: Chapter 20

I STARE AT THE WELCOME MAT in front of me. It’s generic, something Patricia picked out when she decided to level up their entryway. I remember Gary sending me before and after pictures and how proud he was of his wife for making their house look like a home.

I remember wondering what happened to the guy who’d dunk his head in a toilet to make his frat brothers laugh. He’s a far cry from that man, but as I look at the welcome mat now, I have to admit, it’s a nice one.

Kind of wish I had one for my place.

The door unlocks and then opens and when Gary’s face comes into view, I nearly throw my arms around him.

“Dude,” Gary says happily as he pulls me into a hug. “You’re back.”

Clearly Maggie hasn’t spoken to him yet or else he wouldn’t be hugging me like this.

“Just in time for the Rebels game. Patricia is out for the night, she’s working some charity down on the pier, so come in. I have pizza on the way. You can tell me all about—” He pauses and then his face sours. “Fuck,” he says. “I forgot about you and Maggie.” Oh shit, maybe she did get to him.

“Listen, man, let me explain.”

He holds up his hand. “No, it’s fine. Patricia told me I was being a baby and that I needed to grow up. If my best friend wants to date my sister, then I need to let it happen. She tried claiming that she knew there was something brewing between you two, but I told her—respectfully—that she was full of it.” He shakes his head. “I’ll be honest, it’s going to take me a second to get used to, but if you want to love my sister, then love her.”

I feel all the blood drain from my body and pour out onto the stoop of his brownstone. Because fuck do I want to love her, so damn badly, and yet, I made such a monumental mistake that I don’t think loving her is even an option anymore.

“Dude,” I say, swallowing hard. “I fucked up.”

His eyes narrow and his lips purse together. “How bad?”

I slowly nod. “Bad.”

He squeezes his eyes shut as his nostrils flare. I’m ready for him to slam the door in my face, but instead, he steps to the side, letting me in.

And this is why he’s my best friend.

With my tail tucked between my legs, I walk into his house, up the flight of stairs to his living room, and straight to the couch. The pregame is on. Gary walks into his kitchen and I hear him pull out two beers for us before bringing them into the living room.

He hands me one and takes a seat on the couch next to me.

“Did you hurt her?”

I take a sip of my beer, swallow, and then say, “Not on purpose.”

He moves so fast, I don’t even see it coming, but before I can stop him, his fist drives into my arm, causing me to spill my beer on my shirt as pain ricochets through my shoulder.

“Fuck,” I say as I rub the sore spot. “Can I at least explain?” I ask.

“Yes, but I told you not to hurt her, so that punch was for disobeying me.”

“Disobeying you?” I ask, shocked by the masculinity coming from my pal, ol’ Gare Bear.

“Yes. I told you not to hurt her, you disobeyed, therefore, punch to your arm. Now, the severity of that hurt will decide where I attack you next.” He points his finger at me. “But I need you to know, this hurts me just as much as it hurts you. So don’t think I get pleasure out of this.”

At least he’s honest.

“I understand.”

Gary gestures toward me. “Now, tell me how you fucked up.”

“Well, can I first say that it was never my intention to hurt her?”

“Yes, that will earn you some points.”

“Good.” I push my hand through my hair. “Well, I never wanted to hurt her. I actually was planning out all of these dates we could go on when we got back here, but something happened the night before the Hopper wedding.”

“I would ask if you cheated on her, but I know you better than that.”

“I would never,” I say. Thank fuck he knows I’d never do that. Could never do that.

He slowly nods. “I know. Proceed.”

“I was at the bachelor party for Jude. Turns out, Reginald’s purpose was to get me drunk and embarrass me. Long story short, he called me out for my ulterior motives for being at the wedding, made me do my proposal in front of everyone while I was drunk, and well…apparently, I told them about one of Maggie’s ideas, the pocket wedding.” I see Gary flinch. “I had no fucking clue I did it, but she found out and basically told me to get lost. Rightfully so. Now the Hoppers are moving forward with her idea, I’m fired, and can’t fucking fix it. Your sister won’t talk to me because I’m a goddamn idiot, and all I care about is preserving her idea and bringing it back to her.”

I prepare myself for the next blow, not sure where he will go with it, but I’m ready. So when he turns toward me, I brace for impact, wincing before he even cocks his arm back.

“You were drunk?”

“Only because Reginald was a jackass and forced me to drink local moonshine. Dude, I still can’t taste food very well.”

He sits forward and presses his finger to his thigh. “Are you telling me that my best friend got taken advantage of?”

Confused, I slowly say, “Yes.”

“And because you’re drunk, you go and say something stupid that not only costs you your job, but my sister, too?”

“Yes,” I say a little more confidently.

“Well, Jesus fuck.” He sets his beer on the table and reaches for me. I brace for impact but instead of being pummeled to the ground, I’m brought into Gary’s soft, plushy chest. “For God’s sake, what you’ve been through.” He soothes his hand over my back and, I don’t know, maybe I’ve lost all my faculties because I’m completely spent from the last week, but I fall into his embrace, resting my cheek on his shoulder.

“It’s been hell,” I say.

“I can’t even imagine.” He pats me a few times and then squeezes me tightly just as there is a knock at the door. When he pulls back, he says, “That’s the pizza. Why don’t you go into my room, borrow some sweatpants, and get comfortable.”

I nod. “I’d like that.”

And then we both leave the couch—him going to get the food, and me going to find comfort.

“Did I tell you that whenever she smiled at me, it felt like sunshine filling me with joy?” I ask Gary as I hold my third beer in my hand and my third piece of pizza in the other.

“You mentioned something about sunshine,” he answers.

“Yeah, I really like her smile. And her teeth. And her mouth. Fuck, her mouth, man.”

“Whoa-kay, I’m going to stop you right there.” Gary holds up his hand. “You can tell me how much you miss her all you want, but don’t start talking about her private parts.”

“Her mouth is not a private part.”

“In the context you were using, it is. Keep that shit to yourself.” He takes a bite of his crust.

“Sorry,” I mumble and drain the rest of my beer. “What about her eyes, did I go into detail about her eyes enough?”

“Yes,” Gary says. “I liked that part since we have the same eyes, almost felt like you were talking about me.”

“I wasn’t,” I say.

“I know,” Gary replies, offended. “Just felt nice for a second to be acknowledged.”

“And, dude, she made me laugh. She’s so witty and charming. Fuck, is she charming. At first, I was annoyed by how charming she was, like everyone fucking liked her and I felt like chopped liver, but then the more time I spent with her, the more I was like, yeah, I get it. The girl is fucking charming and it’s magnetic. Like I wanted to be around her all the time.”

“She learned some of that charm from me.” Gary puffs his chest. And I can guarantee you right now, she didn’t win any charm from Gary. I love the guy, but Gary if a doofus and Maggie, she’s…she’s a fucking angel.

“I just wish I didn’t fuck this up. Are you…are you mad at me?”

Gary wipes his mouth with a napkin. “I’m not happy with you, but you were also drunk, so, dude, I don’t know.”

“I get it.” I twist my lips to the side, thinking. “Maybe you could, I don’t know, invite her over here or something so I could talk to her?”

“Didn’t she say she didn’t want to speak to you?”

“Yes,” I answer. “But, Gary, come on. I need to fix this.”

“Then fix what you did, don’t try to fix things with her.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Listen, for you to win the girl back, you have to go to the root of the problem. And the root of the problem is you took a piece of her business and fed it to a competitor. So, you have to right that wrong if you want even a fighting chance at winning her back.”

“But how?” I say. “I was fired. I tried when I was in still the office, but I don’t have access to the Hopper family anymore. And by now, I have no doubt that Reginald has tainted every impression of me. Meaning, there’s no way in hell that Hardy or Hudson will listen to me, even if I do send them an email or something.”

“Didn’t think about that,” Gary says, slouching on the couch. “What about your boss? Can’t you ask her?”

“She did say she was going to figure things out and would be in touch.”

Gary whacks my leg. “Well, there you go. Let her do her thing. In the meantime, you just soak up some time with your Gare Bear.”

I snuggle into the side of the couch. “Can I stay the night?”

“You can stay as long as you want.”

THREE DAYS LATER…

“And this is when we were hiking and the snake bit me but didn’t really bite me, but I thought it bit me, but it was the branch. Don’t we look happy?” I ask Patricia as I sit on the kitchen counter and flash her one of my favorite pictures of me and Maggie.

“Yes, you showed me last night,” she says as she stirs the spaghetti sauce she’s been working on for the last hour. I asked her why she didn’t just buy some premade sauce from the store, and she told me that making it was supposed to give her some time to herself, but that backfired because I decided to watch her.

I think it was a subtle way of her saying she wanted me to leave her alone, but once she started mixing things in a pot, I became invested.

“Is that your favorite picture of us?” I ask Patricia as I stare down at Maggie’s smiling face. We weren’t even a couple then, and yet we look more like a couple than ever. God, I miss the way she pressed her hand to my chest. It was so delicate, and yet, possessive. I should have known in this picture that she liked me. All that fucking wasted time.

“You know, I haven’t really considered a favorite,” she says.

“Do you want me to put them up on the TV again tonight and you can decide your favorite?”

“You know, it’s the waterfall one, yup, that’s my favorite,” she says as she pours some cream into the sauce, turning it from bright red to burnt orange.

“Yeah, I like that one too.” I sigh heavily. “There’s some I haven’t showed you because I don’t think they’d be appropriate. But I have this one picture of her sleeping on my chest, she’s topless, but you can’t see anything. I stare at that one before I go to sleep because it reminds me how comfortable I was with her.”

“That’s…uh…that’s nice.”

“Thanks.” I set my phone to the side and clasp my hands together. “Can I ask you something, Patricia?”

“I mean, you haven’t stopped talking since you came in here, so sure, why not?” She almost sounds sarcastic, but I understand why Maggie loves Patricia so much. She’s definitely the better half of her and Gary.

“When you and Gary broke up in college because he was an idiot, got drunk, and gave a lap dance to that one girl…” I see Patricia’s jaw tighten. “When you guys were apart, did you still love him?”

“I did,” she says tersely, still stirring the sauce.

“Even though you were mad at him, you still loved him?”

“Yes. It’s not easy to just forget about feelings you’ve harbored for years. I was furious with him, and it was hard to forgive, but I never stopped loving him. Are you asking because you hope that Maggie still has feelings for you?”

“Yeah.” I look up at Patricia. “Have you spoken to her? I know you’re close. Did she say anything to you?”

Patricia shakes her head. “I haven’t heard from her at all.”

“Are you just saying that because she told you not to say that or are you saying that because she truly hasn’t said anything to you?”

Patricia turns to me and looks me in the eyes. “Brody, I like you. I consider you a friend. But you are being extremely annoying—very needy, very clingy and frankly, the only reason I’m allowing this to go on is because I know if I ask you to leave my house, I’m going to have to deal with Gary worrying about you. I’d rather keep you here and listen to you talk aimlessly about Maggie. Therefore, if I had any sort of detail as to what is going on with her at the moment, don’t you think that I’d tell you so this would be over and done with and the sooner that can happen, the better?”

I give it some thought.

“Are you saying that my annoyance outweighs your girl code?”

“Yes,” she says exasperated.

I nod. “Good to know.”

TWO DAYS LATER…

“I know you guys said you don’t want to get in the middle of this,” I say as I join them in the living room where they’re watching an episode of Jeopardy! Gary is terrible, but the way he shouts his answers with confidence, you have to give the man credit. “But—”

“What is yellow corn?” Gary shouts.

“What is All Souls’ Day,” the contestant on the TV says, getting the answer right. Gary slaps his leg and turns his attention to me.

“What were you saying?”

“I was saying, I know you don’t want to get in the middle of this romance gone wrong, but I was just scrolling through social media and saw a GIF of Kris Jenner where she says, ‘What would happen if you just call Taylor up’ and it got me thinking—”

“Who is Patricia Arquette?” Gary shouts.

“What is the pitchfork?” the contestant and Patricia say at the same time. Gary winces.

“Uh…anyway, what if you know…if you just called Maggie up?”

Gary lifts up the remote and pauses the TV. He turns to me and asks, “You want me to call my sister up? And say what?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Maybe just casually check in.”

“I never do that. She’d be suspicious.”

“Then how about you, Patricia?” I ask. “Don’t you just want to, I don’t know…chat it up like two gal pals?”

“We don’t call each other on the phone. We just text.”

“Perfect,” I say as I move closer to her. “Where’s your phone? Let’s text her.”

“I’m not going to text her, Brody.”

“Why not?” I ask. “I think it would be a friendly thing to do. You know, ask how her vacation went.”

“She’s going to know that we talked to you,” Patricia says.

“You don’t need to mention me,” I say, feeling so desperate that it’s actually pathetic. “Just ask if she got tan or something. And she did if you’re wondering. Her skin was so smooth and—”

“What the fuck did I tell you about private parts?” Gary says, pointing the remote at me. “None of that shit.”

But her skin was so smooth and silky, and fuck I miss kissing up her legs, between her legs, all over her body.

“Ew, I think he’s thinking about her skin,” Patricia says, pulling me out of my brief reverie.

“God, just text her and end this nonsense.” Gary presses play on the remote again and zones in, so I turn to Patricia and clasp my hands together.

“Please…”

She grumbles something under her breath and pulls up her phone.

“Attagirl,” I say as I saddle up next to her, shoulder to shoulder.

“You’re going to be kicked out of this house soon.”

“Understood,” I say, practically frothing at the mouth with the knowledge that I’m going to hear from Maggie. Sure, it might not be a direct conversation, but I’ll take what I can get at this point.

Patricia opens up a text thread and starts typing.

Patricia: Hey girl, how was Bora-Bora? Hope you had a good time.

“Perfect text, very casual. Well done, Patricia.”

“I’m so glad you approve,” she says, her voice full of sarcasm.

“What is the Great Magellan?” Gary shouts.

“What is the Rock of Gibraltar?” the contestant says.

“Damn it, so close,” Gary says.

“Not really,” Patricia says. “One is the world’s most powerful telescope, the other is a limestone landmark.”

“Hey,” I say to Patricia, tapping the screen of her phone. “Let’s focus on this.”

She lifts her eyebrow at me in a warning, and I slink back on the couch with a nervous laugh. “You know, just want you to be on top of your texting—”

Beep.

“Oh fuck, she texted you back.” I shoot off the couch and run around in a circle. “She texted back. Oh fuck.” I pick up a throw pillow and hand it to Gary before taking a seat back on the couch, reaching for Patricia’s phone.

She smacks my hand away and says, “Pull it together or I’m not reading this text to you.”

“You’re right. Sorry.” I take a deep breath. “Go ahead, I’m calm.”

She eyes me for a few seconds before she unlocks her phone and flashes the text to me.

Maggie: Vacation was great. Thanks.

“That’s it?” I ask. “That’s all she’s going to say? What about…oh I don’t know, the man she slept with multiple times a night for—”

“What is private parts?” Gary shouts. “Come on, man.”

“I’m sorry.” I drape my arm over my head. “But…that’s all? It was great? I would have at least thought she would have said…orgasmic.”

“Leave,” Gary says, pointing to his front door.

But I don’t leave. I just melt onto the floor where I fucking pout for the rest of the night.

THREE DAYS LATER…

“I don’t think I’m cut out to do this dog walker thing,” I say as I take a seat on the couch next to Gary and Patricia.

“You did it for one day,” Gary says, his irritation growing. I noticed it this morning when I told him we were out of yogurt and that I would add it to our grocery list.

“One day was enough for me. The dogs didn’t like me. I was not the alpha in the pack.”

“Probably because you’re a sad sack of a man,” Patricia says. “I mean look at you, Brody. You’re wearing Gary’s cotton shorts and tube socks. You haven’t shaved in God knows how long, your hair is a disaster and, not in a good way, and you wore a freaking fanny pack today. A fanny pack. Do you really think that you’re going to win Maggie back by wearing a fanny pack? You’ve immersed yourself into full-on Gary mode.”

“Hey,” Gary says as he straightens out one of his tube socks. “I take offense to that.”

“Sweetie.” Patricia gently holds Gary’s shoulder. “Gary mode is perfect for you because that’s who you are, it’s what makes you so lovable. But on Brody, the one who, no offense, is supposed to be the cool, stylish, put together one between the two of you, it does not look good. He has hit rock bottom, and I’m not going to sit here and enable him any longer.” Patricia looks me in the eyes. “It’s time that you leave and go back to your apartment.”

“I can’t,” I say.

“Um, you can, actually. It’s easy—you just get up and leave.”

I shake my head. “I can’t. I haven’t…I haven’t figured out how to fix things, and I need to fix things. I need to make it better.”

“And how does being here help you fix things?” Patricia asks.

“Because you’re my in with Maggie. If I stay here, there’s a chance. If I leave here…my chances diminish.”

“Dear God,” Patricia says, turning to her husband. “Gary, I love you and I’m so glad you have a best friend like Brody, but for the love of God, get rid of him. I don’t care what you have to do, just get rid of him.”

“What do you expect me to do?” Gary asks. “Call Maggie and tell her that Brody is pathetically living with us?”

“Not a bad idea,” I say, perking up. “But instead of saying that I’m living with you, just, you know, mention that I stopped by and apologized for hurting her. See what she says.”

Gary shakes his head. “I’m not—”

“He’ll do it,” Patricia says as she picks up Gary’s phone and hands it to him. “He’ll make the call.”

“Babe, she’ll know.”

“Fine, who cares, let her know. I don’t care. Just bring me peace. I want peace. I can’t have two Garys in this house.” In a deeper, scarier voice, Patricia says, “Bring me peace.”

Startled, Gary unlocks his phone and taps away on it. “Call her?” he asks.

“Yesssssss,” I say as I fall in front of him, hands clasped. “Anything to hear her voice. Please.”

Patricia points at me. “See, he’s pathetic. Help him out. Just call and be like ‘heard things are bad with Brody.’”

“And put it on speaker. Christ, just end my misery, please.”

Gary stares down at me, shaking his head. But to my luck, he puts the phone on speaker, and I grip his leg as I wait for her to answer.

It takes three rings, but then her sweet, beautiful voice comes on the other line.

“Hey, Gary.”

I grip Gary’s leg tighter, and he shakes me off, swatting at me as he says, “Hey, sis. How’s it going?”