Abandon (14 page)

Senia’s three older sisters are a whole different story. They ogle me all through dinner and I catch Senia burning them with her laser eyes multiple times. None of them are as hot as Senia, but her sister Maribel, who’s just two years older than Senia, keeps glancing at me as she blathers on about her volunteer work at the local boys and girls club. It starts to make me a little uncomfortable, so I reach up and pretend to wipe something from the corner of Senia’s mouth.

“What is it?” Senia asks as she attempts to wipe her face clean.

“Nothing. Just a piece of
pupu … sa
. I got it.”

“You think that’s funny?”

“I think you’re smiling.”

I kiss her cheek and she pushes me away gently. “Stop.”

But Senia’s little sister Sophie, who Senia proudly claims to have named, is the most persistent of them all. She sits next to me on the couch as the family watches football and we draw pictures. She draws pictures of all the new friends she’s made in kindergarten and I draw a picture of Molly. She trades drawings with me and asks me to draw something on her picture. I think this is her subtle way of trying to get me to improve her drawing. So I add a sketch of Senia and me on the right side of the page and she makes me squeeze in a picture of her so the three of us are together.

Senia pretends to be playing on her phone the whole time, but I catch her stealing glances at Sophie and me every once in a while with a tiny smile curling the corners of her lips. By the time we leave her parents’ house, I’m confident I passed the test, if only for the blood-curdling tantrum that Sophie threw when I told her it was time for me to leave. After I’ve pulled my car into the garage and plugged it in to charge overnight, Senia and I take my tuxedo and her maid-of-honor dress upstairs and go straight to bed.

I don’t know if this is what it feels like to be in an adult relationship, but if it is, then I could get used to it. It feels good to be adored. But knowing that there’s only one girl who
I
adore is freeing. Unless the little sac of DNA inside Senia’s belly is a girl. Then I’ll have two girls to adore. In which case, the more the better.

I leave Senia with Claire so they can get ready for the wedding, then Chris, Jake, and I head out of the hotel to a tattoo shop in downtown Vegas.

“So you’re still not going to tell us what you’re getting?” Jake says with a laugh when I refuse for the twentieth time to tell him and Chris what I’m getting tattooed on my wrist today. “That’s weak.”

“That’s weak?” I reply incredulously. “I’m not the one getting Jay-Rae and today’s date tattooed on my wrist. That’s some weak shit right there.”

Chris and Jake are both getting their wedding dates tattooed on their wrists, but I’m not getting married tonight. I racked my brain trying to come up with something I could get tattooed on the inside of my wrist that was both small enough and significant enough to display so prominently. What I decided on was something that makes sense to me and only me. Maybe someday, it will make sense to the person I allow into my fucked-up world forever.

After we leave the shop with our tattoos conveniently covered in gauze, I get a text from Senia telling me to meet her in tent number six. The wedding is being held in the middle of the desert with Jake and Rachel saying their vows at 11.30 p.m. and Chris and Claire saying their vows at midnight. Chris insisted on paying for the entire wedding so that he would have the privilege of getting married as the clock strikes twelve. If I had half as much money as that asshole does, I’d probably do the same.

When the band broke up briefly last year, while Chris was recording in L.A., Jake and I used to get drunk and try to figure out the terms of Chris’s recording contract. It turns out our guesses were way off the mark, but I’m not complaining. Even if Chris does earn about seven times as much as Jake and me, I’m happy with the fuck-ton of money I made this year. And to show Chris that there are no hard feelings, I got him a wedding present that he will never forget and that I guarantee will top every other gift he and Claire receive today.

After I shower and change into my tux, I hop in a cab and head for the desert. It’s about 9.30 p.m. when the cab pulls into the sandy lot. The half-dozen tents they have set up for the wedding glow like paper lanterns on a blanket of sand. They’ve laid paths of grass and lights between the tents so no one gets lost. It’s freezing out here. I hope Senia’s wearing something that will keep her warm.

I can’t knock on the silk tent, but I can see silhouettes moving inside. “Knock-knock,” I call out and the sounds of shuffling come as a reply.

Senia appears at the entrance to the tent, still wearing a T-shirt and sweat pants and rollers in her hair. She takes one look at me in my tux and her jaw goes slack. “That is so fucking hot.”

“You’re not so bad yourself. The curlers really work with that ensemble.”

“Shut up. I can’t get dressed until all my make-up is done. I paid six hundred dollars for that dress. I can’t get make-up on it.”

“Why did you pay for the dress? I would have paid for it.”

“Uh, hello? You were standing right there when I forked over my credit card the other day at the bridal shop and you never said anything about paying. You were probably too busy trying to block out our conversation.”

“Sorry. I guess I
was
trying to tune it out.”

She reaches up and adjusts my hair a little. “Do you mind if I fix your hair later? I have to finish Rachel right now.”

I laugh at this suggestion. “Yes, I do mind. Is that why you asked me to come here?” She smiles sheepishly as she reaches for my hair again and I push her hand away. “You’re not doing anything to this hair. I’m like Samson: my hair is my strength. No one touches this hair except my hairdresser Kali. Understood?”

“Ooh, you
do
take your hair seriously. I
like
that.” She plants a soft kiss on my lips then turns around to head back into the tent. “Jake is in tent number five. See you in a couple of hours, best man.”

Jake and I hang out in tent number five for a while, taking shots of tequila as we wait for Chris to arrive. Chris isn’t a big drinker when he’s with Claire, but I can always count on Jake to get plastered with me. And I’m really fucking nervous right now. Not about the weddings; about the toast and the wedding gift, and I’m nervous about Senia seeing this tattoo.

By our fourth shot of tequila, Jake’s reddish-brown hair and beard are starting to look a little disheveled. “Maybe you should slow down,” I suggest. I grab the bottle of tequila off the glass tabletop before he can pour another shot. “You don’t want to forget your vows.”

“I can’t believe I’m getting married to Rachel,” he slurs.

I try not to laugh at this declaration. Rachel has always been a supreme bitch – always saying what’s on her mind with no regard for anyone’s feelings. She has absolutely no filter between her brain and her mouth. But despite that, I think Jake is lucky to have her. She’s dug him out of so many holes over the years. She even drove his mom to all her radiation appointments when she got skin cancer on her arm last year.

“You can’t believe you’re getting married? Or you can’t believe it’s Rachel you’re marrying?”

“I can’t believe she wants to marry me.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re Jay-Rae! You’re gonna get your matching Jay-Rae pillowcases and she’ll give birth to two-point-five beards. And Jay-Rae will live happily ever after.”

He smiles reluctantly. “Show me that fucking tattoo.”

The tequila swirls in my belly at the sound of these words. I consider blowing him off, then I realize that there is absolutely no way he’ll know what it means. I pull the gauze and tape off my wrist and hold it up for him to see.

He leans forward in his chair and squints. “One, two, three. What does that mean?”

“Nothing important,” I reply, standing from the chair and taking the bottle of tequila with me toward the vanity area. I put the bottle down on the surface of the white vanity and proceed to cover the tattoo again. “Come on. You have to drink some water and try to sober up a little. You’re on in forty minutes.”

Once Jake and Rachel say their vows, I set off to find Chris to give him his wedding gift before his ceremony begins. I stop him just as he’s heading for the big tent.

“What’s up?” Chris asks as he tucks his phone into his pocket.

I feel nervous; like, so nervous I’m almost sick to my stomach. Why the fuck am I so nervous about giving my best friend his wedding present? Maybe it has to do with the sheer magnitude of the gift.

“I want to give you and Claire your wedding gift before everything gets crazy. Do you mind? It’s in there,” I say, nodding toward the tent where Jake and I were downing tequila shots earlier.

“You just can’t wait until later to give me that blowjob, can you?”

I shrug as we head for the tent. “Nah, that can wait until later. And this present is much better since I’m not nearly as good at sucking dick as you are.”

We enter the tent and I immediately head for the purple bag where Senia packed the present with her gazillion styling tools. That girl and her obsession with hair and make-up are going to make me go broke. I pull a thick, white envelope out of the bag and hand it to Chris.

Chris stares at it for a moment, trying to figure it out. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s the deed to my house. I don’t want it any more. Senia and I are moving to Chapel Hill so she doesn’t have to commute to school next semester.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t want your house.”

He tries to push the envelope into my hand, but I take a step back and shake my head. “It’s done. I already gifted it to you. I already put a deposit on an apartment off campus. The house is yours.” He runs his fingers through his hair as he stares at the envelope in my hand. “I know you and Claire wanted a house with a good piece of land.”

He shakes his head in disbelief, but soon a smile comes over his face and his eyes light up as if he has an idea. “You can have my condo. There’s still eleven months on the lease.”

“Are you serious?”

“As serious as I am that this is the craziest fucking day of my life.” He tucks the envelope into his back pocket and looks me dead in the eye. “What about the tour? Are you bailing on me?”

I shrug as he continues to stare at me. Finally, I nod. “Yeah, I gotta stay here. My grandma will kill me if I let Senia have the baby alone.”

“Doing it for Grandma, huh?”

I try not to let him see the internal struggle going on inside me right now – the voice telling me that Grandma won’t be around long enough to know if I leave Senia to go on tour.

“Yeah, let’s just stick with that story for now,” I reply. “I’m not used to this relationship bullshit.”

“Thanks, man,” he says and I congratulate him, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when your best friend is getting married to the person he’s been in love with for six years. But something is off. He has a faraway look in his eyes, and I hope he’s not thinking about the one person who’s not here with him today. “Hey, Claire is pregnant,” he says, and his smile returns. “Don’t tell anyone. I’m going to tell everyone at the reception.”

I can’t help but grin like a crazy person as I slowly nod my head. “You just had to outdo me, didn’t you? Now what? I’m gonna have to get married on a fucking tightrope?”

“I’ll be there to cut the rope.”

When we head back to the big tent to wait for Claire to make her big entrance, I don’t have to wait very long before Senia comes walking in wearing a black dress that hugs her gorgeous body, her hair pulled back exposing her slender neck. She walks with such grace and confidence.

“You’re beautiful,” I whisper, and she smiles as she hooks her arm in mine and we set off down the aisle.

Something about watching all your best friend’s dreams come true in a single moment is really fucking emotional. I manage to keep my cool, but I understand why ladies cry at these things. I understand why Jake was crying during his vows. Weddings are intense.

Senia cries throughout Chris and Claire’s entire wedding ceremony and she sobs uncontrollably when Chris, Claire, Jake, and Rachel all get on stage and sing “Your Song.” When Chris and Claire break the big news about Claire’s pregnancy to the crowd, I have to hold her to console her.

“This is the most beautiful wedding ever,” she says with a deep sigh, then she uses a fancy napkin to soak up her tears.

“Yours will be better.” She looks up at me in total disbelief. “I promise.”