Megan cried and enveloped me in a huge hug, making all of the drama feel insignificant.
Megan’s bachelorette party was that night, concurrent with Tim’s bachelor party. We were going out to dinner and then dancing. The bachelor party, according to Megan, was just poker night with the boys.
Alex had told a different story over dinner when I got back from Mexico, however. Tim hadn’t lied to Megan; he thought poker night was the plan. Except no one was actually going to Mark’s house for poker—they were going to a strip club in Baltimore.
“Gross.”
Alex shrugged. “It’s what you do.”
“Okay, but now that I know, what do I tell Megan?”
“You can’t tell her.”
“You’re putting me in a bad spot. Plus I have no filter when I’m drinking.”
“You don’t really have one when you’re sober.”
“Thanks.”
“Just don’t say anything. She won’t ask you if you know different.”
“And if she does?”
“If she does, it’s up to you. Just don’t bring it up. Please.”
Armed with that knowledge, I texted Alex when my Uber pulled up at the restaurant. Be good tonight.
Who me? he asked, followed by the halo emoji.
You AND Tim please.
Will do. You be good too.
I rolled my eyes. I planned to stay relatively sober. Not my night, I reminded myself as I stepped out of the car.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I replied. Heading into dinner now. Have fun. Just not TOO much!
You too.
Dinner was a little strained, because Claire very vocally resented having both parties on the same day because she had to clean between them and couldn’t rest. And the bachelor party being at the same time meant that she couldn’t stay out late—her husband insisted on going to the bachelor party and the au pair had been on duty all day during the shower. But at least everyone loosened up once she left to go put her daughter to bed after dinner and we got to the first club.
I was hot, but having fun. My hair was frizzy from the DC humidity and I was sure my makeup was a mess after three hours of dancing, but the bachelorette party seemed successful. Megan was happily drunk, but not sloppy, and I kept plying her with water to make sure she wouldn’t feel too horrible in the morning.
When my phone rang shortly after midnight and Alex’s name popped up on the caller ID, I laughed. “Who’s drunk dialing you?” Megan asked. She grabbed my phone. “Alex!” she shouted, sliding the icon to answer it. “How’s poker night? Is Tim behaving?”
My eyes widened. I really hoped there wasn’t a lot of background noise wherever Alex was calling from.
“I can’t hear him,” she said, handing the phone back to me. “It’s too loud in here.”
I held the phone to my ear. “Alex?” She was right, I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but his tone wasn’t happy. “Hang on, let me go outside.”
I made my way through the crowd and down the stairs to the street, walked a little farther to get away from the smokers, then tried again. “What’s wrong?”
“I did something stupid,” he said quickly.
I felt a strange sense of dread. Better him doing something stupid than Tim though. And it wasn’t like I had any right to care if he hooked up with a stripper.
“What did you do?”
“I told Justin we’re sleeping together.”
“You did what?”
“Okay, listen, I know it sounds bad.” His words were slightly slurred. “But I figured it was better than the alternative.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“He was bragging about how he was going to—sleep with you—at the wedding.”
Had I actually been drinking, I probably would have vomited at that point.
“He—what?”
“He was telling everyone, and he was saying how bad you wanted him at the engagement party, and I just—I didn’t say we were together exactly, just that we’d been hooking up for a while now. I didn’t think you’d want him saying that to everyone. Or worse, actually trying to do it at the wedding.”
“I mean—I don’t—but wasn’t there anything else you could have said?”
“It was that or punch him.”
“Ha. Couldn’t you do both?”
He ignored my joke. “But okay, so he didn’t believe me.”
“Why wouldn’t he believe you?”
“Right? It’s not so unbelievable. But anyway, I—the first thing I could think of as proof was our text-message chain. Like it didn’t have anything bad, but it showed that we talk a lot, like every day, so I showed him that and the part about being good tonight convinced him, I think, but I thought you should know.”