“Ah, okay,” Sophia said, sounding confused. “I can do that, C-Rock.”
“Great!” Corey said cheerfully. “Just want to make sure of what we have so we can crosscheck it with any allergies.”
And then he pulled her away.
They were out of earshot when Sandy spoke, fingers curled around my elbow in a loose grip, but enough to anchor me down, to let me know he was there. “You okay?” he asked, dropping the bro persona. “You got quiet there all of a sudden.”
I nodded, swallowing thickly. “It just… it hit me, I guess. This whole… thing. What I’m doing here. What I’m going to be doing here. It…. I don’t think I understood until this moment.”
“Are you having second thoughts?” he asked with absolutely no disappointment in his voice, which made me love him all the more. “Cold feet?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s—I guess it’s the exact opposite. I am so ready to do this. If I could do this today, I would. If he were here right now, I’d probably be demanding the coordinator move us up so we could take over the goth wedding that’s apparently happening.”
Sandy laughed quietly. “Yeah, not a fan of the black and red either. But I’m happy to hear that you aren’t having doubts. If you were, I was going to have to kick you in the balls and tell you to shut the fuck up, because Vince is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
I turned my head to look at him. He smiled at me, that smile so familiar that I thought I knew it maybe even better than my own. “You’d do that for me, wouldn’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
He made a little humming sound in the back of his throat, sliding his arm through mine, hands clasping around my wrist. He laid his head on my shoulder and we looked at the gazebo a little while longer.
“I am scared, though,” I admitted after a time.
“Of what?”
“Things changing.”
“Why would they change?”
I shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed. “I’m getting married. You’re… you’re with Darren. And I’m happy for you. God, I’m so happy for you. It’s just… what if this changes everything, you know? What if you have your thing and I have my thing, and then those things drift apart and we don’t….” I let out a shuddering breath. The thought alone was enough to make me shaky.
He didn’t speak for a long time, and I thought maybe it was because I was being stupid. It wouldn’t be the first time, and most likely wouldn’t be the last. I didn’t even know that I’d been feeling this way until this moment. And now that I was thinking about it, it was all I could focus on. Sandy wasn’t just my best friend. He was my brother, my sister, my self-esteem. He was my biggest critic and my biggest supporter. He would kill f
or me. He would die for me. He would scratch a motherfucker’s eyes out if they tried to fuck with me. He’d do anything for me, and I’d do the same for him.
He sighed and turned his head slightly, brushing his lips against my neck briefly. “This isn’t an ending.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. This is a beginning, Paul. For you and Vince. You’ve found something I’ve always wished for you. You’ve found the one person you’re meant to be with, and I know with all of my heart that you two will be the happiest you could possibly be.” He stood up straight and leaned over to bump his shoulder with mine. “And I’m gonna be there every step of the way.”
“Yeah?” I said, feeling extraordinarily relieved.
“You think you can get rid of me?” he asked, cocking a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “I’ve got my hooks into you, Paul. I have for years. You couldn’t escape from me, no matter how hard you tried. And on the off chance that you do, you best believe I will drag you back kicking and screaming and will shove a ball gag in your mouth while I make you my bitch. Understand?”
“I understand completely. And I don’t know what that says about either of us.”
“It says we’re amazing,” Sandy said. “I love you, you know? I’m not going anywhere. Things are changing, yes, but they’re changing for the better. We can’t be who we were at seventeen, with me sucking on a ring pop and you sneezing your mustache onto Charlie’s face.”
I snorted. I’d forgotten about that. “The twink and the leather cub. God, we were fucking idiots.”
“Maybe. But look where it got us? If we’d never done that, if we’d never gone down that day, who knows where we’d be right now? You and I would still be friends, obviously, but maybe I wouldn’t have met Vaguyna. Maybe I wouldn’t have become a queen. We wouldn’t know Charlie. We might not know Corey. We may not have met the homo jocks. Vince. Darren. Our stupidity gave us a lot, if you think about it.”
“That’s… almost depressing.”
“But strangely not, right? Funny how that works out. You done being all maudlin now? It’s like an Edgar Allen Bro story up in this bitch.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“What do you call to dudes who eat each other out all messy like?”