After All

I jerk my chin back. “Says who?”

“Says me and it’s my wedding.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Is she your long-lost sister?”

“Are you talking about Alyssa?” Ted speaks up.

Alyssa. She has a name.

“If she’s the blonde,” I tell him.

“She works for us,” Will says quickly.

“And she’s a handful,” Ted says. “And not in the way you think I mean. Because believe me, those seem more than a handful. Maybe two handfuls. Depends on the size of your hands. I wouldn’t know of course.”

I give Will a curious look.

He rolls his eyes. “Neither would I. But she’s my employee and Jackie’s best friend and the maid of honor and I really want to get this marriage off on the right foot. You…doing your thing that you do now, it would make it that much harder. Plus, I’d have to murder you and honestly I just want to get on our honeymoon.”

I scoff, shoving my hands in my pockets. “I’m just asking who she is. She’s pretty.” Pretty fucking hot.

Will laughs. “She might be pretty but she can do without the likes of you.”

“What? Just yesterday you were telling me I needed to go out and meet women outside of the dating app world and here I am, enquiring about that hot pink blondie at your wedding of all places, in the real world, and you’re telling me to back off. She have a boyfriend or something?”

Ted laughs. “I think she scares the pants off most men.”

“Why?” I like a challenge and the closer we get to her, the more I realize how enticing she is. There’s something almost delicately cute about her face that lends an air of vulnerability. Combine that with the take-no-shit look in her eyes as she talks to the other bridesmaid, and I feel heat coursing through me, a nice change from the anger of last night.

“Because the guy I gave dating advice to was Emmett from last year,” Will points out, lowering his voice. “Emmett before he became Doctor Doom or Death or whatever you are. The Emmett who wasn’t sleeping with every starlet or model within a ten-mile radius and becoming gossip mag fodder.”

I wave at him dismissively. “You can’t believe everything the media tells you.”

Will lets out a caustic laugh. “I’m believing what you tell me. Don’t think I haven’t been listening.”

He’s got a point. While Will’s been stuck in pre-matrimonial bliss, I guess I have been giving him a weekly rundown of who I’ve been screwing. I have to blame the fact that we’re usually at a bar and I’ve had one too many when it happens.

“What Will is trying to say,” Ted says, slapping me on the shoulder, “is that this is his wedding. And I’m the father of the bride. And the two of us have vested interest in Alyssa. Without her, the office just doesn’t run. So, for our sake, back off and behave yourself tonight.”

“Fine, fine, I promise to behave,” I mutter as we approach the group.

Everyone lights up when they see Will, but I’m watching Alyssa. Her features become warmer when she sees him. It might bother me a little but the man has the effect on everyone. Fucking bastard.

Of course I have my own effect. I don’t have a name for it yet. It’s a mix of nostalgia and awe whenever people see me and right now every single person in the group is staring at me with either that “I know that guy from somewhere” look or “It’s Cruiser McGill!” Despite Boomerang’s success, people still resort to my character from that damn TV show. As long as my nickname doesn’t come up, I should be okay.

But Alyssa isn’t looking at me with either of those expressions. She’s looking at me like she’s completely unimpressed. It’s not that she doesn’t recognize me and I know I look fucking good in a tux. It’s that she can see right through me–and she doesn’t like what she sees.

I feel my smile falter, just for a moment, and tear my eyes away from her. It’s probably for the best. Any longer and I would have been caught in a war between staring at her tits and her face, both absolutely mesmerizing and vying for my attention.

“Everyone,” Will says, addressing the group. “You all know Ted here as my best man. I’d like to introduce you to my groomsman, Emmett Hill. You may remember him from such TV shows as Degrassi: The Next Generation and Boomerang.”

“It’s Degrassi the New Generation,” the other bridesmaid corrects him before wiggling her fingers in excitement. “I can’t believe I get to walk down the aisle with Cruiser McGill.”

Damn. I was hoping for the blonde.

And then everyone starts talking about the show and my character and what a good ol’ boy I was, how the old Degrassi was better than the new Degrassi, and of course everyone’s favorite topic, Drake.

Fucking Drake. After being on the show for ten years, everyone always wants to know if I know Drake personally. And the answer–no, I don’t, I left before he joined the cast–always disappoints them.

The only one who isn’t interested is Alyssa–in fact she seems like she’s trying to look everywhere but at me–and looks just as relieved as I feel when a woman in a blue cocktail dress shows up from around the corner, clapping her hands together.

“All right, we need you all to get in your places!” she cries out.

“That’s the wedding planner,” Ted says beside me. “She’s also a handful. Best to just let her do her job. She seems nice until you ask if you can have a karaoke machine.”

I stare at the woman, her mouth too wide, her teeth too white. There’s far too many people like her in my life at the moment. I feel like wedding planners and publicists are the same thing right now, one tries to plan your wedding, the other tries to plan your life.

The wedding planner isn’t dicking around either and soon we’re all ushered around the building to the grassy area at the back of the club overlooking the docks, the sparkling waves of English Bay and the towering North Shore Mountains in the distance. My own sailboat is moored below which is the reason why Will and Jackie were able to have the wedding here. Lord knows someone oughta take advantage of that perk.

It’s not long until I’m paired up with the Asian bridesmaid who introduces herself to me as Tiffany. She’s cute, young, and smells like champagne. From the way her face is going red, I can’t tell if she’s embarrassed or just has a low tolerance for booze, though the more she talks to me, the more I realize she probably doesn’t embarrass over anything.

“Wait a minute,” I say, pulling away from Tiffany and addressing Will as he stands beside the minister. “Who is walking Alyssa down the aisle if Ted is walking Jackie down the aisle?”

“This is what you get for missing rehearsal dinner,” Tiffany says, yanking at my sleeve. “You’re walking us both down the aisle.”

“Lucky me,” I tell her, looking around for Alyssa. “So where’s the hot blonde?”

“Did you just call her a hot blonde?” Tiffany asks.

“I might have.”

“Well hot blonde went to the washroom. Do you have a name for me?”

Tiffany is staring up at me with warm, slightly tipsy eyes. I play this carefully.