The Luckiest (23 page)

“Well good morning! Good time last night?” Aaron says as he crosses back to the coffee machine. Tu has cleared some more space and set out a stack of mugs.

“Yeah, the wedding was great, I thought. Everybody seemed happy, and I got some great shots.”

Aaron finishes pouring Nik’s cup and leans back against the counter, watching Tu. He’s still flipping, and he pauses and turns the tablet so Aaron can see a photo of him and Nik dancing together. It’s a tight shot in profile, only their shoulders and heads very close together, with Nik’s hand curled into Aaron’s hair. They’re not talking, just staring at each other, and Nik is angled a little farther toward the camera than Aaron. The look on his face is soft and tender and
breathtaking.

“Oh,” Aaron says, walking closer. “You… can you send that to me? I think I need that.”

Tu grins. “Yeah, tonight or tomorrow I’m going to go through these and put them all up somewhere, but I’ll email you this one right now.”

He bends over his tablet, punching at buttons and sending the picture out immediately. Aaron watches him, staring at his fingers and his wet hair, and thinks about everything teasing he had wanted to say. “Did you sleep well?” “How happy
did
everybody seem?” Even, “Be kind to Stephanie,” maybe, when he’s his better self. Suddenly none of it seems necessary, and he’s sure that none of it is appropriate, not
now,
so he just says, “Thank you.”

Aaron holds up the fresh cup of coffee and says, “Nik slipped back to your room and grabbed some clothes this morning and is already in the shower, so I better get this up to him.” Tu’s head pops up and he looks at Aaron, his eyes wide. Aaron smiles at him. “We’ll be back in a little bit.”

Tu’s voice is quiet, a little absent, when he says, “Right, of course.” Aaron grins to himself on his way up the stairs.

When he reaches the top of the stairs, Joe is stepping out of Jasmine and Stephanie’s room, clad in a pair of sweat shorts, and Aaron reflexively checks him out and then grins at him, shaking his head at the gobsmacked, guilty look on Joe’s face and resolutely walking on. When he finally makes it back to his room he closes the door with a sigh, carefully places the coffee on his nightstand and reaches for his phone to send a text to Alex.

“Just wanted to let you know that if your goal for your wedding was to generate our own personal bedroom farce, it was a rousing success. More gossip when you’re not doing whatever it is you’re doing.”

When they finally make it downstairs, the whole house—Mia, Nicole, Josh, Stephanie, Tu, Joe and Jasmine—are sitting around the kitchen table, bleary-eyed and agape, because a team of six strangers are standing in the kitchen and doing dishes, cleaning the floor and gathering their supplies to move out through the house.

“What…” Aaron’s voice drifts off as the whole table turns to stare at them.

“Your family sent a cleaning crew, that’s what,” Stephanie says, tears in her eyes.

Aaron looks at Josh, who is leaning back in his chair with a big smile on his face. He raises a brow at his cousin, and Josh spreads his hands wide. “That’s all them, man. You know how they are together—I don’t know how they think of this stuff, but they always do.”

Jasmine leans forward and pillows her head on her crossed arms. Her hair is a mess and there’s mascara smeared under her eyes, but her voice is heartfelt when she says, “Your moms are my favorite. Both of them. Do you think one of them would adopt me?”

Joe nudges her arm with his. “I have dibs on Josh’s mom,” he says, and she turns her head to grin up at him.

“And if I get my way, I’m next in line to join Aaron’s family,” Nik says, wrapping an arm around Aaron’s waist.

Aaron gives Nik a look and rolls his eyes; they land on Josh when the roll is over. He watches his cousin as he says, “I think my mom has enough kids underfoot. Josh is getting mar­ried soon and Joe already knows how to clean up after him­self—I’m pretty sure Aunt Karen will be in the market for a replacement.” Aaron grins widely when Josh starts to splutter.

After coffee and a makeshift breakfast of the last of the frozen waffles and the bacon that wasn’t used the night before, they clear out of the kitchen so that the cleaners can finish their work in peace. Tu and Nik head to the beach to check that the poles from the bower are down and folded, and when everybody else is settling down in the living room to rest before they start to pack, Aaron grabs Jasmine’s arm and says with an imperial wave of his hand, “My girl and I are heading out to walk the grounds one last time. We’ll be back later.” He drags her out the front door, snagging an empty cardboard box on the way out.

The rental people are still packing up the chairs and unwind­ing the lights from the arbor, moving slowly and lazily and laughing and talking amongst themselves. Aaron nods at them and starts to gather the jam jars from the tables and drop them in a pile on the soft, sandy grass. Jasmine follows his lead and eventually they settle there in the grass, Jasmine cross-legged and Aaron in a crouch because he’s dressed for driving home, not lounging on a lawn.

“We haven’t had much time to talk, just the two of us,” Aaron says as he dumps out a jar, plucks the candle from the pile of sand to toss it to the side and then places the jar in the box.

“There’s always been something.” She picks up a jam jar in each hand and waves them around.

He hums agreement at her and dumps two more jars. “So. Joe.”

“Yep.”

He shifts on his feet and then glances up at her when she stays quiet. “That’s all I’m getting?”

“Tell me about Nik,” she says pointedly.

Aaron doesn’t even care. “Oh, Jasmine. He’s… still Nik.”

“He’s in love with you.” Her voice is a friendly tease.

“Yes. I think he is.” He keeps working, and then he says, “How did I get so lucky?”

“I’ll be honest: I do not know.” He slaps at her until she laughs, and then she tosses her hair and says, “Well, you’re right—he’s pretty special. But you know you’re fabulous, baby. I’ve been telling you that since forever.”

He grins at her. “And I’ve been telling you that whoever you’re with needs to think you’re as important as you obviously are. So tell me—are you important to Joe?”

She glances up at him and gives him an impish grin. “Oh hell, Aaron. I don’t know how important either one of us is to the other. But it’s easy, and the thing about Joe…” she drifts off, the grin still on her face.

“Yes?” he drawls.

She shrugs. “Well, he feels safe. We have a lot of history, and it feels easy with him—he doesn’t make my number go up, for one thing, and you know how I feel about my number.” He rolls his eyes, mostly because he can’t believe that Jasmine still takes that seriously after all this time. “I know, I know, you and Alex both think it’s dumb and the only other person still keeping track at this point is Stephanie, probably, and
that’s
embarrassing. But I’m not over it yet and I don’t think I’m going to be anytime soon. I can still count my sex number on one hand and I like that about myself. Sue me.” She keeps grinning, but dumps the next jar a little more viciously. “Also, the thing about Joe is, he’s not an asshole; he could never even
be
an asshole. You know him. Basically, that’s it, and right now it will sure as hell do. I’m not sure ours is a love for the ages—I still don’t think that everybody gets a love story—but he’s never been anything but as nice to me as he can be, and I like him.”

“And that’s enough?” Aaron isn’t sure anymore, really, what’s enough for her. Once upon a time he knew exactly what would make her happy, but as long as he’s known her and as much as he still loves her, he’s not sure he really knows who she is right now.

“For right now? Yeah.” She leans back on the grass, props herself up with her hands behind her and sighs. “Oh, hell, Aaron. I need a
job
. I have no idea what I’m doing next, and I need something to look forward to. Joe might not be able to help me find work, but he’s sure as shit worth looking forward to. We have fun, and right now? That’s worth a lot, because nothing else is looking all that attractive.”

Aaron pokes at her knee. “I saw him this morning without his shirt on.”

“Right?” Her grin is savage, delighted. “So then you see what I’m talking about.
Very
attractive.”

“I have some idea, yes. And what about Mitchell?”

She raises her brow and tilts her head to the side. “Who?”

He dusts off his hands and rests his elbows on his knees, propping his chin on his hand and grinning at her. “Right answer.”

They’re still sitting there, finishing cleaning out the jars and talking about when Jasmine should visit him in New York, when Joe and Josh make their way out of the house, bags thrown over their shoulders. They’re both rumpled and wear­ing sunglasses, but they’re also grinning. Joe roars at Jasmine and comes at her, tackling her into the grass while she giggles and slaps at him. Aaron shakes his head and leaves them there so he can make his way over to Josh.

Josh throws his arm around Aaron’s shoulders as they walk together to Josh’s truck, not cowed by having to reach up a few inches. When Aaron first outgrew Josh, it was the source of so many fights—so many times they had to be separated by their moms—and now, like so many things, it’s just what’s normal for them. “So, man—you and Nik. That’s a real thing again, huh?”

He smiles. “Yeah. I called my mom about it—did she tell you?”

Josh shrugs. “She told Mom, and you know how that goes. She was on the phone to me before she even left the house that day. I’m pretty sure they’re throwing a party, just the two of ‘em—Mom was talking about a double wedding.”

Aaron shakes his head; his Aunt Karen had never had much of a sense of occasion, but it’s very sweet of her to think about it that way. “I’m sorry Megan couldn’t come yesterday.”

“Naw, man, it’s fine. It’s just as well.” He pauses for a second, and Aaron feels a little dread swell up within him, because he knows what’s coming next. “Stephanie looks good, doesn’t she?”

He levels his cousin with a look, and Josh starts laughing before Aaron even has to say anything. “No way, man, don’t worry about it—I’m just giving you a hard time. Shit, I wouldn’t even if there wasn’t Megan. That ship has
sailed
—and let’s be real, it was never gonna hold water anyway, was it? There was just… we were two different people, you know?” Aaron watches Josh as he makes his way through this mixed-up metaphor, but he gets what he means. Josh looks back at the house, at how its façade looms over the street. “I mean, me and Stephanie—I never had a thing like that, before or since. It was—I don’t know, man, maybe some kind of opposites attracting thing? And she’s still one of the most interesting girls I ever met, probably mostly because I never could figure out what that was all
about
. But that was never—I mean, I might have wanted it to? And she’s always gonna be something to look at, I think. But it was always gonna be too hard, and she was never gonna like me for just the guy I am. Her mother couldn’t stand me, anyway, and she was never sure if her mom was right. I don’t need that.”

Aaron’s arm is still wrapped around Josh, and he squeezes him around the waist. “No. You don’t. I’m
really
glad you know that.” He laughs, a little, and blows out a breath. “God, I’m so glad that’s finally really over.”

“She hooked up with that Vietnamese guy last night, didn’t she?” Josh’s smile is crooked and dirty, and Aaron just holds up his hands.

“Not my business.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I guess you were pretty busy last night, too.”

“
Only
my business,” Aaron quips back with a grin.

“Aw, man. You’re no fun.” Aaron gives him a raised eye­brow. “Still, I’m just saying—that thing with me and Steph­anie, that’s not the kind of thing that would happen with the two of you. Y’all have always wanted the same thing, I’m pretty sure.” Josh elbows him in the side and leers at him.

Aaron laughs and scrubs his hands across his face in disbelief while Josh calls out, “Joe, c’mon, man, put her down! We’ve gotta get back on the road!”

Aaron slides his tablet into his bag, tosses the flap closed and glances around the room one more time. Then he looks at Nik, who is sitting on the edge of the bed watching him.

“You’re already packed?”

Nik nods. “I never really pulled much out—and I was in here most of the time, anyway.”

Aaron quirks a brow and then grins. “True. What time are you heading out?”

“I promised David I’d stay until it’s done. He’s still sort of freaked out that Stephanie’s parents were so relaxed about letting them use the space, and he asked me to stay and make sure it’s spotless.”

“Living up to that best man title, aren’t you?”

“Well, I do try.”

“You succeed,” Aaron shoots back with a glance. He’s trying for flirty, but Nik is not taking the bait at all; he smiles, but it’s not quite meeting his eyes.

“Hey.”

“What?” Nik tilts his head, the look on his face quizzical and fake and guarded, and Aaron
hates
it.

“You tell me.”

Nik looks at him, searches his face for something, and then he sighs and reaches for Aaron. Aaron slides over until he stands between Nik’s knees, and he slips his hands up to cup Nik’s cheeks so he can stare down into his face.

His eyes are gone gray and so sincere, searching Aaron’s. He says, quietly, “Tomorrow I’m coming to your house. I’m going to stand on your front porch again and knock on your door and wait for you to answer. Promise me that when you do, you’ll kiss me.”

Aaron smooths his hair, strokes his cheeks and says, “If you call before you come, I’ll meet you on the sidewalk and do it there.” Under Aaron’s hands, Nik’s smile creases his cheeks. “You don’t have to be afraid of my front porch. We aren’t eighteen anymore.”

Nik chuckles and leans forward to rest his forehead against Aaron’s chest. “It’s not the porch that’s the problem.”

“I think the porch is at least a
little
the problem.” When Nik is quiet, Aaron tugs at his hair until he looks up and says, “At least I hope it is. Is something else going on?”