Chapter 4
Ace
"Aren't you going to change out of your suit?" I ask Joseph when I walk down the steps to the living room. "You were bitching in the car that you felt suffocated." We got home from the wedding rehearsal about thirty minutes ago. The first thing I did was walk upstairs to my bedroom and put on my gym shorts and a T-shirt. I thought he was going to do the same, but now that I think about it, I didn't see him bring in his bag.
"Yeah, in a bit," Joseph says, looking up from his phone. He is in the middle of the couch, his fingers flying, going a million miles a minute. The television is on over the fireplace, playing the highlights of all the baseball games that are going on right now.
"Beer or whiskey?" I ask, and he barely looks up at me.
"Whatever you want to have," he mumbles, and I walk into the kitchen right off the family room. When I went looking for houses, I knew that I wanted to buy a house where I could start a family. The kitchen area is what sold me on the whole house. There is a massive island in the middle with stools all around it that faces the fridge and stove, and I can just see everyone coming together in this spot.
Pulling open the double-door stainless-steel fridge, I see that my cleaning lady made sure that it's stocked for the weekend. I see the prepared meals on the shelves with fruit right next to it.
I grab two bottles of beer from the door. Even though the house has an amazing kitchen, I've cooked in it maybe twice in over a year. I open two drawers before I finally find the bottle opener, and I have to laugh at myself and make a mental note that I'm going to cook for myself at least twice a week starting next week. Or at least get to know what is in the drawers and in the cabinets.
"Here you go." I walk out of the kitchen toward the family room with two bottles of beer in my hand. I sit next to him on the long L-shaped big comfy couch and hold out my hand, offering Joseph one of the beers. I see that he's still on his phone, his eyebrows pinched together as his fingers still go. "What are you doing?" I take a pull from my beer as he slouches down on the couch with his cell phone in his hand. He presses the send button and finally looks over at me.
"Just sent out a last-minute email before I leave for seven days on my honeymoon." He reaches out for his beer while he puts the phone down on his chest once he goes back to his original position.
"Always grinding." I smile at him, and he just laughs.
"Well, I do have you to thank for this job," he says, holding up his beer to me. I lean over and click the neck of my beer to his. He graduated a year after me in finance. He had no direction to where he wanted to go. I invited him to come and stay with me for a couple of weeks to see if he could get a job at the local bank since I knew the branch manager. He was hired a week after he moved here. He is trying to build his client portfolio to start his own financial planning business.
"Anything for you," I say, taking a pull of my beer. Joseph and I have been best friends since we were in elementary school. Always in the same sports. Always on the same team. He was more of a brother to me than a friend. There is nothing that I wouldn't do for him. Always attached at the hip until college. We both applied to the same college, but he didn't get in, so we went our separate ways. Luckily, we were always in touch with each other.
"I thought I would be more advanced in my job, that's for sure." He takes a pull of his beer. It is coming to him slower than he wants it to come, which irritates him. He never did have patience.
"It'll come." I try to encourage him, and he just rolls his eyes. I laugh at him. We both had different school years. I hit the books hard while he rode the party train until the bitter end.
"This from the guy who got his own team within a year." He chuckles, and I just look over at him, confused.
"I busted my ass." I sit up now. "Day in and day out, seven days a week." When I got chosen for my internship at one of the biggest merger and acquisition companies in the States, I was so excited. I worked eighty-hour weeks, and it paid off because when I graduated, they offered me a new branch they were opening in my hometown. It was a no-brainer that I would take the job, plus building my own team.
"Yeah, yeah," Joseph says, smiling at me, and the worry that was on his face before is gone. "This is probably why they started calling you Ace in elementary school." It started in sixth grade when one of the teachers called me that, and the other kids laughed and thought they were dissing me by calling me Ace, but at the end of the day, it's the coolest nickname. I thought I would grow out of it, but it stayed with me. Very few people call me Weston, and if they do, it's because they don't know me very well.
I shake my head. "It was probably the straight As," I joke with him and turn to look at him. "But I'm hoping it was because I was a cool kid."
He laughs, slapping his leg. "The only thing cool about you in high school was me." He points at himself.
"Fuck off." I shake my head. "I was the star quarterback."
"Only because I was sick with food poisoning," he counters, and I flip him the bird.
"You ready for tomorrow?" I ask as he takes a pull of his beer. He just looks over at me and shrugs.
"I guess." I start to laugh. "What do you mean if I'm ready for tomorrow?"
"Are you ready to get married tomorrow?" I shake my head, taking a pull of my beer. The baseball game on the television is playing in the background.
"Is anyone ever ready to get married?" he asks, and my head whips around to look at him. He chuckles and looks at me. "Are you ready to get married?"
I think about the question. "I'm not even engaged yet." I laugh. "But I'm excited to start another chapter in my life," I answer him honestly. "Becoming a husband is huge, and I'm ready for it and then hopefully a father soon after. But that is all in Sheila's court. She tells me when she's ready, and we can start." He just nods his head and takes another pull of his beer. Sheila and I have been together a little less than a year. We met while waiting in line for coffee one day. She smashed into me as she turned, and her iced coffee went all over us. One thing led to another, and we went on a date a couple of days later. Slowly, we just got into the groove of dating each other. It helped so much that she got along with my friends so easily, especially Shelby. It wasn't always easy, that is for sure. I had to cancel a couple of dates because of work, but she always understood. She is building her career as a graphic designer and knows how hard it takes to grow your business.
"Aren't you ready for all of that?" I watch the play on the screen before looking over at him and seeing him with a faraway look on his face.
"I guess," he says, pulling another sip of beer.
"Shelby is amazing," I say, and he looks at me. It's no lie that she's amazing. From the first day I met her during a business class, something with us just clicked. We had the same goals and studied the same way, so it was amazing to find someone like her. The more time we spent together, the more I liked her. When they started dating, I was definitely surprised. I never thought the two of them were a good fit. Especially since Shelby is a “straight and narrow” kind of person, and Joseph is a really “fly by the seat of your pants” kind of guy. But after spending time with them, I saw that opposites attract. "You're a lucky man."
He nods his head at me. "I'm not the only one who is lucky. Sheila," he says, shaking his head and pulling another sip from his beer. "She's perfect."
"That she is," I agree with him. "Look at us, man." I look over at him.
"I never thought I would see the day when you settled down." I look over at him. It was no secret the women loved Joseph, and Joseph loved the women. All through high school and college and then even when he moved here, but when he met Shelby, he stopped.
"Neither did I, to be honest." He takes a deep breath and gets up. "But you got to grow up someday, and how good is it having a kick-ass boss lady at your side." He winks at me and turns to walk toward the stairs. "I'm going to go shower." He walks up the steps and stops. "If it's meant to be, it will be, right?" He just looks at me for a second, and he's about to tell me something, but then he turns and walks up the steps with his shoulders slumped.
"What in the fuck is going on?" I ask out loud, and then I take a pull of my beer. This time, it tastes bitter going down.
Picking up my phone, I dial Sheila, who answers after two rings. "Hello." Her voice is low.
"Hey, it's me," I say. "Were you sleeping?"
"Yeah, I guess I must have dozed off," she says. Her voice sounds groggy, and it almost sounds as if she's crying. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, I was just calling to say good night." I smile and look toward the coffee table in the middle of the room. The picture of the two of us is facing down on the table. Leaning forward, I pick up the frame, seeing the picture of the two of us when we had our first date. I place it back up next to the picture of the four of us taken four months ago on New Year's Eve. The four of us smiling next to each other.
"Okay," she says softly. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, I'll be the one beside the groom," I joke with her, waiting for her to give anything, but she doesn't.
"I'll be the first one down the aisle." She tries to joke back with me, but her tone is all out of whack.
"Night," I say, and she hangs up, and I look at my phone.
"I changed my mind," I hear Joseph mumble when he comes back downstairs with just his boxers on. I look at him as he walks into the kitchen, and I hear him rumbling through things. I hear the cupboard doors keep slamming and all I can do is wait for him to come out. When he walks out, he's holding a bottle of whiskey in his hand. "Definitely need a couple of shots of this tonight." He unscrews the top and takes a deep pull of it. "Want some?" He offers me the bottle, and I just shake my head.
"Wedding night jitters." I laugh, leaning forward.
"I guess so," he says, taking another pull. "It'll be fine," he says more to himself than me as he takes another gulp of whiskey. "It'll be just fine."