I shook my head as I lifted the glass to my lips. The fumes didn’t make me wince anymore. Actually, there weren’t even any fumes I could detect. “You know why I did what I did, Mags. Don’t make me talk about it. I’m done talking about it. I’m done living my life with that at the center of it. I’m . . .” What was the word again? “Done.”
“So what? The girl you’ve spent half your life in love with was marrying your brother and you just had to step in for him when he didn’t show up? You know, take one for the team and do the noble, totally selfless thing?”
I wasn’t looking at her, but I could hear the raised brow in her tone. “You’re right. I was a selfish prick.” My hand waved before I took a drink. “There. Happy now?”
“If you’re a selfish prick, then Jacob is up for Cover Saint of the Year.” She snorted then took a swig of her beer. “I know why you did what you did, and it wasn’t because you were looking out for yourself.”
My back lowered when I exhaled. Thinking back, I couldn’t exactly remember what had been going through my head when I stepped into my brother’s tux. Not a lot, since time hadn’t been a luxury I’d had.
“I just . . . couldn’t stand to watch her heart get broken again, you know? I couldn’t stand there and see her hurt by my brother one more time. I can’t stand to see her in pain.” My eyes closed, trying to chase the images from my mind. I’d come here to drink her away, not drink and talk about her.
“Ah, if that wasn’t so pathetic, it might be the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”
My teeth ground together. “Not helping.”
“So you thought you’d marry her, take off on her honeymoon, and what? You’d both get the happily ever after you deserve?” Maggie’s voice was soft now, her hand covering my forearm.
Maggie had gone to the same high school as all three of us and witnessed all the highs and lows of our relationships. She and I’d gone to the same med school and worked at the same hospital now, so she still got a first-row seat to the Matt in Love With the Wrong Girl Show.
“I wasn’t really thinking more than five minutes into the future when I decided to pose as my brother in front of the altar.”
“And I’m going to take a stab at it and say you weren’t thinking more than five seconds into the future last night when you and her . . .” She took another sip of her beer.
“Maggie . . .”
“Don’t lie to me. You can lie to her. Your brother. Yourself. But you better not even think about lying to me, because I will call you out so fast your head will spin.”
Drink still in hand, I dropped my head into the web of my fingers, feeling like I could barely hold myself up anymore. What had I done? Where had things gone so wrong? What the fuck was wrong with me?
“I slept with her,” I whispered. “I slept with Cora. I slept with my brother’s girl.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute. She didn’t yell or huff or shake her head at me. She just sat there quietly, like she was as out of explanations and answers as I was.
“I’m going to tell you a secret. Something I suspected a long time ago, and something I realized a few years back. I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure you had the heart to accept it, or the balls to do something about it, but after what you just admitted . . .” She blew out a low whistle and slid into the empty stool between us. She took the drink out of my hand and set it down beside her beer. Then she leaned in. “Cora’s not your brother’s girl.” When I shook my head, she continued. “She never has been, though I know that’s what he thinks and that’s what she does her best to make others believe.”
“What are you talking about? I’m swimming in booze over here, so I’m going to need you to spell it out for me.”
She leaned in even closer, like the words she was about to speak were dangerous. “Cora’s always been your girl. Yours.” Her hand squeezed my arm tighter. “It’s not Jacob she wants. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
I’d never wanted to believe anything more in my life, but just because a person wanted to believe something, that didn’t make it real. A lie could never become the truth because a person wished it so.
“She doesn’t know what she wants.” I picked up my drink again and drained another sip before Maggie could pull it away from me.
“Oh, she knows what she wants. She’s just afraid to say it out loud.”
Maggie nudged my arm, waiting for me to say something, but what was there to say? She was my good friend. She felt obligated to say what she was. She was trying to lick my wounds so when I returned the loser and my brother the victor, I’d have something to cling to. Some positive memento of Cora’s and my time together—that she wanted me over my brother.
Just thinking that made me laugh.
“And if what you’re saying is true, why is she so afraid to say it out loud?” I turned my head to look at her.
She blinked at me, but she looked like she wanted to smack me over the head instead. “Because our whole life, dummy, a girl’s told to use her brain to get ahead in life. She’s told not to be too emotional or sensitive and all of that kind of lame advice.” Maggie clinked her bottle against my glass when I went to lift it to my lips. “Cora’s been using her brain when it comes to her love life. Jacob was obvious about the way he felt about her. He’s the one who asked her to marry him, he’s the one who’s been open and honest about the way he feels about her, shoddy and weak as it all is. She picked him with her brain.”
My head was starting to hurt. I guessed it had more to do with what Maggie was saying than the booze.
“But it’s you she knows is the right one in her gut. She knows it’s you, but you haven’t given her anything in return. You’re a risk, the other brother, the off-limits territory.” This time when I lifted my drink, she tore the glass out of my hand and threw it over her shoulder onto the beach. “She picked you years ago, you dumb fuck, you were just too blind to see it.”
Maggie’s words were messing with my head, but my head was already messed up enough. I didn’t need anything else adding more confusion to the mix.
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better, and I appreciate it, but there’s nothing you can say that will change the way Cora feels about me.”
“This isn’t about Cora. This is about you. This is about you being my friend and me wanting you to be happy.” Maggie made a face then washed it away with the last swig of her beer.
“You never liked her,” I stated, because it wasn’t a question. Maggie had never been pro-Cora. Not that Cora had ever been a big fan of Maggie’s either.
“It has less to do with me not liking her and more to do with me liking you. She just so happened to rip your heart out every other week, so yeah, I wasn’t exactly her biggest cheerleader. Kind of hard to cozy up to the chick who makes mincemeat out of your friend’s internal organs like it’s her favorite pastime.” Maggie waved her empty beer at the bartender, but he was still busy with the brunettes. Didn’t look like his schedule would free up anytime soon either. After a minute, she just leaned over the counter and pulled another beer from the ice cooler.