“Okay.” He pauses and then says, “You’re not avoiding telling him for a reason, are you?”
“What does that mean?” I ask as I move toward my desk. Luckily, I get to work from home since I do contract work for my clients, which means I have my own hours and my own space. I’m not exactly a people person.
“It means I just want to make sure you’re happy about being engaged. It’s been a week, Lia, and you haven’t said anything to him.”
“Because he’s been out of town. I’m not about to tell him over the phone. It’s something I want to do in person.”
“Okay . . .” he says softly, and I can tell he’s not happy.
“Brian, I’m going to tell him. I just want it to be a celebration, not something I say in passing or when he’s in a bad mood or out of town. He’ll be happy for us.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“I don’t know. You’ve just been weird since I proposed.”
“Weird, how?” I ask as I take a seat on my desk chair and slowly start to spin around in circles.
“Well, for one, we’ve only seen each other twice this past week, and I don’t know, I would think that since we’ve been engaged, we’d see each other more. And your texting has been sporadic. That’s why I called this morning because I wanted to make sure you were going to show up for lunch.”
“Brian, of course I’d show up.”
“I just don’t know, Lia. Seems like you don’t want to be engaged to me.”
“Stop,” I say, growing frustrated. “This is all just so . . . new, okay? I’m taking it one day at a time.” I pause as I try to word what’s been spinning through my mind over the last seven days. “I may not talk about them as much anymore, but I miss my parents, Brian. They were my world. They should be here with me celebrating. Planning. Being goofy and happy with . . . for me. But . . . they’re not here anymore, and that’s just so hard. So if I’m acting strange, it’s because I’m feeling . . . I don’t know . . . sad.”
“Oh.” He’s silent again. “I’m sorry, Lia. I didn’t think about it that way. I just assumed, you know, since you’re so close with Breaker, that maybe something was going on there.”
“Brian,” I groan while pressing my hand over my eyes. “I’ve told you time and time again, nothing is going on with Breaker and me. Please, please don’t make this a thing. I don’t want to have to keep saying this to you over and over. You should know me well enough that when I say something, I mean it.”
“I know, sorry. Fuck, Lia . . .” He blows out a heavy breath. “It’s just been a weird week. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. But hey, I should open my computer and get some work done before lunch.”
“Okay. I love you. I’ll see you later.”
“Love you, too,” I answer before hanging up and setting my phone on my desk. I stare at it for a moment, my mind racing.
Brian is right. I have been off. However, I was caught off guard.
I wasn’t expecting Brian to propose. We hadn’t even talked about it. It felt sort of out of the blue. He took me out on a boat for a sunset cruise, dropped down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. I said yes. It was a beautiful proposal.
The ring is huge.
Bigger than anything I would ever need in my life, and even though it’s stunning, it doesn’t feel right sitting on my finger. None of it feels right, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m struggling with my parents not being around for one of the most significant moments of my life or if I’m struggling because even though everything about the proposal was magical, it wasn’t quite me, or because I’m struggling to find the words to tell Breaker.
Ever since last year, he and Brian haven’t really gotten along. They’ve been cordial and friendly to each other when we’re all in the same room, but the friendship they used to have doesn’t quite exist anymore. And it’s Brian’s fault, yet he hasn’t taken the blame, and I refuse to insert myself in the middle. I tried once, and that exploded in my face because Brian was mad that I was defending Breaker.
But . . . Breaker didn’t do anything wrong.
Brian works in investments. He actually works with some very wealthy clients. One night, we were all having dinner together, and Brian was looking for some . . . information. He was trying to get some clues as to what was happening with some stocks Breaker and his brothers owned. Valuable shares in renewable energy. It was all sort of . . . skeezy the way Brian went about it, crossing the lines of insider trading. And when Breaker didn’t break and hand over the information Brian was looking for, Brian got angry. It blew up from there.