Page 12 of Our Chaotic Love Affair

“Like you know something.” I lifted my chin. “You don’t know anything about me, Bancroft. We had one conversation. That doesn’t make you an authority on my emotional state.”

“I’m not claiming to be an authority. I’m asking a question.”

“And I’m declining to answer it,” I said. “Now if you’ll move your big ass out of the way, I need to get back.”

“Fine.” He held his hands up, stepping back to let me pass. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“Good, because I wasn’t going to.”

I walked back out to the party. Champagne had been brought out. Celine Dion was belting out some love song and everyone was celebrating. It was perfect. I smiled, moved through it, took pictures, and said all the right things. Nobody knew. Nobody saw it.

They thought I was crying with joy. As I should have been.

What kind of person felt anything other than pure, simple happiness on a day like today? What kind of selfish, small-hearted person stood at the edges of her best friend’s greatest joy and quietly fell apart?

Suck it up. You’re going to be an auntie.

A single, lonely, stagnant auntie that really needed to start shopping for cat trees and those automatic litter boxes for the twelve cats I was going to have.

CHAPTER 5

CASH

The party thinned gradually, the way good parties did. Not all at once but in small groups drifting toward the door until only the people who mattered most were left. Most of my family members owned homes out here. I suspected they were all sticking around for the weekend.

By ten o’clock it was just Austin, Melody, Kent, Sylvie, Cleo, and me. We sat around the fire pit on the deck. The gas flames were a pretty shade of blue and orange. My brothers and I were drinking. Sylvie was breastfeeding and Melody was pregnant, so they opted out. Cleo abstained in solidarity with the women or she just didn’t want to be the only woman drinking.

The sky had gone fully dark overhead. The carpet of stars out here never ceased to amaze me. Sometimes, it was easy to forget what a real night sky looked like. I was rarely outside at night, and if I was, it was in the city.

I wasn’t the sitting-around-a-campfire sort of guy. There was always something to be done. A crisis to manage or a brother on the edge and about to make a mistake that I would ultimately have to deal with. It was strange to just sit.

“I want it simple,” Melody said. “Right here on the beach. Barefoot, maybe. Just the people we love.”

“I know. That’s exactly what we’ll have.” Austin kissed the tip of her nose. He looked at her like she’d personally hung every one of the stars above us, which was the expression he’d been wearing more or less since she arrived in his life.

I watched them from across the fire and wondered what it felt like to be him. Or Kent. Or any of my brothers that had recently gotten hitched.

I shifted my gaze to Kent and Sylvie on the lounge chair beside me. They’d arranged themselves the way couples did without thinking about it. Her legs draped over his lap, his hand resting low on her hip, their shoulders pressed together. Every few minutes one of them would glance at the baby monitor sitting on the armrest.

They whispered to each other occasionally. Private things. Sylvie would say something and Kent would dip his head toward her to hear it better, and then he’d smile in that particular way he’d developed since meeting her, unguarded in a way I’d never seen from him before.

I wasn’t even grossed out by all the lovey dovey shit. But when I thought about me and my future, this was not it. I didn’t see myself canoodling and talking about babies.

I thought about my corner office. The view from the forty-second floor at seven in the morning, coffee in hand, the city spread out below like a circuit board coming to life. Or my window seat on the private plane. Quiet. Controlled. Mine.

Female company had its obvious merits. I wasn’t a monk. But there was a cost to it that most men didn’t seem to factor into their calculations. The distraction was the biggest drawback. And there was the emotional overhead. Too much drama. I hated drama. I liked facts and numbers and measurable goals.

I didn’t envy my brothers. Or at least, I was fairly certain I didn’t.

I looked back at Austin just as he leaned forward and placed his hand over Melody’s stomach. He said something to her. Whatever it was, it was probably ridiculous. But it made Melody smile in a way that said they were talking about R-rated things. I cleared my throat and looked away.

Directly into Cleo’s eyes.

She was watching me from across the fire. I didn’t know for how long. Her expression was unreadable before she looked away, back toward the flames. I looked away too.

I’d been doing that all evening, looking at her and looking away. Trying to figure out what had happened after the announcement. I wasn’t a total dolt. I understood basic human emotions, even if I didn’t particularly enjoy them or participate in them.

I’d seen it in her face when she walked out of the bathroom. Something was wrong. Had been wrong since the announcement, or maybe just after it.