MEGAN
In a broken family, plagued by death, a death that while two decades old still weighed heavily on all of us, a marriage should be cause for high spirits and hearts filled with joy.
I saw my brother getting married today and while the shining jewels, the stunning dresses and perfectly tailored suits milling around the palace’s rich room decorated with flowers probably very expensive, happiness wasn’t fully there. The décor could fool me if I didn’t remember that this wedding wasn’t based on love. It was only further proof of how our life had turned out, which was nothing like it used to be.
Even with the faded memories, I held onto from my childhood and before that awful accident, I remembered our family to be happy. Yes, happiness and love were at the center of everything, every day.
I glanced at my brother, Mathis, and his wife, Lila, talking with an older couple, probably someone important from his work and I was struck by the way you could feel the distance and tension between the newlyweds. It tugged at my heart. I wished for Mathis to open his heart to happiness again instead of holding himself away from everybody.
The only hope I had for him was that Lila didn’t appear like the kind of woman who would let him get away with his usual cold behavior and the distance he imposed on everybody.
I sighed and took another sip of Dom Perignon. I let my taste buds enjoy the Champagne while my eyes found another reason for my plummeting mood.
Chance Atwood.
Tall, blonde and with blue eyes that seared you where you stood, he stole my heart that one afternoon when Mathis had brought Chance home their freshman year at Harvard, and I was never able to take it back, not even now so many years later. It was so stupid and rendered worse by the fact that he had always seen me as the kid sister to his best friend, someone who never registered on his radar while I would regularly witness his charm getting himself yet another woman who had what I only hoped to get one day. Or never, most certainly.
Chance was chatting up a woman wearing a dress of an orange that unfortunately contrasted wonderfully against her mocha-colored skin.
I knew all of his tells by now.
Towering over her, he let his eyes wander over her ample cleavage laid on display while he leaned closer to her ear. He probably whispered something panty melting. Her answering giggle that reached my ears was answer enough.
Then, he pulled back and flashed her his wide grin that lit his whole face and made your heart lurch as if it tried to reach out. And lastly came the subtle caress down her bare arm paired with the long eye contact.
Hook. Line. Sinker.
She nodded and he promptly grabbed her empty glass to put it on the closest table and wrapped his arm around her waist.
I stared, my stomach in knots and my blood running cold through my veins. It was always the same thing when I caught him picking up a woman. I couldn’t stop looking, I had no idea how to protect myself from that constant pain he unknowingly inflected me.
I kept on staring, but this time as he lead his new conquest toward the exit, his eyes met mine and his wicked smile turned joyful and innocent.
He nodded at me and not once broke his steps or entertained the idea of walking to me and exchange a few words.
Swallowing the pain and the self-loathing for being stuck in the same stupid, vicious circle at twenty-three-year-old, I forced a smile to my face and nodded back before finally turning away to get to the closest person instead of watching him leave the room to go sleep with that woman. In one gulp I finished my glass and glanced around the room again.
The emptiness hidden behind the beautiful décor became too hard to bear, so I excused myself to the distant great aunt I was talking to and walked away, but stopped briefly when I noticed the way my brother was looking at Lila when she wasn’t aware.
I wasn’t naive to believe it was love, but I knew Mathis well enough to believe that something was shifting, even if he didn’t want to see it.
At least there was a silver lining somewhere.
***
CHANCE
Something I hadn’t anticipated when my best friend Mathis Grimes and the man who hired me as CFO for his empire got married was that I would spend a Sunday evening at the bar on my own instead of nursing a few whiskeys together while talking about women and work.
I frowned down at the tumbler swallowed by my hands. The ice melted in the amber liquid.
It still seemed unbelievable that Mathis got married, even if the way he got around tying the knot wasn’t conventional. Knowing the man and how closed off he was, even with me his best friend, I couldn’t help but wonder how this marriage could last long enough for it to help along with Mathis’ scheme with Mr. Tober and the company Mathis wished to buy.
“Another?’’
I glanced up at the rough, grumble of a voice coming from the other side of the bar. The bearded man gestured at the tumbler in my hand. I cleared my throat and nodded, pushing the glass toward him while looking around in search of the origin of the female laughter. I stopped when I noticed a familiar brown head duck and that person grabbing the two laughing females’ elbows to get them to calm down.
“What the…’’ I mumbled and stood up without getting my freshly poured glass and headed straight to the table. I squinted to ensure I wasn’t seeing things.
In a few steps, I reached the table and gave a cursory glance at the two tipsy women accompanying my best friend’s little sister and fought the urge to glare at them as their gritting giggles made me cringe.
“No need to hide there, Megan,’’ I said, smiling down at the young brunette who bit her lower lip and waved at me. Her big brown eyes went from my face to over my shoulder as if to ensure I was on my own and her brother wasn’t around to piss on her parade. I couldn’t blame her considering the number of times Mathis had been a party pooper with his little sister. It was his way of keeping an eye out on her and protecting her even though he would never acknowledge it. With Mathis, you had to learn to read between the lines.
“Hey, Chance. What are you doing here?’’ Her voice rose as if nervous and considering the way her two friends kept on eyeing me, the redhead spending a considerable time checking out my groin, I bet she wasn’t too keen on risking them to do something that would mortify her.
I didn’t know Megan well considering we were nine years apart and she was my best friend’s little sister, but I had seen her often enough to know that she wasn’t very close to any of her friends. In that regard, she was a lot like her brother who was like Fort Knox on the best of days. The man was a stubborn ass, but I was too, only a more agreeable one. I supposed Megan had never met someone who would go the length to be truly close to her. Even her boyfriends rarely lasted long enough for Mathis to bitch about.
“You asking me? It’s Mathis and I’s hangout place.’’
Her eyes widened briefly before she glared at the redhead who was still staring at my zipper as if it hid some kind of wonderful treasure. Honestly, I was used to women checking me out, and I would lie if I said that it wasn’t a rush, but this was pushing it and that was saying something coming from me.
“I didn’t know. Sally just moved in the neighborhood and—‘’
“I guess we’ll get to see each other around,’’ the redhead, who I now assumed was Sally, cut Megan off, using a fake sultry voice while slurring from her cocktails consumption.
I arched an eyebrow and then locked eyes with Megan who played nervously with the ends of her hair.
“Hm, Megan, do you have a moment? I’d like to talk to you about your brother.’’
“Uh, yes.’’ She nodded and quickly stood up, grabbing her purse, jacket and scarf at the same time, without a doubt already preparing her escape.
I turned around and walked back to the bar, my eyes back on my tumbler. I immediately sat down and out of the corner of my eye, I watched her doing the same next to me, sighing as she dropped her purse on her thighs. She put her hands tightly clasped together on top of it before her attention went back to me.
“Is Mathis alright?’’
I nodded and then shrugged because I honestly had no idea how things were going for him at the moment with his new wife and the invasion of his sacred private life. It was probably a nightmare even though this precise nightmare had insane curves and would give ideas to any men in her vicinity if she flashed her deep blue eyes their way. I snickered and shook my head.
“That was just a ploy to get you out of there,’’ I replied and indicated the table where she was seated. Her two friends were now shamelessly flashing their cleavage to the nearby table sitting a couple of men in slacks, one of which had a wedding band. “Are you close to them?’’
“They’re college friends.’’ She shrugged and then made a move to stand up. “But thank you for the save. Since they barely eat more than a salad on any given day, it’s never pretty once they have a few drinks in.’’
My hand shot out and I gripped her thin shoulder to stop her from leaving. Any other time I would have let her leave, but considering my dark mood and the loneliness assaulting me now that my buddy was a married man and wouldn’t join me as frequently, I found myself craving a presence.
“You don’t have to leave yet. What do you want to drink?’’ I flagged the bartender and then smiled at Megan.
She stood rigidly next to me, her mouth slightly parted, just enough to let me get a peak of her white teeth.
“Megan?’’
She blinked and then went back to the vacated stool. “Hm, I’ll have a Martini Dry,’’ she quietly ordered to the burly bartender and then thanked him when he served her and turned back to get to another patron. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a drink together,’’ she pointed out after sipping her drink.
“It’s not been that long since you’ve been legal to drink.’’
She rolled her big brown eyes and smiled down at her drink, not once looking at me, but it gave me the opportunity to look at her without being questioned for doing so.
I suddenly felt older than my thirty-two years. My best friend just got married and his little sister was a woman. In what seemed like the blink of an eye years had passed and I was left there, still a bachelor and playing the field every chance I had.
Bitter, I tossed back more of my whiskey and sighed. “How is it going for you?’’
She traced the edge of the coaster under her glass. “I had dinner at my parents’ with Mathis and Lila. That’s why the girls were able to ply me with the promise of some alcohol to make me forget the disastrous evening.’’
“That bad?’’
We locked eyes and for the first time tonight I saw the sadness in her big brown eyes, the same sadness I often witnessed in every member of the Grimes family.
“Dad isn’t exactly an easy man.’’ Then she smiled faintly, and while it didn’t push away the sadness dulling her eyes, it still alleviated some of the tension on her face. “I think you’d have loved how Lila put him in his place. And Mathis!’’ She shook her head and pushed away a few strands of brown hair when they fell into her eyes. “I hadn’t seen Mathis react this way in a long time. He took Lila’s defense.’’
“Really?’’ I smiled then and chuckled. “Do you think she will be able to break that cage your brother locked himself in?’’
“I have no idea. Mathis is…’’ She shrugged then. “He isn’t exactly attainable. I only hope they don’t hurt each other and that they can find even a little bit of happiness.’’ She then smiled at me and kept on staring, her brown eyes locked on mine so deeply the small hair on the nape of my neck stood up.
She opened her mouth and then shook her head so wildly she looked like she had a seizure. The next thing I knew she’s on her feet, jerking on her jacket and mumbling her goodbye to leave me alone to myself in the reasonably packed bar with only the company of my empty tumbler.
I definitely would never understand women.