Page 27 of The Best Man Wins

Finally, Susie finds something she likes. She pulls into the parking lot of a general thrift store. We hop out and I feel the corners of my mouth tug downward.

“Are you sure this is the place you want?” I ask.

It’s a dump. The thrift store itself is a one-story warehouse. It looks like half of their items are outside, however, the back and front lawn scattered with bits and pieces. Everything from a bathtub to tires to lawn flamingos.

“It’s perfect,” Susie says as she stands beside me.

“You have to get out of the habit of saying this is perfect every time you see a garbage heap,” I tell her.

I feel Susie’s eyes on me as though she’s inspecting me. “In case no one has ever told you before—” Susie takes my chin in her fingers, “—you’re perfect, Braxton West.”

“Stop,” I tell her and pull away sharply. Telling her to stop is easier than telling her to keep going.

Thom and Marlee catch up to us. “Let’s bloody do this,” Thom says and cracks his knuckles.

Admittedly, I’m impressed. The three of them clearly have some kind of method to their madness as they begin picking through the entire store. They work in tandem—Thom picks up what looks like a mangled bike spoke, Susie hands over a candleholder, and just like that, they’ve created a centerpiece.

It all looks like trash to me. The only thing I manage to lift up is a small piggybank designed to look like a monkey. Its face is warped—the handmade thing didn’t hold up over the years—and when I show it to Marlee, she screams.

Like I said. I’m not good at this kind of thing.

“Braxton!” I turn at the sound of my name and spot Susie. She’s in the yard—if you could call it that; it’s more like sprouts of weeds patched into dry dirt. She hangs on to a wire contraption that forms an upside-down U over her. It looks like something that someone, once upon a time, thought could be a good entranceway outside of their house until they got bored of it and lit it on fire, leaving nothing but the steel frame behind.

“What do you think?” she asks, leaning on the wires.

“I think you look like you’re in a birdcage.”

“It won’t look like this, obviously. We’ll layer it with vines and flowers…make it look pretty.” She scales the thing with her eyes, fingertips dancing over the frame. Planning. “What do you say? Could you see yourself getting married under something like this?”

I touch the wire frame on the top. “That’s a complicated question.”

“Why?” She looks up at me. “Wait, don’t tell me. Are you too cool to ever get married?”

“No,” I say. “I think marriage works. For some people.”

“Some people,” she interrogates. “Not you.”

“It’s never been in my plan.”

“That’s the point of falling in love,” Susie argues. “It’s never something you plan. It just…happens.”

“You’re the expert,” I tell her.

“Because I organize weddings?”

“No. Because you’ve been there.”

That dims some of the spark in her eyes. To Susie’s credit, her smile remains intact. “You’re right…I’ve had a wedding. Half a wedding. I’ve never been married, though. We didn’t get that far.”

“Did it feel right when you were standing under the altar?”

Susie shrugs. “It did. For me. Not for Ace, apparently.” She runs her fingers through her hair. She does that, I’ve noticed, to brush off whatever complicated thoughts are going on in her head. “Anyway, I think Ray and Cora will look great under it. But you’re the one paying for it, so…”

“I defer to your judgment,” I tell her. That, at least, brings back some of the spark in her eyes.

“Great—hey, Thom!” she calls the Brit over. “Come check this out…!”

“That’s wonderful,” Thom says when he lays his eyes on it. “We’ll need something to cover it—”

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