Declan’s eyes narrow. Shannon puts her hand on his biceps and whispers something in his ear that makes him tense, then arch an eyebrow.
“And I’ll do the authentic kilt thing,” he says in a tight voice.
My turn to arch some eyebrows as I look at Shannon, whose cheeks are flushed.
“You’ll go commando?” Marie chirps, clapping her hands with glee.
“It turns out it might have some benefits I hadn’t considered,” Declan mutters. What I thought was a tone of frustration sounds more and more like arousal.
Get a room, you two.
Andrew lets out a snort and looks at Shannon.
Then right at me. All the blood in my body stops, pulsing in place, as if trying to decide what to do next. It’s as if my red blood cells have become sentient and aware, attuned to Andrew’s presence at all times.
Every day that this wedding planning goes on and we both have to be in the same room is a kind of exquisite torture. My breath feels charged. He won’t stop looking at me.
So what can I do?
I look back.
And imagine him commando.
My heart tugs a little every time I see him. I want to go back to that night we spent in bed, after he found me at the brew pub. It’s not the sex that I miss. I miss the intimacy. Our talks. The loose and easy way I can strip myself down to my essence and be real with him. Andrew looks like he could use a loving dose of real right now, too.
Why does all the rest of life have to get in the way?
I know he’s hurting after blurting out his father’s secret. Declan was livid. Shannon told me later that he nearly withdrew his offer for Andrew to be his best man, but she’d talked him down. James and Declan have had a contentious relationship for years, and for Declan, it felt like one more way of being unmoored in the world, untethered from the man who should be an anchor.
I know from that night when Andrew opened up to me that Declan’s not that far off base. The strain between his father and brother is one with roots so deep and searching.
Roots that wrap right around Andrew’s heart, nourished by blood and denial.
Here I am, fighting back the real and working on my mask.
Once you taste real, though, the fakery is hard to swallow.
“Why in the hell would ye wear pants?” the tailor asks, his face a blistering pink. He has dark hair like Declan’s, though it’s gone to salt and pepper. His beard is thick like a squirrel’s tail, and he has bright blue eyes. “Yer bollocks need airing out.”
“My balls need lots of things,” Andrew mumbles.
This is the first time I’ve seen him since the dinner party. We’re taking it slow. And by slow, I mean we’re taking it nowhere, if by “it” you mean this relationship thing.
I’m nobody. Who are you?
I’m nobody who really does regret not indulging in boozy sex with Andrew in that closet.
He was right.
He’s texted me a few times. Between his traveling to New York and Europe and my last-minute wedding stuff, plus a spectacularly dull series of a few extra DoggieDates and my second childbirth class with Josh, the past few weeks have been a blur.
Not a wine-induced blur. Worse.
An ambiguous blur.
“Yer turn,” the tailor, Mr. MacNevin, tells Andrew.
Hamish saunters in at that moment, beer bottle in hand, and he reaches into a bowl of snacks someone’s put out on the kitchen counter. I see him munch on day-glo cheese balls and something chocolate.
Intrigued, I go and look.
And my joyful little heart sings.
“Cheetos and chocolate-covered pretzels!” I say, clapping, then shoving a handful in my mouth. “Hoo eatz deeze?”
“You, clearly,” Hamish says, then swigs his beer. He makes a face and looks at the label. “Jay-zuz. Piss water. All these Americans drink is piss water. Ye canna get a good lager here.”
“You’re eating Andrew’s favorite snack food,” Shannon says, ignoring Hamish. The seamstress is cupping her boobs, on her knees in front of Shannon, and Declan is watching with a leering fascination.
Andrew is staring down at his own version of seamstress, on his knees with the kilt and sporran, and a very long kilt pin that could, with a shove of two inches, turn Andrew’s unprotected balls into a pin cushion.
I swallow my mouthful and reach for my own bottle of watered-down piss.
Or, as we Americans call it, light beer.
“Oh, hi!” Marie says to Hamish, squinting. “Are you the stripper we called about? That woman who owns the company said she’d send over a nice, tall redhead, but...”
“Remember Hamish? My cousin?” Declan says pointedly.
Marie puts on her glasses. “Oh, yes. Hamish! You look so much like one of the male strippers I tried out for Shannon’s bachelorette party that I didn’t recognize you.”
Let’s unpack that sentence, shall we? Because it contains so many whoppers in such a brief stretch of words.
“Stripper you tried out?” howls Jason from across the room, where one of Mr. MacNevin’s assistants flails in an attempt not to poke himself in the eyeball with Jason’s kilt pin.
“You’re planning my bachelorette party?” Shannon yells, turning in such a way that her dress falls in a puddle beneath her, revealing a strange combination of a red UMASS t-shirt and a tartan garter.
“Garters,” Declan says, drooling.
“I didn’t literally try him out,” Marie titters.
“If it’s the same guy from O,” I counter, “then drinking that shot of white Russian out of his navel while he massaged lavender oil into your—