Better Late Than Never

by Ghiselle St. James

  “You fucking piece of shit!” I accuse. “How could you? To Savi of all people?”

  “I’ve been waiting on this, Cam,” Grayson chimes in. “Now the truth can finally come out.”

  The truth? I look at Grayson. He doesn’t look at all surprised at what he sees, doesn’t even look in the least bit angry while I’m flipping my shit.

  “Oh, my God, guys, wait!” the fucker begs.

  “Better start talking before he kicks your ass back to Camelot, dude,” Grayson tells him looking way too calm and enjoying this way too much.

  “Just take your beating like a man, you pussy.” And I charge for him, only to be stopped by a piercing scream…

  And a manly plea, “Don’t hurt him! He’s my boyfriend!”

  Grayson and I turn to see the girl we saw in fairy wings – who is actually a guy – race toward Cam and place his body over him protectively.

  What the…?

  Grayson and I stare dumbly at each other then turn back to the spectacle in front of us. “I’m entirely too drunk for this shit,” I declare, before bending forward and retching my guts out.

  When I’ve emptied the drunken contents of my stomach, Grayson speaks for me, “Talk, Cam.”

  Cam spills the beans on everything including the fact that he was really gay and that, the only reason he was at Savi’s house that day all those years ago, was because he had just gotten his heart broken and needed to be anywhere except his hometown. He tells me, since Grayson already knew, that he was just a decoy because it turned out that Savannah wasn’t – isn’t – really over me, and that she kept up the ruse because that was the only way to keep our friendship intact.

  Fat load of good that did.

  I let him get everything off his chest, including an apology for deceiving me all these years…and then I ask him a favor.

  “Don’t tell Savi that I know, okay?”

  Grayson looks at me funny, as does Cam. “Uh, I don’t understand. This is your chance to finally get the girl of your dreams,” Cam says, confused.

  I don’t ask him how he knows that; I think everyone within a two-mile radius of us knows how I feel about Savannah by now. But as I see my cousin nod with a sad but encouraging smile, I know that I’m not what she needs right now.

  And so, with puke between us, the four of us, including Cam’s boyfriend, Ellis, make a pact to keep the ruse going.

  When Cam and his man walk away, I pivot and punch my cousin in the stomach. He wheezes out a cough, doubling over and groaning in pain.

  “Motherfucker! I should’ve seen that coming,” he pants, holding his stomach. “I deserve that.”

  “You should’a told me, Gray,” I snap, staring at my cousin hatefully.

  “I know, but Savi–”

  “Fuck!” I roar, gripping my hair in my hands, totally sober now.

  “No one knows about this, Grayson,” I tell him again. “Not even Becky.”

  I know Becky knows, has known, about this whole lie. Feelings of betrayal wrap around me like a vine, constricting my breathing, but I can’t blame either of them for protecting Savi. She needed them to help her protect her heart from my callous mishandlings.

  “I’m sorry, Kyle, honestly,” Grayson expresses, contrite.

  I nod, and we never speak of it again.

  The next day, I pack my stuff and leave Florida and my crazy-haired girl with a kiss on the forehead and a note on her bed that says:

  “See you for Pop Tarts and purple soda in five years, best friend.”

  Savi – Past

  March 2012

  Kyle nor Grayson came for dinner tonight and, while I was bummed, it was good to hang out with Becky alone. I get a text later that night from Cam, saying that he wished I had come out with him and his boyfriend, Ellis, but that he hopes I finally came clean to Kyle and had hot, monkey sex with him. When I tell him that I haven’t, he sends back the sad face Emoticon and it sets off my internal sprinklers as I cry silently into my pillow.

  How did this get so out of hand?

  The lie was not supposed to go on for as long as it has with Cam. I was being petty when I let Kyle believe that I was dating someone…and now, this snowball has turned into an avalanche.

  Maybe starting over isn’t going to be as bad. I mean, I have Kyle’s blessing. Maybe that’s what I need – a fresh start where I can forget that there is this constant binding of our hearts. No Kyle. No memory of us.

  But even as I drift off to sleep, I know that that’s impossible.

  I wake with a start as I hear my door close. Brianne’s bed is empty, so I assume she either didn’t come home last night or she did and just left again. My forehead tingles and I feather my fingers over the spot, feeling an ache of longing that makes me close my eyes. When I open them, I see a note on the floor next to my bed slippers and pick it up.

  Heart sinking, I read the note with tears in my eyes and my heart breaking in pieces:

  “See you for Pop Tarts and Purple Soda in five years, best friend.”

  Chapter Twenty Two – Sometimes I Go Deaf In One Ear, It’s The Strangest Thing

  Savi – Present

  LIKE A DEER wading in a desert for days without water, my first drink of Kyle after an inordinate amount of time has barely quenched my longing for him. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to punch him in the taint for doing this to me, but I’d be lying if I said that seeing him hasn’t centered me somehow.

  Over the past five years, Kyle has been a silent partner and supporter of my event management business, Purple Prizm; and I’ve continued to be one of his biggest cheerleaders as he finds his footing in the sports and talent management world.

  When I got my first client after graduation, Kyle was right there on video call congratulating me with a Pop Tart and Purple Soda celebration. We eventually gave up on the purple soda pastime – diabetes in a can – and substituted it with beer, starting a brand-new tradition.

  When Kyle was recruited as a talent agent with a new sports agency, I sent him a bottle of good champagne and a basket of Pop Tarts and beer. When I got my first six figure event, he sent me a box of Pop Tarts and a case of beer that I blew through within a month.

  This rewarded me with a beer belly that I spent the next four months trying to work off, but gave up after a while because beer bellies give a person character.

  See, it’s not that we haven’t seen each other in five years, we have. A glimpse here and there in support of each other; at a surprise birthday party; walking arm in arm with each other as best man and maid of honor for our best friends’ wedding; getting matching anchor tattoos; supporting me when I got my first half sleeve tattoo at a popular tattoo parlor in Miami (Harley Quinn on a Harley, dragging a bunch of perennial wallflowers behind her), while Becky watched the whole thing squeamishly from behind her hands; crashing an industry party being held by Kyle’s firm with said best friends so that we could meet a famous sports star I knew nothing about…

  But it’s never been that Pop Tarts and purple soda moment.

  When I came back here last year, he threw me a Welcome Back party and spent the next week “reacquainting” me with my city. Aside from our occasional group hang outs, we haven’t been able to really hang out like old times. And I get it. We’re grown up; we have our own lives that seem to take us in different directions, so a true Savi and Kyle reunion has been difficult.

  And right now, it definitely isn’t that long-awaited reunion as I stare daggers into his forehead.

  “So, you knew all this time?” I ask when he tells me how he found out about Cam.

  “Yeah, I did. Don’t know how I never saw it, though,” he responds, chuckling to himself.

  It would have been funny under different circumstances, but I can’t help but think he knew all this time, and yet he still let me go. Tears well in my eyes at that, a realization hitting me so hard that I almost lose my breath.

  No matter what opportunity was laid before us in the past, no matter how many peo
ple saw and felt our connection, no matter how much I love him, no matter how much I think that we’d be perfect together…

  Kyle will never choose me.

  “Piper!” I shout too loudly at the waitress who’d been attending our table. She was just five feet away, and by the looks of it, I startled her. Smooth.

  “Oh, my God, are you okay?” she inquires, running to my aid.

  “Oh, uh, sorry,” I say. “Sometimes I go deaf in one ear, it’s the strangest thing.”

  Both Piper and Kyle look at me as if I’ve lost my mind and I make a show of digging a finger in my ear to “clear it”. Even smoother.

  “Uh, could I have something stronger than this?” I request, pointing at my now empty glass of amaretto sour. How Kyle remembered I loved it after all these years is yet another thing I cannot focus on.

  It means nothing.

  “Anything in particular?” she asks.

  “Whiskey…neat.”

  Kyle’s eyes round in surprise, but then they soften as he stares at me with more of an impressed glance. Take your stupid, handsome, impressed face and shove it, Mister! I want to throw the ice from my glass at him, but I don’t want to waste my damn ice.

  “Comin’ right up!” Even Piper’s chirpy ass voice grates on my nerves. Why can’t she hate her job like normal people?

  “Are you okay, Crazy Hair?”

  I hate that name now.

  “Peachy,” I lie with a big, broad, fake smile that I know he knows is fake. This man knows me like an old book that’s been read and re-read more times than one can count. Yet, he doesn’t know – and possibly doesn’t even care – that I…

  His phone rings, thankfully saving me from any further interrogation from him and any other mental admissions.

  “Hey,” he answers, before his eyes go wide with recognition. “Heyyy, honey.”

  My heart sinks with a heavy thud and tears gather in my eyes once again. I knew this would have been painful, and I hate new bestie Boyd and Grayson for talking me into this. Why they thought that planning my best-friend-who-I-am-secretly-in-love-with’s wedding was a good idea will forever remain a mystery to me.

  Why I agreed to it is another one of those grand mysteries.

  “You’re funny, sweetheart,” he chuckles, sounding so lovey-dovey, it makes me want to puke.

  Piper comes back just in time, and as soon as she lays my drink down, I swipe the glass up and start downing it. I’m going to need a ton of liquid courage if I’m to get through this…and about a factory more of that courage if I’m going to get through the wedding.

  Lord, help me.

  “Oh, before I forget, the planner wanted to find out what it is that you liked,” he pauses to listen to his fiancé on the other end. The planner. So, I’m the planner now? I wasn’t the planner earlier when you were hugging me tightly as if you were remembering holding me in other ways, Moxam!

  I want to scream at him, at this woman who is taking him away from me, but I hold my peace. Barely.

  “Talk to her. C’mon, darling, just talk to her,” Kyle coaxes his fiancé before pulling the phone away and handing it to me.

  “No, no, no,” I hiss, waving the phone away. “I don’t want to–” But he shoves the phone at me anyway.

  I grab it so it doesn’t fall and greet her cheerily, “Hello…” Belatedly, I realize that I don’t even know her name.

  I am going to kill Kyle.

  “I’m Avon, charmed,” a sweet British voice greets on the other end.

  “Uh, hi, uh…” Dammit, why couldn’t she have sounded like a complete bitch? And who names their kid Avon? Probably someone obsessed with the actual company’s products. I know I’m being a bitch – a silent bitch – but I can’t help it at this point.

  “So, I wanted to know what color theme you both were working with.”

  I pull out my notebook, ready to take notes but she responds, “Um, oh dear, we hadn’t really spoken about that, Kyle and me. I’ve never done this marriage thing before, so I was sort of hoping you could help me there.”

  Goddammit, and she’s sweet, too! Makes my whole “being a bitch” vibe seem even bitchier. Besides, she’s an innocent in all of this. Avon just fell for the wrong man, my wrong man. I know now that we’re not meant to be.

  “If this were your wedding, Savannah, what would you want?” she asks.

  Okay, forget everything I just said. This woman is devious!

  “Uh, I don’t think that’s, uh, appropriate?” I answer with a questioning tone.

  “Bollocks, I know,” she sighs. “I’m so sorry, but I know that Kyle always talked about how amazing you are and that your vision for a wedding or event is usually spot on, so I just thought I’d pick your brain.”

  Damn him!

  “I mean, if you want my opinion…”

  “Yes! Perfect!”

  “I mean, if it were my wedding,” I begin, my heart fluttering; dreams I had no business having at nights floating to the forefront of my mind. “I’d want subtle colors. Nothing that would overshadow us. So, I’d choose pale blush colors, white and some pale blues, because Kyle looks good in blue.”

  I catch myself at the last minute and pull the phone away, sure this little British crumpet is about to jump through it and claw my eyes out. When nothing happens, I stare at Kyle in horror who just stares back curiously.

  “I, I, I mean…” I stutter.

  “That sounds perfect!” she gushes. “Tell me more!”

  I spend the next five minutes going over my ideas of what a perfect wedding to Kyle Moxam would be like and, by the end, I feel like a part of my soul has died. It should have been me. I’m shaking with unshed and unsaid feelings when I hand Kyle back his phone, but I hold myself together. I refuse to let him see me lose my shit.

  “So, she’s British?” I don’t know why I’m torturing myself by asking that question.

  “British? Uh, yeah…British. She grew up in Los Angeles, though,” he replies…which would explain the American tone I’d heard from her periodically.

  “This is pretty quick,” I venture to say.

  “It is,” he agrees, but goes no further. We stare at each other for an age, regret and hurt passing between us.

  We haven’t really been able to talk about this, what with my meltdown the other day. I don’t think I’ve even congratulated him. Some friend…

  Kyle sighs then provides, eyeing me carefully, “When you know, you know. No need to waste time with a long engagement.”

  I’ve always said that. The whole lengthy engagement and fanfare of an engagement party had never made sense to me. Yes, I should be an advocate of waiting so that proper planning can take place for a bride’s fairytale wedding, being an event planner/dream realizer and all. But I’ve always known that if I ever fell in love like that, waiting wouldn’t have been an option.

  “The day my future husband pops the question better be the day we walk down the aisle,” I’d said some years ago on one of our many lunches together.

  I guess this woman is getting everything I’ve ever wanted down to the very last tidbit.

  I’ve never met her, and only heard of them going on one date a few months ago, but I guess she had been enough. More enough than I ever was.

  Four months ago

  “Kyle is late…again,” Becky gripes, fixing me with a glare.

  “Hey, don’t look at me,” I contend. “I told him what time we were meeting here. The guy’s my best friend, not my conjoined twin.”

  We are at Shrimpy’s, a seafood restaurant overlooking the bay, waiting on Kyle to join us. Grayson had stepped outside to take a business call, but Kyle had yet to show in the five minutes he’s been gone. And of course, I am to blame somehow.

  “I’m your best friend, bitch,” Becky corrects, narrowing her eyes at me before something catches her attention behind me.

  But I’d already felt his presence; my arms breaking out into gooseflesh at him being in my proximity.

  “T
hen what am I?” Kyle asks, finally arriving.

  Sweeping my eyes over him, my mouth grows dry, and instead of taking a drink of the room temperature water our waitress had placed in front of me earlier, I drink a tall glass of him. Kyle is wearing the shit out of slim fit light blue jeans, ripped at the knees, a distressed denim button down shirt stretched across his muscular chest, a brown leather jacket and brown penny loafers. His hair is wind-tossed and my fingers tingle, itching to run them through his silky strands. He lifts the dark Wayfarer glasses he’d been wearing and shoots me a wink that goes straight to my underused vagina.

  Jesus…

  Every woman’s eye is on him, and I feel like going up to each of them to demand they stop ogling my man. But he’s not mine to lay claim to, so I tuck my hands under my thighs hoping it will stop me from doing something crazy…

  Like using my fingers to mimic fangs and hissing like a vampire.

  Because I’d do it.

  Kyle has an easy smile as he takes us in which makes him look like a movie star. Well, he’s been schmoozing with celebrities of the sports, movie and music world of late, so it’s expected he’d look the part.

  My heart flutters and butterflies stir to life in my belly the longer he stands there. He has the same effect he’s had on me since we were fifteen years old. Will that ever fucking go away?

  “Winter came,” Becky answers, shrugging with a sly smile.

  “Whatever makes you sleep better at nights, psycho,” he mumbles, sliding into the booth next to me.

  “Psycho is so nineteen nineties,” Becky scoffs dismissively. “Call me Dragon Queen.” Her smirk is triumphant, and I let her think she’s won the battle of who my best friend is.

  She may be my best girlfriend, but Kyle is my best everything, despite all the rocky roads we’ve travelled.

  Kyle rolls his eyes at Becky’s GoT reference before focusing on me. Aaannd the butterflies are back. “Hey, Crazy Hair. Missed me?” he mutters in a husky tone. Kyle kisses me on the cheek and I feel tingles all over. Goddamn him!