Chapter 4
Travis
"How do I look?" I turn around to look at my best friend, Bennett, who stands beside me. The collar of my shirt feels like it’s getting tighter and tighter. I put my finger between my collar and my neck. The tan linen suit was supposed to be light and airy, but it suddenly feels like a weighted blanket pushing my shoulders down.
"You look like you are being carted off to the middle of town where they are going to hang you." He tries not to laugh. "Almost like you have a noose around your neck." He wears the same suit as me, except his tie is in his jacket pocket for now. He promised he would put it on right before we walked down the aisle. Since kindergarten, the two of us have been best friends, and when we got into high school, we did everything together. We tried out for the same sports teams, were in almost the same classes. Even though we went to different colleges, I knew that I could count on him for everything. Now that we are back living in our hometown, it is just like before we left.
"You’re a dick." I shake my head and look around the ceremony space, standing to the side. My sisters really outdid themselves. Gold folding chairs fill what used to be a run-down barn that they restored and made into a church. The back of the barn has floor-to-ceiling windows letting in all the natural light. An arch in front of the chairs looks like vines wrapped together with white roses stuck into them. Soft candles float in vases all down the aisle with vines wrapped around them. "This shit is too tight." I take a second to look around the room and see my mother at the front of the ceremony space, greeting some of the guests she knows. The smile on her face looks fake and stressed, but that could just be because the fire department deemed the kitchen unusable two hours ago. She tries to look calm, cool, and collected, but the meltdown she had this morning was anything but cool. People are coming in, and some have even taken a seat to wait for the main event.
The doors open again, and I suddenly feel a shift move in the space. My eyes go to the door, and everything stops inside me. I blink my eyes ten times to see if I’m dreaming this. "Oh my God," Bennett says from beside me, and what sounds like a herd of horses running through the field fills my ears. I feel like my body is detaching from my bones. "Is that who I think it is?" My hand falls from my neck as if it weighs a thousand pounds. "That can’t be,” Bennett still beside me, and then I see Jake and Frankie with her. "Why the hell would you invite her?" He was the only person I confided in when I broke up with Harlow. He was the one who drove during the middle of the night to get to me and make sure I was okay. I was not. The minute she walked out of the room, I felt my heart shatter to a million pieces. The pain was as if I was being stabbed over and over again. It was practically unbearable. I kept staring at my phone, waiting for her to call me back, but nothing, and after two days of sending her messages, I found out that she blocked me.
"I didn’t," are the only two words that come out of me. My eyes don’t move from her as she laughs at something Jake is saying, and I want to throat punch him. "What the fuck?”
"So, it’s not just my eyes," Bennett says from beside me, and I force my eyes away from her and then turn to him. The shock on his face is apparent when he puts his hand over his mouth. "I can’t believe you invited her." He looks back at her, and even though my head tells me not to look over at her, I do it anyway. It’s even worse than before. I feel as if someone just kicked me in the balls, and my stomach has been pushed to my throat. She’s even more beautiful than she was four years ago. I shake my head and look around.
"Shelby," I say when I see her off to the side hidden in one of the rooms, and I storm over to her. Bennett follows me. "Shelby," I say when I step in the room and see that my sisters are all huddled and look like they are in the middle of a serious situation.
"Oh, hey," Clarabella says, trying not to show how much she’s panicking, but you can see her eyes move around the room.
"Can one of you explain why the fuck you sent an invitation to Harlow?" My voice goes from low to high, and Bennett jumps back to close the door. I turn back to my sisters, lowering my voice into a hiss. "Who the fuck invited Harlow to my wedding?"
"I told you that I was inviting your friend group from college." Shelby points out to me. "I wanted to go over the list with you, and what did you tell me?" She glares at me. "I don’t care, just invite whoever, go over it with Mom, so I did."
"Harlow?" Presley says. "Like Harlow, ‘the love of his life’ Harlow?" She looks at Shelby and then at me while I glare at her. "I mean, not your whole life." She puts her hands up. "The love of his life before Jennifer." She laughs nervously.
"Nice save there," Bennett quips, and she gives him the finger with a sweet smile.
"Okay, the question everyone needs to be asking is why is she here?" Clarabella asks, walking over to the door and opening it, and sticking her head out. She comes back in with her eyes wide. "Damn, not only is she here, that dress." I hold up my hand, and I’m biting so hard on my teeth I think that my teeth might actually shatter in my mouth.
"Clarabella." I growl her name through said clenched teeth.
"I’m just asking." She puts her hands up. "Is she here to object to the wedding?"
"I will kill someone," Shelby says. "There is no one objecting to anything. This fucking wedding is already a wedding that if you weren’t my brother, I would say to reschedule, but." She smiles, and I can see it’s fake. "We are going to make the best of it."
"What the hell does that mean?" I say to her, and she looks at my sisters, and neither of them wants to say it. "Guys, would you please?"
"Okay, well, the kitchen situation is somewhat handled," Shelby starts to say. "If only Clarabella would call Luke and beg him to cater it."
"I would rather get my asshole bleached with lesions." She folds her arms over her chest.
"What is wrong with you?" Bennett looks at her.
"One, he broke up with best friend." She holds up her hand.
"Ex-best friend," Presley corrects her. "Your ex-best friend."
"Whatever, it’s girl code." She throws her hands up to the ceiling.
"Wasn’t she cheating on him, and that is why you stopped talking to him?" Presley asks her.
"It doesn’t matter. He’s cocky and arrogant, and I don’t want to call him. You call him," she tells Shelby.
"He knows you," Shelby counters. "And if this was my part of the business, I would totally bury my pride and call him."
"You’re an asshole,” Clarabella declares. "And I’m going to do it." She takes her phone out of her pocket. "For Travis and Harlow." She corrects herself, "Jennifer." She looks at me, grimacing, knowing she fucked up. "It’s just, I saw her, and it’s like Harlow and Travis." She throws her hands up in the air. "I’m going to go and call Luke," she says, walking out of the room and closing the door behind her.
I hang my head down, my head spinning, and I walk over to the couch in the room and sit down. Running my hands through my hair. "I can’t believe you invited her." I look up, defeated, at Shelby. "I can’t believe she is here." I say the words out loud instead of to myself. It’s been four years; I’ve gotten over her. Or at least I thought I did until I actually saw her again. Fuck, I played this scene out in my head over and over again for the last four years. Well, not this scene at my wedding but when I would see her again. It did not go the way I thought it would, not even close.
Shelby comes over and sits next to me, and I see Bennett walk back out of the room. "I was just as shocked as you were when I got her response back." I turn to her, my mouth opening.
"Do you think that would have been a better time to tell me that she was coming, not when she walked into the church?" I ask her, and she rolls her eyes.
"I got reinforcement," Bennett says, walking back into the room with a bottle of scotch. "It’s going to be okay," he assures me, opening the bottle and handing it to me. "Just take a gulp."
"Do not take a gulp," Presley snaps. "That’s going to be gross, and we won’t be able to serve it." She runs to the closet and comes back with shot glasses. "Have at it."
"Thank you," Bennett says, pouring a shot, and I don’t even wait for him to finish pouring his own before I swallow down the amber liquid. It burns all the way down to my stomach, and I hold out the glass for another one. He looks at Shelby, and she nods her head, and he pours me another one. "I don’t think that you should have any more after that."
"Oh my God," Presley says. "Imagine you say her name while you are exchanging vows?" She puts both hands to her cheeks, and Shelby gasps and jumps up from her seat beside me.
"What is wrong with you? Why would you put that out into the universe?” she huffs at her, and then the door opens and all of our eyes go to Clarabella, who stands there.
"So, good news," she says, but from how she looks, there has to be some bad also. "Luke said to leave everything to him, and he’ll figure it out."
"Thank God," Shelby says from beside me.
"And bad news," Clarabella continues talking and then stops when the sound of sirens starts coming closer and closer. "We have a slight problem."