The Luckiest (19 page)

Nik closes his eyes and leans his head into Aaron’s hands, his breath against Aaron’s cheek, and murmurs, “Mmm, Texas boy in New York City?” Nik’s voice is quiet and low, gravelly and intimate. Aaron has so many memories of it like this, and he wants to keep them forever.

“Something like that. My family isn’t like yours; it’s not like I was born into a long line of intellectuals.” It’s so easy to say this to Nik. He should have known how valuable that was, how much that meant.

“Do you miss the kids? Or the cooking? Or all of the… other stuff?” Nik’s eyes are still closed, and his voice has gone a little dreamy and faraway.

“Not really, no. I have enough of a hustle trying to keep my rent paid. I do miss working with my hands, though. Some­times I think about getting a job tending bar just to keep my body busier. And sometimes I think I need a hobby. Maybe I’ll take up knitting or something, something that will use my hands but let my brain wander.”

“You have such
good
hands.” Nik sighs, and he opens his eyes and looks at Aaron dreamily. Aaron grins at him, finishes with his hair and kisses his nose, and moves away to wash his hands again.

“I’m glad you like them. You have any ideas for keeping them busy?”

Nik smirks at him and says, “Oh, now you’re just teasing.”

Nik digs his hands into Aaron’s hips, sliding them against the smooth fabric of his boxer briefs, and pulls him into a kiss. Aaron kisses him there in the steamy bathroom, and lets one hand rest against Nik’s smooth cheek, still the tiniest bit tacky from his aftershave gel. Nik smells so
good,
clean and herbal and woodsy and just right, and he tastes like toothpaste—and it’s love, God, this is love, and it’s his.

* * *

“Okay, ladies, it’s time,” Aaron says, finally knocking at Jas­mine’s bedroom door. He pushes it open.

Alex is standing in front of the mirror. She’s perfectly still and silent, and if that’s not alarming enough, she’s just staring at her reflection. “Alex, are you okay?”

She blinks. “I’m fine. God, Aaron, I am… I’m completely fine. Totally. Fine, I mean.”

He watches her, watches the reflection of himself watching her. “You’ve said that three times, so I’m starting to doubt you.”

She meets his eyes in the mirror and forces a smile, saying, “No. Really. I just… maybe I’m a little freaked out that I’m so fine?”

He looks at her; her eyes are wide, but he can’t tell—is this what “shocky” looks like? “Okay, you’ve lost me here.” She picks up a brush and runs it through her hair, watching her reflection. “Can you, like, give me a signal? Blink your eyes three times if I need to go have a really awkward conversation with David, or something?”

She blinks at him once, twice, and then laughs at him. “Really, Aaron. I’m fine. I think I expected maybe not to be? You see so many movies, you know—those romantic comedies really get in your head.” She turns and rests her butt on the ledge of the dressing table, smacking the hairbrush against her hand. “But I feel like…. this is just what happens now. We’ve been talking about this for so long, and we’ve been planning and… it’s David. He won’t hurt me, he would
never
hurt me. So today, I’m going to marry him. It’s that simple.”

“Really?” Aaron knows he sounds a bit skeptical, but the look on her face is twitching between manic and serene and he can’t tell what’s going on with her. It’s something in her eyes, something new.

“Really. Let’s do this!” she cries, hairbrush held aloft, and then she’s unbuttoning her shirt.

“Damn, Alex! Okay, let me get into the bathroom.”

“Aaron, how many times have you seen me getting dressed?”

But he’s already slipping into the other room, hissing at her. “Shut up, we should pretend to have some decorum—your mother could walk in at any moment, and I don’t need the Maria Martinez-Garcia stink-eye all day.”

She laughs as Aaron closes the door and leans his head against it. He catches his breath—he’ll never tell her, but she’d had him going with that blinking thing. He was already half­way through imagining how on earth he was going to tell David that Alex had put him through this for no good reason before she finally broke.
She can be such a bitch,
one of his very favor­ites. He smiles.

“Okay, princess, all essential parts covered.”

He walks back out and zips her back into her dress. “Where’s Jasmine? I can’t believe she’s shirking her duties again.”

“She was talking to Joe—I didn’t want to bother her.”

“Alex! It’s her job, to be bothered by you!” He finishes the hooks at the top and then stoops to fluff her crinolines, reach­ing under her skirt and thank God her mother
isn’t
here. “And her and Joe? We’re really going there again?”

“Mm hmm, I think so,” she says, conspiratorially.

“You think they’re interested?” he asks absently, looking over the line of her dress with a critical eye. There’s nothing to see, though—it’s perfect.

“Oh, who could ever tell with Joe. And Jasmine—I don’t know. She’s still so fucked up over Mitchell, but maybe? Maybe it could be just the thing she needs.”

He looks at her, at her sly smile, and says, “Hmmm. I think it’s good that you’re going to be somewhere else for a little while. You’ve turned into a vicious matchmaker.”

“Says the man who was reunited with his high school sweetheart by my machinations.”

“I very clearly remember a conversation where you said you were staying out of that.”

“All part of my brilliant plan.” Aaron rolls his eyes, but she says, “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

“I think it just might have.”

“Exactly.”

There’s a knock on the door, and Alex’s mom and Jasmine spill in, eager to help Alex with the rest of her preparations. Aaron waits for a minute to see if they need him, and then he meets Alex’s eyes in the mirror, winks and blows her a kiss, and slips out the door.

She’s ready.

Aaron and Stephanie sit together on the aisle, right behind Alex’s parents. Nik’s smile for Aaron, just as the strings pick up into a processional, is small and private, and Stephanie squeezes his hand and then squeezes tighter when Jasmine steps from behind the crowd and walks slowly down the aisle.

And then there’s Alex, and oh God, this is actually happening: one of them is getting married.

Aaron watches Alex marry David and remembers. His first memory of her is from elementary school; there was a school­yard fight, and she was fierce in it, and he remembers thinking,
Oh yeah, that girl lives down the street
. He remembers sharing the back seat of her mom’s car; mocking her for her great and earnest love of O-Town; dragging her to their first newspaper meeting at the beginning of freshman year so he wouldn’t have to go alone; laughing with her while they finished Jas­mine’s Magenta makeup for her first—and last—go at
Rocky Horror
; checking his phone in a Hot Topic so he could pre­tend he was
anywhere
else while she bought another six sets of multicolored hair extensions; hearing her laugh at the grad­uation after-party, where she sat drunk and loose and draped over Andy’s lap. He remembers the summer afternoon they drove to Mon­trose in Houston to get her hair cut off; her grimace as she got her first tattoo; the way she smiled when David laughed at her and pulled her across his lap for a spanking, and how she raised her brows at Aaron when he was done; her serious face just days ago, when they stared at the ceiling together in his bed and talked about love and sex and commitment.

Stephanie is already crying, and so is Alex’s mother, so what the hell—he might as well join in. The three of them can cry, because Alex’s face is radiant, joyful and she’s moving on.

Laying his hand across her jaw and turning her face toward him, David draws Alex into a kiss, and Aaron takes just a moment to join in the cheering before he stands and moves to the middle of the aisle. People close in around him, jos­tling to fit into the spaces as quietly as possible as David kisses Alex, bend­ing her back just a little as she clutches to his shoulders. When the kiss is wrapping up, while they’re pulling back to stare at each other, a guy next to Aaron quietly hums a note and starts counting off.

The middle voices come in with the rhythm, steady and slow, and then he soars above them, la-la-ing and grinning because Alex has turned to face them, her eyes wide and surprised. David takes Alex’s hands in his own, his face so serious, and Nik moves to join the group, preparing to back him up in tempo. The doo-wop guys continue to rock the falsetto, woo-ing like a choir of the silliest, most wonderful angels, and then David launches into his part.

David sings a gently romantic song about second chances, about all of the things he might not have managed to get right in the past. The lyrics tell the story of a lifetime of mistakes, the misdirection you don’t recognize until you’re already three steps down the wrong road. The chorus, though, is a reminder that sometimes you get lucky and find the right thing after a long time getting it wrong, and a celebration of that moment when you finally recognize it.

Nik takes his hand, and Aaron floats within a sea of high voices singing in unison, flying above the rest of the voices holding them up. It’s a beautiful moment—Aaron doesn’t sing and he doesn’t even really like doing readings, but he likes
this
, likes being part of something so much bigger than himself. The wind is in his hair, the sun on his skin, and he can’t stop watching Alex, who is quietly and beautifully crumbling. He’s seen her like this before—in high school she’d been so easily overwhelmed by how deeply she could feel, and he had been embarrassed for her then, ashamed that she didn’t know how to conceal the things that were most precious to her. Now he watches her eyes fill with tears, watches the tears streak her face—not a hint of black among them, he’s delighted to see—and he loves her for it, appreciates her tender heart for the gift it is.

He squeezes Nik’s hand and moves a little closer to him, and he sings, for Alex, for David, for himself and for Nik. He sings.

* * *

“What I need you all to understand is that I spent the better part of three days making this thing. Do you remember how I behaved when we had to scrap the newspaper layout the week before the start of senior year?” Everybody winces. “Exactly. And that was ridiculous to begin with. This, however,” and he gestures with a flourish to the three layers of cake sitting on the countertop before them, “is not. This is a beautiful, handmade white cake with heirloom strawberry filling and champagne syrup and meticulously applied buttercream icing. Do not—Josh, I’m looking at you, make eye contact, please—do
not
fuck this up.”

Joe looks serious, Josh looks like he needs a bathroom and Nik is clearly trying not to laugh. Aaron throws up his hands. “Oh, forget it. Let’s just… okay, let’s do it. Just… for fuck’s sake,
please
be careful.”

Nobody moves.

“Well! Don’t just stand there! Pick up the damn cakes!”

Josh stumbles toward the counter, and Aaron grabs his arm. “Josh Broussard, I know where you live. I will… I’ll
tell your mother
if you destroy Alex’s cake, do you hear me?” When Josh blanches, he knows he’s got him.

Nik moves up behind Aaron and lays a hand on his arm. “Aaron. Aaron, honey, come on. Go easy on him. If he starts shaking, he’s useless to you.”

Aaron gives Josh one more glare and then says, “Fine.
Fine.
Josh, I mean it though. Please just… be as careful as you know how to be.” Aaron mutters under his breath as he opens the back door. “Oh my God, why did I think Josh would be useful for this? Bianca—I should have gotten Bianca and Shelby. Flexible,
graceful
former dancers.”

They parade out the door—Joe in the lead with the bottom layer, smiling at Aaron as he clears the threshold; Josh right behind him, his eyes trained on the middle layer; and Nik bringing up the rear with the top, jewels already in place. Aaron pulls the door shut and walks behind them, and when he hears Josh say, “Dude, I’m
so glad
you’re back with Aaron. Does this mean you’re going to be coming home with him all the time? Because that would be
awesome
,” he allows himself one vicious smile before he hurries ahead of them to ready the table.

The cake has been cut, most of the food has been eaten and God knows the bar has been busy—Mia has finally just grabbed a chair so she can rest between takers and shaken her long, dark, wavy hair into a cloud around her shoulders. Aaron leans against the bar, ready to help her out, while Nik chats with the last of the musicians, who are still lingering and enjoying the free food and last drinks before they get back on the road.

Jasmine swings by the bar and steals a bottle of wine to take back to her table, and Aaron grabs her by the waist before she can go. “You okay?” he says under the music.

“I’m better than okay,” she says with a giggle. “Joe brought a blunt. It’s just like old times.” He snorts into her hair and she slaps at him before she hugs him, and for a moment it’s like it used to be, just the two of them who will always find a way to understand each other. The older they get, the less they seem to have in common—she seems to get less serious as she becomes an adult, while Aaron has never been anything but directed—and, when you’ve known somebody for a long time, it sometimes doesn’t matter how different you are. Jasmine is drifting a little, but Aaron knows she’ll make her way to some­where wonderful eventually; and right now, under these lights and with these people, that is its own kind of beautiful.

“Can you believe one of us got married?” he says.

She looks straight at him and shakes her head. “And you know what’s worse? You’re totally next.”

He scoffs, but he can feel himself blushing, and she points at him and laughs while she twists and dances away, wine bottle dangling from her fingers.

The playlist swings into “Make Me Better” and the energy takes a jump—the music pours into the open air, but it still feels as if the chairs are vibrating from the bass. Everybody with a willing dance partner hits the floor, some of them even dragging unwilling partners along and under the gentle twinkling lights all over the arbor. A gaggle of Alex’s girlfriends pass in front of Aaron, heading in to do one of their girl group dances, and then the crowd clears and he can see his people.