He was still quiet.
“Wait. ‘Disclose.’ That’s why she’s still angry? Because you didn’t disclose you were bi, or whatever?” Maggie was almost shaking with fury by this point. “You come out when you’re ready, when you feel safe with it. Obviously you didn’t feel safe.”
“She thought we were going to get married,” Aiden said, but his voice was softer.
“Did you, though?”
“I thought we were supposed to.”
“There’s a difference.”
He seemed to mull that over. “She said she felt cheated. Like she wasted all that time with me. Like I’d lied to her, tricked her. She is convinced that I’m gay. I think she’s hurt, thinking that I never loved her.”
“Did you?”
“I did,” Aiden said, and Maggie could hear it, the truth of it, resonating through his voice like a tuning fork. “I really, truly did. But we both changed, and we both wanted the other person to be different than we turned out. She wanted me to be more like the husband she’d envisioned, more conservative, close to her family, living in Spokane. I wanted her to be someone who understood me and accepted me for who I was. Neither of us was happy. But yeah. I really did love her. At heart, she’s a good person.”
Maggie felt her heart break for him. “I’m so sorry, Aiden.” Then she frowned. “How the hell did she marry Davy?”
“Davy came out to the west side to help me move out of our apartment, actually,” he said. “She was a little younger than me . . . same age as Davy. Turns out Davy had always had a thing for her. She moved back to the east side shortly after I moved out, back to Spokane, where he was working in the sales department of this manufacturing company. He comforted her, listened to her. They got closer.”
“You must’ve been hurt.”
“I was,” he said. “Again, I did love her. But I felt guilty, too, for not telling her. And I wanted her to be happy. Davy seems to make her happy . . . happier than I ever did, anyway. The fact that he already had his son and was eager to have more kids was a big plus for her, as well.”
“Shit. And now you’re stuck at this wedding with the two of them.” Speaking of guilt: she should’ve gone. She could’ve kept her crush locked down, her feelings buried. This wasn’t about attraction. This was about helping a friend.
“Yeah. Hopefully I can sit somewhere else at dinner. Or maybe I’ll fake stomach cramps and just disappear until I have to drive Ma home the next morning.”
His mother . . . her memory jogged. “You said that your mother was winning a bet with you. What’s that about?”
“Oh. We had a deal,” he said. “If I brought a date to the wedding, she would finally agree to talk to Davy and me about some stuff that we really need to discuss. Like her not driving. And finally filling out some legal paperwork: durable power of attorney, life directives, stuff like that. Stuff she doesn’t want to deal with, but really, really needs to.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. Too many people think it’s macabre and put it off, but it’s—”
“No, I mean you had a deal with your mother? That’s why you needed a date to the wedding?” Maggie said, aghast.
“Well, yeah.”
For fuck’s sake. “Give me the name of your hotel, where the wedding is.”
“What?” Aiden sounded startled. “Why?”
“Because you’re going to have a date,” Maggie said in her best Linda Hamilton impression. “No arguments. I’ll meet you there.”
CHAPTER 29
BEAUTIFUL ALL ALONG
Aiden was wearing a suit he hadn’t worn since he lived on the west side, a black suit with a snow-white shirt and pale-blue tie. He looked like a funeral director, but a classy one. According to Malcolm, who had forced him to buy it, it was his “power” suit.
If he had ever needed a boost of confidence, it was now.
The wedding wasn’t for another hour, but people were getting together already. He was at the bar, debating whether he should drink or not. So far, he’d settled on a very light gin and tonic. He generally didn’t drink his troubles away—he didn’t often indulge in liquid courage, and he didn’t like feeling out of control.
Maggie’s coming. Or at least he hoped so, looking at his watch. She said she’d try, anyway.
Maybe she wouldn’t make it.
He’d put up a token resistance when she’d volunteered, but as she’d pointed out, resistance was futile. He hoped that she was driving okay from Fool’s Falls. He wasn’t sure what she’d turn up looking like . . . hell, for all he knew, she’d wear her usual jeans and baggy sweater, her hair a wild nimbus around her head.
He wouldn’t care.
I just want to see her. Because things were better when Maggie was around.
“Why the hell didn’t you just take Deb?” Riley asked by his side. He’d shown up that morning, not having been invited to the rehearsal dinner. He was the one who had suggested the bar in the first place once he’d realized that Aiden was stag.
“She’s got feelings for me.”
“Sounds like a ‘her’ problem, not a ‘you’ problem,” Riley said with a shrug. “I guess that’s why you couldn’t go with that Bogwitch, either, huh? She’s hot for you too?”
The thought made Aiden’s neck flush. Not with embarrassment, exactly. With interest.
Would Maggie be interested in him? She was so guarded, so deliberately grumpy. And he wasn’t sure about her past, other than her really bad divorce.
“Did you friend zone her too?” Riley continued, oblivious to Aiden’s pensiveness. “Because . . . shit. People are talking; your mom was right on that front. They’ve only ever seen you with Sheryl—you know, as in dating or whatever—and she’s married to your brother. And you haven’t been with anyone since, and nobody knows what the hell went wrong. So they’re talking up a storm. It’s like a Reddit board out there.”
“Yeah, well,” Aiden said, which he knew was a poor comeback, but he wasn’t sure what else to say.
Riley was trying: he’d give him that. He frowned, assessing the increasing crowd of wedding-goers who were filling the bar and flooding into the lobby beyond. “You could pick up somebody,” Riley said, even though his tone was dubious. “One of the bridesmaids is single, and a bunch of Hailey’s cousins and friends. Well, maybe not a bunch. At least four, though. And one or two of them are seriously cute.”
“I’ve got it covered,” Aiden said, glancing at the dressy watch he rarely wore. It had been his father’s.
Riley made an impatient noise, almost splashing him with his own whiskey sour as he gesticulated vehemently. “Do you? You need to find somebody hot and give people something else to talk about. Otherwise . . .”
“Did it ever occur to you that I don’t give a shit?”
Riley stared, and Aiden realized he’d made the statement out loud, drenched in exhausted irritation.
“Still think you should get laid, though,” Riley muttered, scoping the crowd like a lion in the savanna.