Thirty-Three
August
Asher
Another year, another summer vacation at the Prescott lake house. With his family’s help, extended too, we spent a lot of the weekend talking about when the wedding should be. Porter and I decided on an early September wedding, next year, and it would be at the lake house. The leaves should have started to change, and none of the guys would be due back to town for their training camps quite yet.
Now that a date was picked, Avery said it was time for the fun stuff. I had a feeling I’d be seeing a lot more of her this year down in Charleston.
She and CJ were once again ‘off,’ but I now recognized that she loved him. I wasn’t entirely sure what kept holding her back from being with him.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t Avery. Maybe it was CJ.
Either way, I hoped they would figure it out, because they were kind of fun to be around—the very few times I’d been in both their presences.
Now that the weekend was over, it was time to start thinking about real life.
Porter and I returned to the guest house an hour before, but he was down at University School for a last-minute pick-up hockey game. I stayed back because we were leaving for Charleston in the morning.
Nico hadn’t been very happy about it, but well before it was time to close up the townhouse for the summer, Porter told him that he and I were going to look for our own place for the season.
Well, ‘not happy’ wasn’t quite right. Nico was happy for us, but I think the big goof was going to miss having someone to rile—because when he wasn’t picking on Porter, he was picking on me. All in good jest, of course.
I liked Nico and I wasn’t entirely sure why he was single. He was a great guy.
He was equal parts serious and a jokester. He was big and goofy and just an all-around fun guy. And when he brought girls to the house, he was always respectful of them, not making them make the walk of shame in the morning.
Someday that boy would fall…
And I hoped I could witness it.
I walked around the guest house one last time, making sure everything was together and ready to go for the morning. We had a super early flight and had to leave here at three-thirty. Anything that was missed tonight was going to stay here until the next time we made it back into town.
I smiled.
We.
I was part of a ‘we,’ and I absolutely loved it.
And, as if life couldn’t get better, Porter and I were going to spend a long weekend in North Carolina, hanging out with Carter. She had just finished a tour in Africa and would be stateside for a while. I hadn’t seen her in a little over two years…
As excited as I was, I was also a little afraid.
I was very different now, compared to who I was then. Would she and I still get along? It was my own fault for not keeping in closer contact with her.
My excitement for the upcoming trip was starting to dim with my worry, but soon Avery was busting through the front door of the guest house, plastic bag in one hand and her leather messenger bag over her other shoulder.
“I have food.” She stomped through the living room and plopped the plastic bag on the counter and her messenger in a chair. “Chinese. And I have a bridal catalog.” She pulled back the flap of her bag and pulled out a monstrosity of a catalog.
Plop. The large bridal magazine joined the party.
“I have to finish getting everything together. We’re leaving in the morning.”
“You don’t want to plan your wedding?” Avery looked confused.
“Well, yeah, but I have to do…stuff.”
“Trust me, this catalog is calling your name. Forget the dishes. Whatever’s left, I’ll do tomorrow. I promise.”
“I thought you were planning on going to St. Louis?” CJ had been a trade nightmare the last two seasons. Last season, St. Louis traded him to San Jose, who let him go with his Unrestricted Free Agency label—meaning his contract was up, and San Jose didn’t have to offer him anything.
And St. Louis took him back!
I was so confused on the politics of trades and free agency.
“Canceled.” Avery didn’t look at me. Instead, she started pulling out white takeout containers.
“What’s the deal with you two?” I finally asked, the question having weighed on my mind for a while. I moved to finish loading the last of the dishes into the dishwasher as Avery set up the containers in front of what would be our seats.
“Nothing. I just need a little bit of stability and, unfortunately, CJ can’t give it to me.”
“Maybe you should tell me the story of CJ,” I prompted. I still had no clue what the deal was between the two of them. Just that they seemed to have a love-hate relationship.
Avery crumbled up the food bag before pulling her iPad from her purse and, once the bag was on the floor, sat in a stool with one of the Chinese containers in front of her.
“Not a whole lot to tell. Met him while skating when I was eight—”
I stopped what I was doing. “You were eight when you met?”
Avery shrugged, digging her chopsticks into her container. “We’ve always been competitive, so it was easy to dislike him most of the time growing up. We talked about going to college together and we did, but he went and accepted a contract with St. Louis without telling me after our second year.” She brought noodles and chicken to her mouth, shrugging a shoulder as she slipped it into her mouth.
“Was that when I met you?”
She nodded as she chewed.
“And that’s why you were so pissed at him?”
Again, she nodded.
“Avery Prescott, I think you were a little cold toward him!” I said with a laugh, moving to sit in the chair beside her. “Forgive me, but that’s a pretty silly reason to be mad at him. You work in the field too; you know he doesn’t have control over where he goes.”
Avery ignored me, pushing the catalog toward me. “Let’s get dress ideas.”
I pushed the catalog back at her. “Why are you being so cold toward him?” I honestly wanted to know.
“You have to pick out a dress, Ash,” Avery said, moving the catalog back. “We’re fourteen months out.”
“Yeah. Fourteen months to pick out a white number. I got it. What’s the deal with CJ?”
Avery groaned and slapped her chopsticks down. “I just don’t know that I want to be with him forever! He’s the only boyfriend I’ve had! For like…fucking ever.”
Well on that note…
I opened up my container and picked through it with my sticks, trying to figure out how to word what I wanted to say.
Finally, I just blurted, “Am I stupid to agree to marry Porter?”
“What?” Avery sat up and I glanced in her direction, seeing an absurdly comical look on her face. “What are you talking about? You two were meant to be together!”
“You’ve known CJ a hell of a lot longer than I’ve known Porter, and you don’t even know if you want to be with the guy.”
“CJ and I are different.”
“Not really,” I said, brows up and a slight shake of my head before turning my stare back down to the orange chicken in front of me.
“Asher.” Avery turned in her chair. “You and Porter are the definition of made for each other. You have grown so much in the years I’ve known you, and as much as I’d like to take the awesome-friend-of-a-lifetime award for that, I know damn well it was Porter who helped you become you.”
I sighed heavily. “I just…”
Haven’t told him everything.
If it ever came out, he’d look at me differently.
If I lost him at this point, I would lose everything—his family was everything.
I shook my head. “Alright, whatever. He’ll be back in less than an hour, so I guess, let’s look at dresses,” I conceded.
Apparently, Avery wasn’t going to drop it now that I opened that box. “Did you know he’s been head over heels for you since that first weekend? No joke. He changed his flight for you.”
I tried to ignore her by opening the large bridal magazine.
“He’s tried to keep your image safe, too, in respect of your past, or so he’s told me. He doesn’t post a single thing about you on social media, and if he finds something, he sends me on the goose chase to take it down.”
I flipped through the pages.
“And he worries about you when you’re not in South Carolina with him.”
I lifted a brow and pointed a look at her.
“It’s true!” Her blue eyes were wide, yet serious. “He asks me about you when you’re home. I think he’s worried about bugging you too much, so he just bugs me.”
“I get it,” I said, looking back down at the magazine. “Alright, so he loves me. I know that.” I flipped the page once, twice, before looking over at her. “I just worry about things from the past, that’s all.”
“I know you haven’t known love for long, Ash, but I promise you, Porter’s not going anywhere.”
My lips lifted slightly. “Okay.”
“Yeah, you better listen,” she teased, popping another piece of chicken in her mouth. “I’m the boss.”
“No, you’re kinda sorta Porter’s boss, but never mine,” I joked right back. I flipped the page again and was stopped by a dress so exquisitely simple. “Oh, my gosh.”
Avery leaned in and I could hear her quiet gasp. “That is so you.”
The first picture, the front of the dress, showed a heart-shaped neckline, but rather than be strapless, simple lace was brought up to the neck in a way that left the shoulders completely bare. The skirt of the dress was the mermaid style, but not in a way that looked tight and uncomfortable.
But then the back…
The back was completely bare.
Where the dress came up toward the neck in the front, became two thin straps which sat on the shoulder but then dipped back just above the waist, under the bra line. The skirt of the dress in the back began just above the swell of the model’s butt.
It was a-freaking-mazing.
And it was way too much money. I saw the number and felt my face flush.
“Yeah, it’s not that great,” I mumbled, turning the page but Avery slammed her hand into the page.
“No! That’s the dress. It’s so you, Asher. That’s the dress.”
“Let’s keep looking. Surely there’s one that has one less zero behind the price tag.”
“Asher.” Avery kept her hand in place. “That’s the dress. That is your dress.”
I tried to keep thumbing through the pages, but to no avail. Avery pulled the catalog from me.
“It’s the dress,” she said again, dog-earring the page.
“It is way too expensive to wear for just a few hours.”
“Don’t make me bully you into this dress,” Avery said, and I knew she could do it.
“Fine. How are we going to get it then? Surely they don’t have that,” I threw my hand in the direction of the catalog, “at a bridal shop here, or in South Carolina.”
“That’s the magic of the internet.”
She had an answer for everything. “Fine. Whatever. There goes my savings.” I muttered the last under my breath. I wasn’t saving for anything specific, but it was nice knowing I had the money sitting there.
I was planning on spending a few thousand on the wedding and figured Porter could do the same. Like I said, we really hadn’t done much talk on the whole wedding thing.
“You’re delusional if you think you’re paying for any of the wedding.” Avery shook her head. “Colors. What do you think about colors?”
I frowned. “What do you mean, I’m not paying for my wedding? Of course, I am. It’s my wedding!”
“And usually the bride’s family pays for stuff. Well, that’s us.”
“Nope, pretty sure you’re the groom’s family.”
“Asher, don’t fight me on this,” Avery said, exasperated.
“Do you always get your way? Shit, don’t answer that.” Yes. Yes, she did.
“You know it,” she said with a little bit too much glee in her voice. She took a bite of her food before putting the catalog aside and bringing the iPad in front of her. “Now. Pinterest.”
I groaned and tried stuffing my face with orange chicken. Avery apparently had a plan.
I didn’t know a damn thing about colors and weddings. What next, favors? Good Lord, I was in over my head.
“Alright, so.” Avery positioned the iPad between us, already on Pinterest. “What have you imagined your wedding to look like?”
I swallowed the chicken in my mouth and looked back down at my container, picking through it to find the next best piece. “I dunno.”
“You don’t know! Asher, we’re talking every little girl’s fantasy. Don’t tell me you never, not even once, thought about your wedding?”
I shrugged. Finding the piece of chicken I wanted, I brought it to my mouth, staring at Avery as I chewed.
She raised a brow.
So much like her brother, damn her.
Sighing, I finished my chicken before saying, “I was like…six the last time I thought about happily ever afters, Av.”
She twisted her face up. ”Yeah, I suppose.”
“I guess, I don’t know. It’ll be at the lake in the fall. Fall colors, maybe?”
Avery’s eyes brightened. “Oh! Coral. It’s so last year, but we could…”
And then she was swiping and typing on her pad, and I found myself amused in her antics. She was really into this.
Beside me, my phone dinged with an incoming text. I looked at it and, keeping the phone on the counter, I opened the text.
Porter.
I grinned crookedly as our messages opened.
Porter: I got something for you.
I quickly responded.
-Oh yeah? What’s that…..
Porter: I’ll be back in twenty. Be ready for this…
I frowned.
-What’s ‘this’?
I waited for his reply, but Avery piped up. “This!” She pushed the iPad in front of me. “See, look.”
The screen was filled with pictures of weddings. Corals and blush pinks with accents in a dirty, vintage orange. “Oh,” I whispered, angling my body to scroll through the page. “I do like that.”
“It can be done super simple, Ash.” She pointed to a picture. “Nothing overly fancy. And when you and Porter decide how many people, and who, are standing for you, we can figure out everyone else’s attire. There are no rule—Oh, my God, is that a dick pic?”
I frowned at her outburst, looking up at her face, but her eyes were…
My face felt like it was on fire as I whipped my head back toward my phone. Sure enough…
I reached over and flipped my phone over, bringing my hand to my face to block Avery from view.
“You two are so dirty!” I could hear the laughter in her voice. “Oh, my God! And was it pierced?!”
She pushed my shoulder, still laughing. “Oh, my God. That’s like…going to burn in my memory for years. Oh. My. God.”
I should be the one saying Oh, my God. His sister just saw…I groaned into my hand.
“Okay, okay, serious time now.” She was struggling with the ‘serious’ clause, I could hear it in her voice. “Wedding. Colors. Dresses.”
I put my hand down slowly and looked at the iPad, avoiding her face. I was still on fire.
And then she sniggered.
“I have to finish getting everything together,” I finally said, pushing from the stool. I was so embarrassed!
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry! It’s just… Oh, my God!”
“You said that already!” I faced her. “Like. Twenty times!”
Then I found myself laughing with Avery.
Because yes.
Oh, my God.