Toby

Cara calls her Nana first. She burrows under the lush cotton sheets, so only her head is peeking out, and she screws her face into a tight wince as she waits for her grandmother to answer the phone.

I gently rub the back of her neck.

“Nana,” she says softly. “It’s Cara. I have some news.” She bites her lower lip. “I got married today. I’ve eloped.”

She nervously rolls her ring around her finger as her grandmother reacts.

“Well, that’s the whole point of an elopement. Not telling anyone.” She swallows hard. “I didn’t want a big wedding.” She glances at me as I squeeze her shoulder gently in agreement. “We didn’t want a big wedding.”

“You and Alex?” That response is clear enough for me to hear through the phone, and I try not to laugh.

“No…Not Alex.”

There’s a pause, then the response is sharp and crystal clear. “Cara, marriage is not something to play around with.”

“Are you sure? Because you were pretty happy to push me into one that I didn’t want.”

I lean in to catch Nana’s response. “I don’t understand. Who did you marry today?”

Cara gives me a half-smile. “Someone I’ve had a crush on for longer than I realized. Someone who is an amazing friend to me.”

“Another mystery man?”

She lifts her eyebrows in question to me. I shake my head and she laughs gently. “No, Nana. Not a mystery any more. I’ve fallen in love with Ben’s friend Toby.”

Then she tells her grandmother what I said earlier. How we’ve had a long-distance friendship that turned into something more serious without her fully realizing it, and as she started dating Alex, she found herself thinking about me more and more.

God, I hope that’s true.

“We’re both coming to the beach house for the Fourth of July, I promise,” she says before ending the call.

She launches herself into my arms, burying her face in my neck.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I murmur against her hair.

“You can call Ben.” I hold out my hand, and she gives me her phone. Then she steals it back. “No, I should do it.”

I circle her hand with my fingers. “Or we could do it together.”

She nods. “Okay.”

She finds his name in her contacts list, then puts the phone on speaker as it begins to ring.

“Hello?”

I clear my throat. “Hey, Ben.”

“Toby?” I can practically hear him pull the phone away from his ear and look at the screen. “Why are you calling me from Cara’s phone?”

“Funny story,” Cara says, leaning her head against mine. “Toby’s in Toronto right now.”

“Did you drag him out for dinner?”

She grins. “No, we haven’t made it to a restaurant yet.”

“Don’t be too much of a pest,” he says, and her mouth drops open, her eyes bright as she twists to look at me.

“Really not a concern,” I deadpan. “I came up here to see her. To surprise her, actually. We, ah…” For all my bravado about it being no-big-deal to tell Ben I fell in love with his sister, it really is a big deal. I want to get this right. “You might want to sit down for this.”

“I’m good.” His voice is tight now. Shit.

“Ben,” Cara says softly. “Toby and I got married today. We eloped.”

“Because I’ve fallen in love with her,” I add quickly.

“You fell in love with my sister.” A hard, disbelieving statement.

I press on, because I sure as shit did. “We’ve known each other for years, Ben. And over the last month, we started talking a lot more. Then this push by your grandmother for her to get married brought my feelings to the forefront.”

“Just like that.”

“Ah, hell no. It was big and complicated and serious. But also unavoidable. I love her, man. So I bought her a ring and came up to Toronto to surprise her with it.”

“Best surprise ever.” Cara sighs as she smiles. “Oh, Ben, say you understand.”

“Well, I’m happy if you’re happy, I guess. Elana’s going to have your heads for eloping,” he says gruffly. “Did you at least take pictures?”

“I hired a photographer.” Cara’s eyes go wide after admitting that, but Ben doesn’t ask about the timeline on that part of it.

“Have you told her yet?”

“She’s my next call. I phoned Nana first, then we called you.”

He grunts. “Toby?”

“Yeah, man.”

“You better really love her.”

“I really do.”

“Good.” He laughs. “Jesus Christ. I knew something was going on when we went for sushi.”

I look at Cara, and we both start laughing. “We didn’t,” she admits. “It really took us both by surprise.”

“I feel kind of bad for that Alex guy you were seeing,” he grumbles, and that just makes us laugh harder.

I slide my fingers into Cara’s silky soft hair and gaze at her pretty, open face. “He’ll survive.”

She nods. “That was a temporary thing anyway. I think I just needed to, uh, go through that to understand that Toby was who I really wanted.”

“That’s dangerously sappy, so I’ll let you go before this gets weird,” her brother says. “Call Elana ASAP.”

“I will.”

“Hey, Ben,” I say. “Maybe don’t tell Jake or Marcus just yet. Or anyone else. Just family until we’ve gotten together on the Fourth of July, okay?”

“Sure.”

When Cara ends the call, she gives me a curious look. “Why don’t you want to tell your other friends? I’m not complaining, of course. This is all overwhelming.”

“For exactly that reason. When Jake started dating Jana, we were all over him. He’d love to pay back that scrutiny. We could use a week of it just being the two of us.”

“Ha. That’s what I would have said about telling my family.”

“That’s different,” I murmur as I kiss her lips. “They’re my in-laws now. I need to keep them on my good side.”

She kisses me back, then lifts the phone again. “One more in-law to call, then.”

This is all her. I stretch out and offer her my arm to lean into as she waits for her sister to pick up.

“Elana, it’s Cara. I have some news, and I think you do, too. Want to trade?”

There’s a pause, then she giggles. “Ben and I guessed weeks ago. We should get a gold star for keeping it to ourselves. I’m so excited for you! When are you due?”

Another pause, then she groans. “Okay, fair is fair. And Nana will probably be calling you shortly anyway. I… Well, I got married today.” She wrinkles her nose. “Yes, to a real person. Oh my God, I can’t believe you would think that I would make up a groom. That’s terrible.”

I bite my knuckle to keep from laughing, and she pokes me in the side. I point to the living room part of the suite, and she waves me off.

“It’s Toby, okay? … Toby Hunt. Yes, Ben’s best friend. No, I’m not making this up. … Yes, he’s very cute.”

I turn and give her a raised-eyebrow look at that, and she blushes.

“Very, very cute. He showed up and surprised me with a ring. So we eloped…No, I don’t want to do a whole other wedding. Yes, I know you would…okay, maybe something in the Hamptons over the Fourth of July weekend. No, not fancy…”

I leave her to hash out the not-a-wedding, but-still-fancy celebration Elana wants to throw in Sagaponack when we’re all there. I head downstairs to get a secret wedding dinner for my bride. The wife of my heart.

I have in-laws now. And they’re only slightly bat-shit crazy. Plus, I’m already like a brother to her brother…we just can’t talk about women the same way ever again.

Bring on the holidays.