“I get it. I get it.” He sat across from me. We had ordered pints at an Irish bar.
I wiped the sweat from my brow. It was hot as hell. The third day it had reached over a hundred degrees this week.
“Look, the reason I called is because I need some help.”
I straightened in my seat. “What is it?”
Parker rubbed the handle on the glass as if there was a smudge he was worried about.
“Chelsea’s pregnant.”
I swallowed instead of spitting out the beer, and it lodged in my esophagus.
“Fuck, man, you okay?” Parker stared at me.
“Yeah. Yeah.” I tried to inhale a full breath. “Sorry. She’s pregnant? I didn’t think you two were serious.”
“We weren’t.” He hung his head. “But things happen.”
“What are you going to do?” I was blindsided.
“Marry her.” I saw the grin on his face.
“No shit.” I couldn’t believe it.
“Yeah. My dad is going to be pissed, but the grandchild is going to carry some weight being the first Bastion. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah. Yeah. That will definitely help.”
I stared at the bubbles in the beer. I was supposed to congratulate him. A baby. A marriage. We were the same age. We had gone to prep school together. College together. He was my best friend. He was headed down a path I didn’t want a single foot on. I’d never felt more distant from him.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“A lot of changes.” I nodded. “Seraphina. Now you.”
“It’s not how we planned it, but she’s having my baby. I can’t walk away from that. And I do love her. It took a fight for me to figure it out.”
“A fight? What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t react the way a man is supposed to react when he finds out he’s about to be a dad. Chelsea said she’d do this on her own. She was ready to breakup. It was then. Right then, when I thought I lost her, that I realized I was a fucking idiot. Who am I going to find better than her? You know?”
I didn’t think that was the way marriages should be decided. Parker knew my philosophy on marriage. He witnessed the same kind of arranged bullshit I did. But bringing it up now would only be a punch to the gut. I kept my mouth shut. The truth was I didn’t know Chelsea well. Maybe she was the perfect woman for him. They’d been sleeping together a few months. I didn’t want to ask the obvious. Was he sure it was his baby?
The Bastions had money. Old money. New money. Loads of money. Parker was a target, just like the rest of us.
“I wish you the best, brother.” I held my pint in the air. He grinned.
“Thanks. You’ll be my best man, won’t you?”
I didn’t choke this time, but I wasn’t ready for more commitment. “Fuck yeah. I’ll be your best man.”
We sat outside and drank another round. I left when I knew I could slide into the end of the Castilles’s dinner party. I paid for the drinks as a congratulations gift and took off. Every stop I made me feel more lost. More distant. More remote from the people in my life. The distance was gaping. The trajectories of our lives had become divergent. And there was no fucking way to pull that back together.
Chapter12
Kennedy
“Iwant you to look at these.” A folder fell into my lap. I glanced at my father. He was dressed casually today. It was Saturday. A polo and khakis made him look like he was outfitted for yard work. He rarely budged from his Italian suits.