Georgia, Wyatt, and I look at each other.
“Is that a sorority?” Georgia whispers.
“I think it’s the Borg,” whispers back Wyatt. “Except, you know, blonde?”
“Dork.”
“It seems kind of nice,” I say, still watching the giggling mass that enveloped Ava. “I mean, they’re happy for her, right?”
“That’s how they get you,” Georgia says very, very seriously.
As we’re contemplating beers at the bar, my sister Winona floats over. It takes me precisely one look at her to realize that she’s also had a lot of wine.
“Guess who’s got two thumbs and opened a tab with Mom and Dad’s card?” she asks, grinning and jerking her thumbs at herself.
With that, my normally-very-proper sister spins and drifts away, leaving Wyatt, Georgia and I to look at each other.
“That was an invitation, not just a brag, right?” Wyatt asks, one eyebrow raised.
“It was now,” I tell him, gesturing expansively at the chalkboard beer list over the bar. “Go hog wild. Get you the fanciest beer on tap.”
Beers in hand, we find spots at the end of a long wooden table. A few minutes later, I wave over Lainey when she comes in.
“Harold Radcliffe’s tab,” I tell her. “And you know Wyatt and Georgia, right?”
“Yeah, we met at Vera’s July Fourth shindig,” she says, still standing, shaking hands with the two of them, her shoulder-length locs falling over her shoulders as she leans in. “You’re the guy who thought it was okay to put cream cheese in guacamole.”
Wyatt grins.
“I stand by that,” he says. “It’s delicious. You can’t argue with delicious.”
“It’s an abomination,” says Lainey, though she’s also grinning.
“Two sentences and I’m already under attack,” Wyatt says, taking a sip of his beer and looking at Georgia and me. “You’re seeing this, right? She’s out to get me.”
“This isn’t an attack, this is a conversation,” Lainey says. “Hold on, I need a beer.”
She walks off toward the bar, and Wyatt’s eyes follow her.
Lainey comes back a few minutes later, and we all drink beers while she tells us about her roller derby match, complete with a track diagram on a napkin. Her team — The Beasts of the Blue Ridge — lost, but only by a few points.
“Their track was too slippery,” she says, taking a sip from her half-full beer. “We kept falling down.”
“I’m sure that was it,” Wyatt deadpans, but Lainey just laughs.
From there, we move on to whether rollerblading is still cool, then skateboarding. Wyatt says he can do a couple tricks, but no one believes him, and that leads to Georgia telling us a story about the time that my dad apparently pushed theirs into a pool and nearly drowned him, or so he claims.
After a bit, Wyatt and Georgia get up to grab more beers.
The moment they’re out of earshot, Lainey glances around skeptically, then turns to me.
“Not to question a free beer, but what exactly am I doing here?” she asks.
“Are you not enjoying the after party to my little sister’s rehearsal dinner?” I say, gesturing vaguely at the rest of the brewery. “Is this not your preferred way of spending a Friday night?”
“Ava’s never contacted me before in her life, and suddenly it sounds like if I don’t meet you at a bar someone’s gonna die?”
“She’s drunk,” I say. “She’s been drunk since about five-thirty, I think.”
“Please tell me she doesn’t have a hostage.”
“We’re all hostages to the bride.”
Lainey snorts.
“Sorry about her,” I say. “I don’t even know where she got your — what am I saying, I’m sure she got it from my phone during dinner when I went to pee or something, because Ava doesn’t know what the word boundary means.”
“You have to passcode that thing,” she says.
“They’re trying to sabotage my dick detox,” I sigh. “Vera’s being Vera about it, and I’m sure Ava thinks she’s helping somehow. I don’t even know why she dragged you into it. You might be bait to get me to come here. I’m sorry.”
She takes another drink and looks around, frowning slightly.
“Wyatt’s your cousin, how are they sabotaging — oh, shit,” she says, as it finally dawns on her.
“He’s not here,” I say. “Remember, it’s a drunk twenty-two-year-old’s plan.”
“And she doesn’t know.”
“Fuck no, she doesn’t know,” I say. “She thinks we were high school sweethearts and that’s it, not…”
I trail off, because there’s not a word for what Seth and I are. At least, there isn’t in English. German probably has a word for people who were together a long time ago and have repeatedly and unwisely hooked up in the years since, even though their brief couplings inevitably lead to anger and heartbreak.
“Fuckbuddies?” Lainey offers.
“We’re not really buddies.”
“Fuck… compatriots?”
I contemplate this for a moment. I also contemplate telling her about our non-fight this afternoon, but I don’t really feeling like doing it in his bar, while I look over my shoulder every ten seconds to see if one of my sisters is listening in.
“It’s technically accurate,” I finally say.
“Just one of the many services I offer,” she says, and clinks her glass against mine, then glances up. “Quit talking about Wyatt’s weird chin, he’s coming back.”
“Now I know you’re just fucking with me,” Wyatt says, sitting and grinning at Lainey, who’s clearly enjoying herself. “My chin is perfect.”
He rubs his face like he’s in a shaving commercial, and Lainey laughs. Georgia, once more seated next to Wyatt, rolls her eyes at her younger brother.
“Chin jealousy,” he says. “Totally normal. I get it. I’d be jealous of my chin. It’s great chin.”
“Sure, that’s it,” laughs Lainey. “You know, this sort of over-the-top self-aggrandizing behavior can often be defensive —"
“LAINEY! HIIIIIIIIII!”
Ava’s back, and she sits with a whirl of blond hair and the feeling that the energy at our table just went from six to eleven.
“Hi,” Lainey says, grinning at my adorable and drunk little sister. “Congratulations on your wedding! You nervous?”
“Oh, my gosh yes,” Ava says, wide-eyed, both her hands around a half-empty glass. “When we did the rehearsal a few days ago, one of the bridesmaids tripped on some flower petals, and the ring bearer got distracted by something on one of the chairs, and I’m really worried that the band might miss our entrance cues or play the wrong song! I saw it happen at one of my sorority sister’s weddings a few months ago and it was awful.”
Lainey’s smiling politely, trying not to laugh.
“I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time even if something does go wrong,” she says, soothingly. “It’ll give you something to laugh about later.”