I don’t need to give Sharon a thumbs-up, she hears Ryker and comes rushing over. Sharon pops the cork and pours out three chilled glasses of champagne.
“You haven’t asked Keegan yet?” Ryker asks.
I shake my head. “I’m going to on Saturday.”
“She might say no.”
Sharon swats Ryker on the back of the head. “Of course she won’t.”
“A toast to our Freddie . . .” Ryker says. He glances at Liam who cracks his knuckles before picking up one of the glasses.
“Our Freddie,” Liam echoes, and he and Ryker share a look, a long look I have no hope of understanding.
Our glasses clink.
We drink the bottle, and Ryker rubs his hands together, discussing the stag party he’s going to organise. I know he’s been responsible for a few wayward parties in the past, but he assures me he’ll keep it totally safe and completely respectable. Liam sips his champagne, ever the silent observer, but when Ryker gets up to buy more drinks at the bar, we’re left alone.
“You’ll get a plus one, obviously,” I say. “Keiron can be a groomsman if you want.”
I’ve not had much interaction with Liam’s boyfriend, which is odd considering they’ve been on and off for almost six years. There’s been a few fleeting meet-ups where I brought Keegan, and he brought Keiron, and they joked about how similar their names are, but I’ve never spoken to Keiron without Keegan or Ryker being present, and he never joins us for a drink at the weekend. Liam’s protective of him, protective of their relationship, but if making him a groomsman means Liam’s more comfortable about being my best man, I’m happy to involve Keiron in my big day.
“She still might say no,” Liam says.
I snort. “I’m kind of hoping she won’t.”
“There’s no point asking Keiron to be a groomsman or me and Ryker to be your best men until you know if your plan to marry her is going ahead.”
His words slap me across the face, then leave me shivering at their pure iciness. Liam isn’t wrong. I even thought about it in the moment, that I was asking in the wrong order, but I wanted to tell them, or maybe I wanted the reassurance of knowing they’ll be there for me.
Liam gestures to the empty champagne bottle. “What are we even celebrating?”
The ice-cold feeling inside me is creeping closer to my heart. It’s like he’s shaming me, belittling me. He’s blunt, he doesn’t know how not to be, but this hurts and it feels intentional. “We’re celebrating you two agreeing to be my best men.”
“We always have been.” He pushes his champagne flute closer to me across the table. “I’m going home.”
“Liam . . .”
He doesn’t linger, doesn’t spare me a glance, he just gets up and leaves. Ryker’s at the bar, chatting away to the man who checked him out when he first strutted in. He’s telling the stranger he was Mr December in last year’s firefighter calendar—one of his most successful pick-up lines—and he follows it up by showing said pictures on his phone.
He swipes until he goes too far and exposes too much of himself. Another of hispulling techniques.
“Whoops,” he says. “That’s private.”
The man bites his lip, eyeing Ryker like he’s meat to devour from the bone. I sit there and realise I haven’t just lost Liam for the night, I’ve lost Ryker too, as he waves over at me before gesturing to the toilets where he plans to fuck the guy drooling beside him.
I slump, still holding my empty champagne flute, and the excitement that had been holding me up all night suddenly vanishes.
2
Liam
I lie on my back and stare up at nothing. If I blink, I don’t notice. A hazy orange glow comes from a broken slat in the blinds, highlighting the texture of the ceiling. It reminds me of the surface of the moon, bump-ridden and uneven. There’s a streetlight directly outside Ryker’s and my house, a two-bedroom detached property with a small garden and space on the driveway for two cars. Our cars happen to be monstrous black 4x4s, and both are parked outside, although Ryker isn’t home.
I try to convince myself that’s the reason I’m not asleep. I’m waiting for him. And maybe there’s an element of that, but mainly I don’t want to shut my eyes, because usually when I do, I think of Freddie. His sky-blue eyes, his mousy brown hair, the crease in his chin, the dimples when he smiles, and his rosy red cheeks when he gets embarrassed.
I reminisce, I predict, I fantasize. They’re my methods of drifting off. I’m aware they’re unhealthy, but it feels like I’vealways had an unhealthy interest in Ryker’s and my best friend. One I can’t turn off. And I wonder, if there were a switch I could flick to mute my emotions, would I? Would I end this torture once and for all?
But there is no switch.