with Fergus, who he’d brought as bait to get her to let him in. She led him to her sitting room and took her customary chair by the window. Christopher sank into the matching settee and unclipped Fergus’s leash. Fergus trotted over to curl at Libby’s feet. Apparently he didn’t want to be near Christopher either.

  “He’s never going to talk to me. I must’ve called and messaged a hundred times.”

  “Have you gone over there?” Libby asked. “A phone call isn’t enough.”

  Christopher looked down at his knees. “No. I’m too scared to face what he’s going to say in person.”

  “You have to. Today.”

  “I can’t just show up at his flat. That’s creepy.”

  Libby rolled her eyes. “Then go to Helena Preston. It’s a business, not his home.” She looked at her watch. “You have at least four hours until he leaves for the day.”

  The thought of it made Christopher’s stomach drop, but the thought of never talking to August again was about a million times worse.

  “Okay. I’ll go.”

  Libby stood and brushed her hands on the front of her floral dress. “Perfect. Fergus can stay with me.”

  CHRISTOPHER nearly turned and bolted when he reached the door of Helena Preston. He wasn’t the most popular guy with anyone in there. He wondered if they’d even let him talk to August. Things looked the same as always when he walked in the door—same garden party décor, same perky desk secretary. She was typing away on her computer but looked up when he cleared his throat.

  “Um, may I go back and speak to August?” he asked. “Or is he with a client?”

  The girl gave him a quizzical look. “August doesn’t work at this office anymore,” she said.

  Blind panic coursed through Christopher’s system. “What do you—”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Christopher looked up. Fantastic. Will.

  “I came to speak to August.”

  “Well, you can’t do that,” Will grumbled.

  “William, darling, don’t be rude.” A tiny white-haired woman came out of the office behind him. She looked refined and a bit too stylish to be called matronly. “Are you the young man our August was so taken with?” she asked.

  Was. His throat felt thick.

  “He’s just leaving,” Will said.

  “Will, can I speak with you for a moment?”

  Will gave him a skeptical look but must’ve been won over by how wretched he looked. And Christopher knew he looked wretched. He hadn’t slept or eaten well in days.

  “Fine. Give me a moment.”

  He turned and hugged who Christopher presumed to be Helena Preston herself. “I’ll send you a message when I’m settled. I’ll miss seeing you every day.”

  Helena kissed him on the cheek. “You two will be seeing me more than you expect,” she said. “I can’t wait to visit.”

  Will gestured then for Christopher to follow him out onto the street.

  “Can I buy you a pint?” Christopher asked.

  Will looked at his watch. “Sure. I have some time before my father comes with the truck.”

  “What’s going on, Will? Where’s August?” he asked as soon as they were seated in a pub with pints neither of them would likely drink.

  Will shrugged. “He didn’t tell you? Must not have been as close as you think you were.” He looked like he enjoyed saying it.

  “New York,” Christopher murmured. “August said Helena was opening an office in New York.”

  “He did tell you. Did he also tell you it was the promotion of a lifetime for him and you better not fuck it up?” Will looked like he was a heartbeat away from growling.

  “Not in those exact words.”

  “Well that’s what I’m telling you.”

  “Will. I need to see him. I….” He didn’t want to confess in a loud pub that he didn’t think he could breathe without August anymore.

  “You broke his heart. He trusted you, again, and you broke his heart.”

  “I want to fix it.”

  Will sighed. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks.” Christopher shrugged. He knew exactly how he looked. “Will you tell me where he is?”

  “New York.”

  “There are millions of people in New York.”

  Will nodded. “Yeah. There are.”

  He wasn’t going to be much help. Christopher had to lay it out on the line. “I love him, Will. I want to spend the rest of my life telling him that every damn day. I don’t care where I have to do it. I just need to make that happen.”

  Will sighed. “Give me your phone number. I’m not promising anything.”

  “Really?”

  Will handed over his phone. “Yeah. I won’t be a drama queen like August and dump my British phone in a beer.”

  “He did that?” It was such an August thing to do Christopher wasn’t surprised. August was the one who tossed his promise ring into a storm drain after all. Christopher added himself as a contact in Will’s phone.

  “Of course he did.” Will pocketed his phone. “I won’t be going there for a few weeks. I’m going to spend some time up north, but I’ll… talk to him when I get there. See how he is.”

  “Okay,” Christopher said. He couldn’t do anything but agree.

  “If he seems better without you, I’m not making this happen.”

  “I figured you wouldn’t.” It didn’t stop his heart from careening out of control at the thought of it.

  Will took a long swallow of his pint. “I’d better head back to mine. The tube is going to be mental at this hour, and I don’t want to keep my dad waiting.”

  “I can give you a ride,” Christopher offered quickly. “So you don’t have to deal with the crowds.” It was comforting to be in Will’s company somehow, despite his wary disdain. A link to August, he thought. He’d take any of those that he could, angry or not.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. It’s no problem.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief when Will nodded and stood to follow Christopher to his town car.

  Chapter Twelve

  IT was a weird sensation, getting on the plane, knowing that it would probably be a while before he came back. He watched the ground disappear as he left one chapter of his life and moved on to another. It seemed like a good thing. It had to be a good thing. Somehow, it still felt… weird.

  August felt the new beginning when he touched down in Boston. He still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that he was actually back in America to stay. It was going to take a while to sink in, he thought. Maybe after he’d been in New York for a while and it didn’t feel like he was just visiting his family for a few weeks before flying back to England. He was home.

  August took a cab from Logan to his parents’ house. He hadn’t wanted to bother anyone with coming to get him, and it was kind of nice to have some breathing room for a few minutes before he jumped back into his family. Three weeks. He hadn’t spent that long with them since high school. He was looking forward to it—cooking with his mom, hanging out with his siblings, grabbing a few pints with the neighborhood crew. He knew as soon as he got to New York, he’d have to hit the ground sprinting, so it was going to be nice to have some time to relax and get his thoughts together. The last thing he wanted was to look like he didn’t know what he was doing when it came to their new clients.

  It was after midnight when he pulled up in front of his parents’ house. August paid the cab and grabbed his bags. He was glad he still had a key so he didn’t have to wake anyone up. He unlocked the door and tiptoed in but found his mom sitting at the table with two cups of tea.

  “Ma, what are you doing up?” August dropped his bags and went over to the table to kiss her c
heek.

  “I couldn’t fall asleep. I knew you were coming, and I was excited.”

  She stood then and wrapped him in a big hug. His mom smelled like home and family, and it didn’t really hit him until right then just how much he’d felt like the “other” when he was living somewhere else. He’d always had friends, and Christopher for a few brief years, but he’d been a transplant and always would’ve been. New York wasn’t home either, but it would be different, somehow. August was determined to make it his own.

  “I’m so excited to be home,” he murmured into his mother’s neck. “You have no idea.”

  “I wish Helena would open an office in Boston. I get it, though. New York.”

  “At least it’s only a few hours away, instead of an international flight.”

  August sat and drank his tea and let the tension flow out of his bones. It was relaxing to be back in his childhood house, even if it was only for a few weeks.

  “Are you okay, baby?” his mom asked. She knew about Christopher, about the wedding, about everything. It had been hard to tell her, after she’d had to deal with all the fallout the first time, but August had to give his family credit. None of them had said anything about how he should’ve known. He had to tell them when he’d called and given them the news that he was moving back to America. There would’ve been too many questions otherwise.

  “Not really, but I will be. It just hurts, you know? A breakup is a breakup, but both of my major breakups in my life have been with the same man, and both of them because he thought I wasn’t good enough for him or the people in his life. I just don’t know how many times I can stand hearing that.”

  “You’re never going to hear it again, baby. You know you’re amazing, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did he admit it, that he didn’t want you to meet his friends?”

  “Not out loud, not this time, but Ma, he had so much time to say something else, anything else. He just stood there. I had to get out before I let him hurt me again.”

  His mom got up and came around the table. She hugged him tightly from behind. “You’re worth so much more than that.”

  It felt wrong to hear that, though. August didn’t know if he wanted to be worth more than Christopher. He just wanted them to work out as equals. Together.

  “Thanks, Ma,” he said anyway. “I think we should both go to bed. We have a lot of time to catch up this time.”

  “I know. The longest I’ll have you since you were in high school.”

  THE next weeks were quiet in a good way. August needed time to get over everything that had happened that summer, if that was even possible. He wanted to walk into the new job with a fresh mind, ready to do the best job he could. That wasn’t going to happen if he still felt broken over Christopher, if he still woke up half the nights wondering why he felt so cold, wondering where Christopher’s warm arms were.

  But that feeling faded. A little bit. Instead, he had his brothers and his sister, his friends from high school who took him out a few times to welcome him back home to America. He had a new job to look forward to and a new beginning. It was okay. It had to be.

  He’d spent a lot of his time thinking about the setup for the new office. It was far more productive than thinking about Christopher, which he constantly had to remind himself not to do. He didn’t want to show Helena up by any means. He just wanted to prove to her that he could do what she did, in a different way of course.

  August drew up schedules and ordered business cards, fiddled with their location’s page of the general Helena Preston website, and got himself a brand-new paper planner for a brand-new office. The break passed rather quickly, and before he knew it, it was almost time to go to New York.

  IT had been a month. An entire month without August. Christopher had been waiting for the heavy pit in his belly to go away, and it hadn’t. Not yet. He walked with Fergus, talked to Libby, who’d slowly warmed back up to him, and waited for Will’s call. They’d messaged back and forth a couple of times—mostly initiated by Christopher—but that was about as far as it got. He knew Will was in the States with August by then. They were starting their new career and their new lives, and he just felt like he was missing it.

  He started to arrange travel more times than he could count before he backed out of the e-mail and closed the window.

  “Why are you still here?” Libby asked him more than once.

  “I can’t just show up.”

  “You can’t wait for Will’s permission either. It’s not his life. It’s yours.”

  Christopher agreed with her, but he felt like he had to keep walking on eggshells. Finally he couldn’t take it anymore. He turned on international cell service, arranged for a private flight, and bundled his dog and a few suitcases full of his most essential belongings onto the plane one rainy morning. He’d wait it out in New York. He couldn’t stand not making a move any longer.

  Even if he wasn’t going to find August, something, anything, would be better.

  He figured he needed to call his family and at least tell them he’d be out of England for a while. They usually gave each other that much courtesy. He called in the car on the way to the airport. His mother picked up her phone on the first ring, which was unusual. He typically had to leave a message.

  “Yes, darling?” she asked.

  Christopher hated when she did that. It felt so fake after years of semifreeze.

  “I just wanted to let you and Dad know I’m off to New York for a while.”

  She made a face. He couldn’t see it, but he knew exactly which one. “Why?”

  His mother had never held much fondness for any part of America. Christopher had actually really liked it most of the times he was there. Maybe because it reminded him of August.

  “I have something I need to do.”

  “That sounds quite cryptic.” He could tell she was waiting for a further explanation.

  “There’s someone there. A man. A man that I love.”

  “Another American? Really, Christopher.”

  He cleared his throat. “No. The same American. I’m going to try to undo the worst mistake I ever made in my life. Twice.”

  “I don’t understand.” His mother sounded confused and a bit hostile.

  “It’s August O’Leary, Mother. The wedding planner.”

  “You fell in love with the… wedding planner? Wasn’t that boy at uni enough of, well, that?”

  “August was the boy at uni. I never stopped thinking about him, and Libby’s wedding brought him back into my life. I did something very wrong, and I need to go make it right.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re telling me all of this,” she said with a sniff. “I don’t know what you want me to say to you.”

  “I don’t want you to say anything, Mother. I’m going to New York. I might not be back for a while if things go well. Give Briony and the boys kisses from me.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “I’m on my way to the airport now,” he told her.

  “Well, have a safe trip, I suppose.”

  He hadn’t expected much more from her. In fact, he’d expected much less. But there wasn’t anything she could do about it and they both knew it.

  “I will. Take care, Mother. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Probably not, but it was the right thing to say.

  He hung up and relaxed against the seat of the car. Nothing had really changed, but he felt better somehow. Hopefully it was a good sign.

  “BABY, will you pass the marinara?”

  August grabbed the jar of marinara and passed it to his mother. They were having a late lunch, and then he was driving to Logan to pick up Will. It had been three weeks since he’d seen his best friend. Definitely the longest they’d been apart in years, if not since they met. It would be good to see him again. Will was going to spend a couple of days visiting with August’s family before August’s parents took them to New York.

  “When is Will getting in,
again?” his cousin Clara asked.

  August knew his cousin had a thing for Will’s blond hair and his accent. She was also seventeen. August gave his mom a long look. She just smiled as if to say “It’s fine. Let it go.”

  After lunch and a quick cleanup, August got in the car to go get Will from the airport. He’d always known that Will wanted to do something like this in the abstract. Part of August was a tiny bit surprised he was actually going through with it. But he was.

  Will was standing outside baggage claim with two large suitcases and a huge smile. August got out and wrapped him in a tight hug.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” he said. “This whole thing wouldn’t have been right without you.”

  “Good luck getting me to go back home now,” Will said with a chuckle. “You and me are going to run the whole show.”

  August grinned. “Yes, we are.”

  THEY left for New York on a cool Sunday morning that promised to turn into late summer heat by the afternoon. Will and August were sprawled across the backseat of August’s dad’s SUV, and his parents were in front. They didn’t have much in the way of packages, since most of it had been shipped to the loft, but they did have their suitcases between them and a bag full of snacks. They planned to get there around lunchtime and do some sightseeing. August’s parents had booked a hotel overnight, and he and Will would have their very first night in their new loft.

  “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Will said.

  It was probably the tenth time he’d said it. August couldn’t help but get excited along with him. He’d been pretty down since the wedding, but the new start and Will’s enthusiasm was starting to wear off on him. He found himself thinking of Christopher less over the hours of the trip—once every five or ten minutes instead of every second. By the time they were driving through Soho looking for their building, he was in a completely different mood.

  New York was big in a different way than London. August had never been there when he was a kid, so his only reference was from pictures and movies. He loved how narrow everything in New York’s Soho seemed to be, tall and colorful with about a million rickety old fire escapes. It had so much personality. It was overwhelming, though, in a way that London never had been. August supposed he’d get used to it—to a new train system, new restaurants, hopefully new friends, and his new job. It would be good. It had to be.