May the Best Man Win by Mira Lyn Kelly
Once they reached Navy Pier, the endorphins must have kicked in because she was feeling pretty good and couldn’t help asking the question that had been plaguing her since Jase Foster started making nuptial headlines with his less-than-exemplary record of getting grooms to the church without incident.
“Okay, here’s the deal with the Wallace wedding”—Jase’s eyes cut to hers—“and I’m trusting this stays between us.”
Emily nodded, wiping the sweat from her brow.
“We didn’t run out of gas,” he said, his words following the cadence of his steps. “I’d never make that kind of mistake with a wedding at stake. But Neil was freaking out. He didn’t know if he could go through with it. I took him out to talk, figuring the best bet was to work through it with him and risk being late, rather than risk him not showing up at all. Hell, there’s only so much a girl is willing to forgive, right?
“Neil got it together, and we made up the part about the gas in the boat so Maryanne could blame me instead of him. She never needed to know that on the most special day of her life, the guy she was pledging her heart to had almost bailed.”
Emily was stunned. It wasn’t exactly how she would have handled things, but like the Jase she’d thought she’d known back in high school, this man took care of the people he loved.
“The eye patch on Jim?” she asked.
“That was my bad. Finger football seemed harmless at the time. Live and learn.”
Okay, that was all well and good, but she wasn’t sure the antibiotics were going to be so easy to explain away.
“Trey? Oh, man, I told that guy it was a mistake to accept free tacos from a lunch truck. I said there had to be a catch, but did he listen?”
It went on like that a while, the two of them trading truths. Telling stories, pointing out their favorite spots along the path, and laughing.
God, being with Jase was fun.
And then the laughter eased as they stopped in front of Buckingham Fountain. Their eyes met and Emily could feel the moment tugging at her, asking her if this was what she wanted, because if she did, it was right there, ready to take.
But like the night he’d invited her to Belfast, she couldn’t make herself reach for it.
Jase was amazing, but she couldn’t quiet the little voice whispering in the back of her head, reminding her that was what she’d thought before. Maybe it was just too soon, and all she needed was a little time before she’d be ready to give Jase her trust. But a part of her wondered if any amount of time would be enough.
“You ready to head back?” she asked.
Jase searched her eyes a moment longer, and Emily thought she might have seen recognition in them. Understanding. But then he wiped his big hand over his face and gave her a smile. “Yeah, whatever you want, Em.”
* * *
Tuesday night, Jase still couldn’t get it out of his head. Emily and that look in her eyes when they’d been standing in front of the fountain. That look he’d tried to dismiss but couldn’t ignore.
She wasn’t going to let him in.
He thought maybe she wanted to. Hell, he was pretty sure of it. But something in that look had told him that she just couldn’t.
And the worst of it was that he couldn’t blame her. Not a bit.
But even knowing he deserved what he had coming didn’t make it any easier to take. So he’d hopped in the car after work, ready to do battle with the Eisenhower. It had been three weeks since Jase had been out to the house, which never happened. And yeah, his dad had made the drive into the city one night for dinner, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen the guy—but it wasn’t the same as going home and sitting in the space that had been theirs, and theirs alone, for twenty years. Shooting the shit a while and throwing around a few good-natured jabs just to say they cared.
Maybe scoring a slice of banana bread if Jase was lucky.
Catching a game. He wondered if Emily would be watching a game.
Damn it, why couldn’t he stop thinking about her? Why hadn’t he been able to pull his head out of his ass for five minutes back in high school and listen to her? Look at her? Look at what the friend he’d been trying to protect was becoming and see who really needed protecting?
Slamming his hands against the wheel, he cursed. Why hadn’t he fought for her when there’d still been a chance for any of them to win?
Jase cut the engine. If there wasn’t any banana bread, he’d get his dad to show him how to make it.
At the front stoop, he heard the TV coming from inside and pushed through the door the way he’d been doing since he was old enough to reach the knob.
The first thing that reached him was the sound of laughter. Deep and booming, mixed with something…lighter. More melodic. He swallowed. Familiar in a way he shouldn’t be thinking about because there was no way—
“Jase,” his dad said, jumping up from the couch at the sound of the keys hitting the floor.
His father lifted a hand in Jase’s direction, one of those let’s-everyone-just-stay-calm moves, but the nervous way his old man’s eyes were shifting between Jase and the brunette who’d also risen from the couch but had yet to meet Jase’s eyes said Joe Foster was anything but calm. Welcome to the club.
“Is this a joke?” Jase demanded, looking at his father because it was easier than looking at her.
“Jase, I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out like this. I know it must be a shock. Your mom and I, we were just waiting for the right time.”
* * *
Jase couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this. The last time he’d had this kind of hollow feeling inside. Or maybe he could, because that day twenty years ago had never really left him.
How could his dad—?
How was it possible that after all this time his mom—?
How?
He spent the next hour in traffic with that one word ricocheting around his brain as he kept his eyes on the road and paid attention to his speed and the cars around him. Basically making it his mission to live until he could get back to Lakeview where he would safely park his car and then go get blind fucking drunk. Because if ever there was a call for a bender, busting his parents on the couch after not seeing one of them for twenty years seemed like it.
But as he drove east on Belmont, instead of turning on Sheffield for Belfast, he kept going, past the turnoff to his place, toward the lake until he hit Sheridan. Where Emily lived. Was it even possible she’d be home at eight on a Tuesday night instead of neck-deep in whatever activity she’d committed to with whichever of her six hundred best friends she was making time for just then? Probably not. Just like she probably wasn’t the right person for him to be going to anyway. But he couldn’t make himself turn around.
He just wanted to see her. He wanted someone—soft. He wanted someone warm. He wanted someone he could count on.
He wanted her. Just to talk. Just for a little while.
He found a spot two blocks up and then walked to her place, feeling the cold leaching into that empty spot inside him despite not being able to feel it anywhere else. It was unsettling in a distant way. Within the lobby, he buzzed her apartment and waited. The seconds turned to minutes, and that cold empty space inside him grew.
She would have answered if she’d been there. Just as well.
Probably better for him to be alone.
He turned to go just as the security door swung open, and there she was. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, and she had on a charcoal peacoat with some kind of lumpy, bright-colored scarf wound around her neck a few times.
Christ, she was pretty.
And clearly surprised to see him. “Jase, what are you doing here?”
“Sorry, I should have called. I was just… I thought I’d try my luck. But you’re heading out, so I’ll catch you another time.”
Feeling lik
Emily stepped closer. “I was going out for a beer with… Hey, are you okay?”
Then more urgently, “Jase, what happened?”
Emily had never met his mother. She’d moved to town years after his mom left. But she’d been close enough in high school for a while there to have gathered the broad strokes. Or to have heard the rumors. Hearing that Clara Foster was back, Emily pulled out her phone and told whomever she was meeting that she wouldn’t make it.
And that hollow space inside felt just that much smaller.
Up in her apartment, Emily opened a couple of Heinekens and pointed him toward her couch.
“So when did you find out?” she asked, all that softness he’d been looking for right there in her eyes.
“About an hour and a half ago. I hadn’t seen as much of my dad as I usually do and thought I’d drive out. I couldn’t believe it was really her. It was like a flashback, Em. I mean, they were laughing. They were just sitting there laughing together like the last twenty years hadn’t happened. Like she hadn’t blown out of town with some douche while we stood there watching the exhaust fade, my dad’s heart broken in half. Like she hadn’t been the shittiest wife on the books even before that.” Jase looked up at the ceiling. “And I’ll be damned if my dad didn’t look happier tonight than I’d seen him since the day she left.”
“So is it a done thing—they’re reconciling?” she asked, her voice quiet, like she wasn’t sure if she should say the words aloud.
“They moved her things back in Sunday. I guess they were waiting to tell me, to make sure it was right first. Which feels a little strange, seeing as how I’m almost thirty. But here I am having a meltdown, so I guess I haven’t outgrown all my childhood issues the way I thought.”
Emily rested her hand over the center of his chest. “It’s okay to be freaked out about this. The way things were around your mother leaving, I don’t know how anyone would be okay with her showing back up.”
Jase shook his head, not knowing what to say. What to feel. Except that somehow, being there with Emily, it was better.
He covered her hand with his own, stroking his thumb over her knuckles. “Honestly, I don’t know how I am, Em. I mean, it’s not my marriage. I get that—but God, I stood there in the house that used to belong to the three of us, and I talked about her like she wasn’t even there. I was so pissed and shocked that I basically demanded to know what my dad was thinking, letting the woman who ruined his damned life back into it. How he could even let her past the front door after everything she’d done—screwing around on him, abandoning him. Fucking wrecking him.”
“What did he say?” Emily asked gently.
Jase was embarrassed to even think about it. “He wasn’t nuts about what I had to say. Told me to put a lid on it.”
Actually, his dad had gotten in his face, telling him in no uncertain terms that that was enough.
It had been a blow to the gut, when Jase was the one who’d stayed. The one who had loved Joe even after the months it had taken him to become a functioning parent again.
But then Jase had realized his old man was right.
He shouldn’t have said those things about his mother while she was right there. Even if they were true.
Because what he had to say was family business, and she wasn’t family. If he didn’t agree with what his dad was doing, then he should have spoken to him privately about it.
“And your mom?”
He looked up then, not sure what Emily was asking.
“What did she say? Did she apologize or try to hug you or say she missed you or anything?”
Jase shook his head, trying to remember. “I think she said hello. But everything happened pretty quick. It was mostly my dad and me, going back and forth until he asked me to take off. Cool down. Said we’d talk tomorrow. He’s coming down here.”
When Emily just stared at him, looking confused, Jase shrugged, figuring she didn’t get the way it was with his mother. Who would?
“Em, my mom and I were never really close, so I guess it doesn’t surprise me that she wasn’t all over me at her first opportunity. I know that’s not how it’s supposed to work with moms, but even before she left, she hadn’t really been one to me. Sometimes, though, she’d still been a wife to my dad. So when she left, it was bad. He loved her.”
Quietly, Emily asked, “But you didn’t?”
The question took him so off guard that all Jase could do was stare at her. Then, finally, he just told her the truth.
“I don’t know.”
* * *
They’d stayed on the couch a long while after they’d stopped talking. Emily had shifted so her head and hand were resting on his chest, her legs tucked up on the couch, with his arm wrapped around her shoulders.
And at some point they must have fallen asleep. Because now Emily was brushing a few loose strands of strawberry-blond from her sleepy brown eyes. It was a sight Jase could definitely get used to—all that soft, so very close. But he wouldn’t have the chance.
The way he’d treated her in the past had consequences in the present. And he couldn’t blame her for not being able to trust him.
“I didn’t mean to stay so late,” he said, reluctantly letting her go.
He took her hand and pulled her up with him, caught her chin with the crook of his finger and met her eyes. “Thank you.”
A small furrow dug between her brows as she seemed to search his eyes.
“Em, you okay?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to go.”
Time slowed and his heart thumped hard.
This wasn’t what he thought it was. It couldn’t be. “Why?”
Lifting one shoulder almost helplessly, she whispered, “Because we’re friends, Jase. And I think maybe you could use one a little longer.”
* * *
“I don’t get it. Friends?” Lena sneered, like it was some dirty four-letter word. Then, riding her treadmill to the end, she hopped off. “What is that? This is the guy with the proven track record of ruination. And you spent the night together, but didn’t have sex? It’s already seven twelve, and you’re standing in my bedroom in some college-era throwback sweat suit and not a lick of makeup. Don’t you have a meeting in, like, thirty minutes?”
“Postponed it.” Emily’s hands were clutched in front of her, her breath coming in a rush like she’d been the one tearing up the miles on Lena’s machine instead of just pacing back and forth in front of it while her friend worked out in her bedroom. “Yes. And it was good, Lena. Really, really good. He held me the whole night.”
And God, waking up this morning to that one barely there kiss as Jase leaned over her to say good-bye before he left. Chills.
“What does that even mean? I get that at first you were just hooking up. You weren’t friends. The well of caring between you was maybe a little shallow. But then you two seemed to find a deeper connection, while you were still getting the goods and services,” Lena added with a meaningful nod, as if Emily had any question about what goods and services were being implied. “And now?”
“Now it means I trust him.” Emily hadn’t thought she could, but then he’d shown up at her door, hurting like she never wanted to see him hurt. And the biggest, strongest man she knew had trusted her with this piece of himself. A piece that was broken and fragile, and somehow powerful enough to knock down those last walls she’d built against him.
“And whatever happens in the goods-and-services department from here forward, there’s going to be friendship at the heart of it.”
Lena pulled the elastic from her ponytail and shook out her dark hair. “Okay, that sounds pretty good.”
Emily checked her phone and saw a message from Jase.
&nbs
She smiled, that flutter in her belly going full tilt as she texted back: See you there.
Chapter 19
April
Belfast was Emily’s new favorite bar.
And not just because she’d gone there that first night with the high of Jase’s friendship still fresh on her lips. Or because being on a welcome-hug basis with both Brody and Molly meant she couldn’t get within a swallow of the last sip of her drink before some attentive server would swoop in with the offer of another. Or even because her favorite local band, Westher, had been playing when she’d walked in the door and seen Jase grinning at her from over the crowd.
But because Belfast had totally lived up to the hype.
For years, it had been the one watering hole in Chicagoland that she’d avoided like the plague, no matter how many friends raved about it. That’s because it was Brody O’Donnel’s bar. And everyone knew that Brody and Jase were BFFs of the highest order. If she pretty much wanted to guarantee that she would run into Jase, Belfast was where she would have gone. And until this last week, interacting with Jase hadn’t made her to-do list.
But everything was different now.
After darts on Wednesday, she’d found her way back Saturday night with a couple of girlfriends who’d been pushing her to go for months. She’d known Jase had other plans that night—he was seeing a play written by one of his friends—which meant she hadn’t felt quite so conspicuous showing up there. She didn’t have to worry about seeming like maybe she was hoping for the chance to take things a little further than they’d gone Wednesday night—which hadn’t been anywhere. Jase had been deep in the friend zone, barely working a baby toe out to sling his arm around the back of her chair for a minute and a half while she waited for her turn to throw.