Baxter

I was at the boxing gym I trained at, hammering my frustrations out on the heavy bag, when Corin walked in, his undercut ponytail tied up in a man-bun. He slouched against the wall near the heavy bag, tugging his earbuds out of his ear.

“Hey, tool, nice man-bun.” I shot a grin at him as I grabbed the bag to stop its wobbling spin.

“Nice face, fucker,” Corin threw back, stuffing his phone and earbuds in his pocket.

“Don’t see you around here much,” I said. “What’s up?”

He shrugged. “Cane is busy, Xavier is building robots and reading quantum physics, Brock and Bast are both doing shit with their women, Zane is with his new kid, and Luce is tending the bar, which is deader than a graveyard. Leaves me with dick to do, so I figured I’d come see you.”

I laughed. “Nice. I’m your last choice for something to do, huh? That’s cool.” I eyed him. “Canaan is busy, but you’re not? That’s new.”

Corin followed me across the gym to the speed bag. “The Kingsley girls are in town. He’s out with Tate.”

“Where’s Aerie, then?” I asked. “I thought that was how you four always paired off, Cane with Tate, you with Aerie.”

He lifted a shoulder. “It’s…complicated,” he said, watching me roll the speed bag in a quick pattern of lefts and rights. “Aerie had some shit to take care of. We’re catching Emolution together later.”

“Emolution?”

“A local band. They’re doing some cool stuff, I hear, and apparently Aerie is into indie music now, so we’re gonna check ’em out.”

“How long are the girls in town for?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. They were in school, but I guess they’re taking some time off? I haven’t really had a chance to catch up much; we’ve all been too busy. I literally just chatted with Aerie for like five minutes, and she was yammering on about her stupid East Coast gossip most of the time.”

“East Coast gossip, huh?” I laughed. “Sounds awful.”

He nodded, chuckling. “No shit. I literally could not care any less, but it’s her world, so whatever.”

Even the mention of the East Coast had my ears pricking up even as my heart twisted. It had been two weeks and four days—not that I was counting days or hours since I’d seen Eva—and I still couldn’t quite squash the stubborn-ass feelings that kept cropping up whenever I thought of her.

Corin eyed me, an odd expression on his face. “You know, she did mention something that may or may not interest you.”

I stopped the speed bag and cut away from Corin, unwrapping my hands as I headed for the dressing rooms. “If it’s about Eva or whatever, I don’t want to hear it.”

“I think you do, asswipe.”

“I think I don’t, dick-knob.”

He trotted to catch up to me, cut in front, and turned to face me. “Dude, this is me. I give zero fucks about pretty much everything. Yeah?”

I rolled my eyes. “So?”

“So if I’m saying I think you may be interested, I’m not saying it idly.” He twisted a heavy silver ring decorating one of his fingers. “Hear me out, and then do what you want with the info. Just don’t be a petulant fucking child.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and swelled up. “How the shit am I being petulant?”

“I didn’t even say her name, you did, and you turned all ogre on me. And the fact that you had a hard time even saying her name tells me this information will interest you. You’re storming off, acting all mental and shit. Like, get a grip, bro.”

“I’ll get a grip on your skinny fuckin’ neck is what I’ll get a grip on, pencil-dick.”

He wasn’t bothered by my threat. “Get a shirt on and meet me back at the bar. You’ll wanna hear this, all right?”

“All right, all right.” I waved him off. “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” he agreed.

It wasn’t until I was back at the bar letting Lucian pour me a beer that I realized Corin may or may not have faked being bored just so he could worm this little talk out of me. The sneaky fucker.

He strolled in seconds after me, buds back in his ears, head bobbing to the beat of whatever he was listening to. He sat down and put his phone away as Luce poured him a beer, and we both took long drinks before he turned on the stool to face me.

“So, dick, what’s this big news?” I started shredding a napkin, hating the nerves I felt, but not able to stop them.

“Aerie and Tate are big into the whole East Coast socialite thing, right? They keep up with the who’s who, and who’s dating who and what’s big news and all that. They’re actually pretty influential in that scene themselves, I guess. They have this blog they do, and Snapchat and Instagram and Twitter accounts with a shitload of followers, and they even have official sponsors and shit.” He saw my warning glare, and took a sip to buy time. “Okay, okay. Whatever. They keep up with this shit, so the info is good, is my point.”

“Just fucking say it, Corin.”

“The talk of the entire coast, according to Aerie, is that Eva is marrying that tool Thomas Haverton. It was this big sudden announcement, and the real kicker is that it’s supposedly happening next week, like…in four days.”

Ice rolled through my veins, freezing me in place for several long seconds.

And then, without warning, the pint glass in my hand shattered. Pain sliced through my palm, and cold beer spilled everywhere. Corin yelped in surprise, and the ever-imperturbable Lucian appeared with a handful of bar towels and a napkin for my hand.

I stood up, soaked in beer and dripping blood from my hand. Corin helped clean up the spill and then brought one of the clean bar towels over to me, reaching for my hand.

“Touch me and I’ll snap you in half, brother or not,” I snarled. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

Corin backed away, palms up and facing out. “Fine, dude, Jesus.” He extended the towel toward me. “You’re bleeding, though.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Lucian sighed, sliding around from behind the bar. He snatched the towel from Corin and grabbed my hand, wrapping the towel around the cut and tightening it. “Calm down you big dumb oaf.”

I growled a warning, but Luce just chuckled.

“I’m not scared of you, big brother, so quit growling at me. We are people, and we use words.” He enunciated the last sentence slowly, and with exaggerated precision, as if I was either deaf or stupid or both.

“Luce, I swear to god—”

He tied the towel in place around my cut hand, and met my eyes. “She’s marrying that guy, Bax, whether you like it or not.” His voice was quiet, but his words cut through the haze of my rage. “So you have two choices: stop it, or let her go for real.”

“I’ve been trying to let her go, goddammit,” I snapped.

“No, you’re drinking yourself into a stupor every night and trying to ignore it till it goes away. You haven’t done the emotional work necessary to really move on. It’s obvious”—he indicated my injured hand—“that you’re very much not over her.”

“It was one day, Luce. I shouldn’t be this hung up on a girl I spent one day with. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“People don’t make sense, Bax. Sometimes we just latch onto people and there’s no rhyme or reason for it, and time has no real bearing on the intensity of it.” He went back behind the bar and poured me a new beer. “You have to decide if you feel strongly enough to do something about your feelings. As you say, you spent a single day with her, so it could be nothing.”

I drank half the beer, and then eyed him. “You don’t think that’s the right choice, though.”

“It’s not my life, not my choice.”

“But?” I said, and finished the other half.

“But?” He tilted his head to one side as he poured me another. “But if two and half weeks later you’re still hung up on someone you spent a few hours with, it stands to reason there might be something there.”

“And you think I should go out to New York or wherever the fuck she lives—”

“Aerie said she heard it was happening at the Wordsworth house or the Wadsworth house or something like that,” Corin put in. “It’s in Connecticut, I know that much.”

“So I go to Connecticut, then, or wherever the fuck the Wordsworth-Wadsworth fucking house is, and just crash the wedding?” I laughed and drained the beer as fast as I had the first two. “Yeah, that’d be cool. I’d be all like, hey there Eva, remember me? I’m the asshole from Alaska you fucked a couple times, and I don’t think you should marry this rich, powerful, well-connected guy, because I have feelings for you.”

Luce stared me down, his gaze steady and cool. “Pretty much, yes.”

“I got pretty big fuckin’ balls, Luce, but that shit would take stones I don’t think even I have.”

“Then that’s your answer.”

I growled. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“I dunno man,” Corin said, “I know you meant it sarcastically, but I kinda feel like what you just said says it all. Maybe leave out the part about fucking her, though. A tiny bit of tact might go a long way in that situation.”

I laughed in his face. “Yeah, ohhhhh-kay, good one, Cor.”

He shrugged. “I was being serious, but whatever, man.”

“You two are for real?” I gaped at them. “You saying I just pop down to fuckin’ preppy-ass Connecticut and walk into their fancy shit wedding and tell her she shouldn’t marry the guy?”

Corin nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.” He raised a hand, two fingers extended. “Two questions, though. One, why do you call it Connecticut preppy? Weird way to describe an entire state. And two, were you actually even listening when she told us the story about Thomas?”

“Have you ever been to Connecticut?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nah. All the gigs we did on the East Coast were in New York or Boston.”

“I went to Penn State, remember? Some of us from the team went to parties in Connecticut a few times. The girls were hot enough, but they were these snooty-ass bitches, and the parties were all like…” I made a haughty face, and adopted a shitty fake English accent, “mmmm, yes, quite—that was the general tone of the parties, and the people. And those were just the average rich kids. The sense I get from Eva is that she’s from, like, heavy fuckin’ money. This shit is going to be bananas.”

Right on cue, Corin started singing a Gwen Stefani song, until I threw a matchbook at his head to shut him up. “I call Connecticut preppy because there’s not enough bad words in the English language for how I feel about those fuckers. Made me feel like I was shitting all over their Persian rugs just walking through their front door. I mean, yeah, I know statistically there have to be some cool people that come from Connecticut, but shit man, I never met any. And what’s your point about the Thomas story? Yeah, I was there, and yeah I was listening. We think he’s a tool, sure, but she’s marrying him, man. Obviously she feels different.”

“From what she said, and the way she said it…” Corin shrugged. “I really don’t think she’d marry him willy-nilly like this. Not this suddenly. And especially not so soon after being here with you. Some other girl? Sure, it’d just be a hookup for anyone else, but—and correct me if I’m wrong, here—but I get the sense that she wasn’t that type of girl—that’s she’s not that type of girl.”

“So what, they’re forcing her to marry him?”

“Situations can be more complex than we’re able to see from the outside,” Lucian said. “And you can’t underestimate the influence family can exert on someone, nor the fear of the unknown. That’s all she knows, that world, those people, that life. Who knows what factors are influencing her? You’re not in her shoes, Baxter. Sure, it seems stupid to you, the idea that someone could force a person to marry someone else. But to her, it may not be so stupid or far-fetched.”

Smart kid, for twenty years old.

I sighed. “Dammit. I hate logic.”

“You’d rather sit around and wonder what could have happened? Live your life regretting not doing something?” Corin asked. “Maybe she’s marrying him because she wants to. We could be wrong. Worst that happens, you waste a ticket to Connecticut and she turns you down, tells you to go the hell away. What do you have to lose?”

I twisted the empty glass on one of its bottom edges, shaking my head when Luce asked if I wanted another. “Fuck it. You’re right. Fuck it. What do I have to lose?”

“Don’t waste the time or money on a plane ticket, though,” Lucian said. “Have Brock fly you down.”

I shook my head. “Nah. I gotta do this myself, on my own. I’ll drive down.”

Corin boggled at me. “That’s like…a sixty-hour drive, you goddamn lunatic.”

“Just me, on Xavier’s bike, hauling ass and not stopping except to pee and drink some coffee? I can make it in less.” I stood up and headed for the door to pack a backpack and ask Xavier if I could borrow the Triumph for a few days. “Besides, the drive will give me time to sack up and figure out what I’m gonna say.”

And what I’d do if she said no.

Shit…I’d have to figure out what I’d do if she said yes.

For that matter, I’d have to figure out what fuckin’ question I was asking her in the first place.