Page 48 of Bedding The Best Man (Bedding the Bachelors)

Gabe didn’t know what to say. He had tried so hard to keep his feelings from Eric, and from Brianne. He hadn’t meant to be obvious.

“I’m sorry,” Gabe muttered. “I did my best to stay out of your way.”

“You don’t get it. I’m the one who’s sorry. I knew the whole time that you should’ve been together. But I couldn’t let her go. I didn’t want to. And I feel like such a shit.”

“Then why didn’t you just talk to her? Why leave her on her wedding day?”

Eric took a long swig from his beer, sighed after he swallowed. “Best friends, remember?”

“You’re saying you left her on her wedding day to give me my chance? Seriously, man? We could have worked it all out.” What Gabe wanted to say but didn’t was that Eric had been a chicken shit and as a result Brianne had a suffered for it. A lot.

“I’d already talked to her about her feelings for you. She denied them. You telling me you wouldn’t have done the same?”

No, Gabe thought, he couldn’t tell him that.

“I did what I felt I had to in order to push the issue. To make you two try to work out your feelings without me in the equation. It sucks I had to hurt Brianne, but even now, I’m not sure I’d do things any differently. Not given where I was at the time.

“When she said your name in her sleep again, that was the last straw. I couldn’t keep lying to myself. I know it was a shit thing to do, leaving her at the altar. But I couldn’t go through with it, when I knew she loved you. And I was too chicken shit to admit it to myself, or to anyone else. That’s why I didn’t tell anybody why I left. It was easier for everybody to think I was a coward than to admit it was never right between us in the first place. But even more than that, I felt like I had to do it. That it would be the only way the two of you would move past your loyalty and act on your feelings.”

They sat together, drinking their beer in silence.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking while I was away,” Eric said. His voice was quiet, introspective. “Not just about Brianne and me, or about you. About my life. Who am I, what I really want, that sort of thing.”

“That’s not like you,” Gabe said.

“Neither is leaving my fiancée at the altar, but what are you gonna do?” He wasn’t in the mood to joke, obviously.

“What did you decide?”

“Maybe this was for the best.” Another swig of beer. Another cryptic silence.

“In what way?”

“I don’t want this life.” Eric looked at Gabe, shrugging. “It’s not for me.”

Gabe was horrified. “What’s not? Are you talking about killing yourself?”

Eric glared at him. “No, idiot!”

“Then what do you mean?”

“The whole world I was raised in. It’s fine for my parents, it’s what they want. But it’s not in my blood. Not any more. I want something simpler. I’m moving to Utah permanently.”

Gabe’s mouth fell open. Of everything he’d thought he might hear, this was dead last. But he supposed it shouldn’t have been. Eric had always enjoyed his visits to Buffalo Falls. “Are you sure?”

Eric nodded. “Definitely. Arrangements have been made. I just want to start over. Lead a simple, quiet life. I like myself more when I’m there. Sad but true.”

Gabe raised his bottle. “Here’s to the simple life, then.”

Eric grinned, touching his bottle to Gabe’s.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, Gabe marveling at the way life had turned out. He’d spent so much time envying Eric for his money and his good fortune at having scored Brianne, while Eric just wanted to live a quiet life at a hardware store in the middle of nowhere. It seemed absurd.

“What are you gonna do?” Eric turned his head, looking at Gabe.

“About Brianne, you mean?”

“You two need to be together. Sack up and go after her.”

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