I didn’t quite dare to come out of my blanket cave, but I did take the subject change. Or subject return. “The problem is that Mase brings around people who are jealous of us, then wonders why we don’t get along with them.”
“Ah. I hope it’s all right with you that I don’t really get jealous?”
Seriously, no one had ever said that to me before. “Is it not okay with other people that you don’t get jealous?”
“For some people jealousy serves as proof of commitment.”
“Oh. No. Yuck. I definitely do not want you to get jealous. And I’m not jealous of your legion of adoring fans.” They made an inarticulate sound into the phone and I laughed. It still felt a little awkward, but I decided to run with it. “Your public, your devotees, your—”
“I’m going to remember this and get you back. Later. In the future. Creatively. By means you would never expect.”
I legit shivered in anticipation. “That sounds pretty awesome. I look forward to it.”
Sidney growled.
“You realize it turns me on when you get all big and scary on me. Bring it on. Spunk.”
This time both of us laughed. We talked a little while longer then went to bed.
Despite having ended the conversation in a good place, I was still stuck on what they’d said. I was accountable for what happened with Mase. Wasn’t I? I mean, he’d been super pissed about it for a long time, even after we started talking again, even after Mia came up with drinks and we all met up once a week. It’s not like he immediately forgave me—we had to fight and cry and have angry break-up sex before we’d really worked it out.
Well, Mase had worked it out. I still felt shitty pretty much all the time. Which was fitting, right? I’d done a horrible thing. That...was accountability. Wasn’t it?
Chapter Twenty-One
I picked up my suit on the way home from work Friday night, hanging it against my closet door since the closet itself was packed with all the things and I for sure couldn’t squish my suit in there.
Then I stared at it.
I was super happy for my friends getting married. And also? Part of me? Couldn’t wait until it was over. Which seemed fair because part of them couldn’t wait for it to be over either, and weddings were known to be stressful as fuck and all that. But I did kind of wonder if maybe Sidney wasn’t that far off, when they suggested I might be triggered by the whole thing.
I didn’t want to be. I definitely didn’t want to make Ronnie and Mia’s awesome wedding about, like, me. But I couldn’t avoid the suit and it was looming in a corner of my unit like a big dark storm cloud, taking up way more space in my brain than it was taking up in real life, until I actually curled up in bed and faced away from the suit as if it was threatening me.
Okay. I might have been a little...affected by the whole thing.
It was this huge, glaring reminder that I couldn’t be that guy, the guy in the beautiful suit, marrying the other guy in the beautiful suit. I couldn’t make that work, and I thought I’d come to terms with it, but suddenly it was all in the forefront again, like my brain was composing a list of my personal failings.
DECLAN’S PERSONAL FAILINGS
Attempted to be a real person in a romantic relationship. FAILED.
Attempted to get married. FAILED.
Attempted to be a good friend to people getting married and not make it all about him. FAILED.
Attempted to look good in wedding suit... Okay, being honest, I looked damn good in my wedding suit. So, like, SUCCEEDED. At this one thing. Which is me looking good in a suit.
I pulled a pillow over my head but it didn’t make me feel better.
It wasn’t like I didn’t want to be that guy. I did! At least sort of. I wanted to be...happy the way getting married made Mia and Ronnie. Happy the way it would someday make Mason. But maybe that wasn’t a thing I could ever do, or ever be. Maybe it would just be this painful, festering sore in me where other people had wedding bells and china patterns.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel it. That was the worst part. When I thought of Sidney, I felt all warm and fluttery, excited and melty and full, like I was totally inside myself with them. If I could just not feel, if leaving Mason at the altar had broken my ability to feel like this, that would be one thing. It might suck, but at least it wouldn’t get all over other people.
Instead I was left with all the feeling and wanting but none of the ability to actually execute the thing I wanted. Which was...which was...
I had no idea. Which was why I’d given up on romance in the first place: How do you pursue something if you don’t know what it is?
Get through the wedding. Just deal with it. Suck it up. Put on a suit, stand with Mase and Oscar and Ronnie’s sister, be a decent person long enough to get through the wedding.
One more day. And it was our Valentine’s Date, which we’d designed to be super casual and low-key and comforting. Maybe Sidney would be down for just, like, cuddling on the couch and making out a little. Because seriously that sounded so good, like it could build me up enough to survive the entire next day.
Which I was going to do. I wouldn’t no-show the wedding, even if that suit was freaking me the fuck out. Once it was on, I wouldn’t have to look at it. I’d be fine.
Except then I’d be looking at my friends and they’d all be looking beautiful, just like they had on the day of my wedding—
I tugged the pillow down harder around my head, squeezing my eyes shut against that vision of Mason looking so damn movie star handsome, so damn hopeful. He’d forgiven me, and he meant it. I knew that. But thinking about his expression always hurt.
He’d trusted me and I’d totally blown his trust. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t meant to, or that the therapist I’d seen after had told me that I couldn’t control having a panic attack. Like, okay, maybe not? But I should have done pretty much anything but run away and leave him to clean up the mess.
A few tears seeped into my pillow, which was not the mindset I wanted to have right now.
My phone dinged and I contemplated not looking at it, but I felt so crappy, I thought whatever it was surely couldn’t make matters worse.
Sidney. My heart gave a little leap at their name on my screen. I came up with this idea for our date tomorrow. I think you’ll really dig it.
I just stared at the message. An...idea? I wondered what kind of idea. How could I ask in such a way that it wouldn’t seem like I was against it already? I wasn’t against it already. I didn’t think. Except that our original idea was about the only thing that sounded good to me at all.