Page 32 of Never Say Yes To Your Best Friend (I said Yes)

They’ll straighten out in no time, though.

We’ll all bounce back.

I have experience with this. I’ve come back from far worse. Everything will be A-freaking-OK. If it takes time, then it takes time. I have neverending amounts of time and neverending ideas about pudding. I have a job, and this company, thanks to the fake date fiasco that kicked it all off, is even better now. I’m on a great path. Mont’s leaving isn’t going to change that. It’s only going to put him on a better path, too, and seeing as we never meant anything to each other at all other than vaguely as sort of friends, I’m happy for him.

Chapter ten

Mont

“Marriage is a time-honored institution. It’s a great agreement between two people, and it doesn’t always have to involve emotions. Oftentimes, it’s best when it doesn’t. Happiness can still be achieved with an acceptable amount of risk. There are more benefits than drawbacks all around when done correctly.”

Two minutes into dinner, and I already regret bringing Connor with me. He’s one of my best friends, but he’s from a different kind of family. My parents are exceptionally normal for rich people, while his parents were the triple D kind. Distant, dysfunctional, and desensitized. They treated Connor like he was more of an object—an heir to the family fortune—than a kid. He didn’t get sent to boarding school, but he was in private schools, and he hung out with other kids who weren’t getting what they needed at home. They formed a sort of pack. I’ve met his friends from high school, and they’re all kind of emotionallydetachedfrom the world. Another good D word. They’re good atrunning their own empires, and they have great business sense. But emotions? They don’t do emotions.

It’s different from how I don’t do them. I do emotions. Just not well. And that’s not even true. I’m honestly great at some of them.

I feel like they’re just a different brand of being lost when compared to me. They don’t believe in love in any sort of capacity. Marriage and children? Yes. They’re on board. Just not the way I would want to be.

My parents are still in love. They have their quirks, but they respect each other, and they’ve made a thirty-five-year marriage seem like it was easy when I know it wasn’t. Connor’s parents, on the other hand? They might be married, but I know neither his mom nor his dad has been faithful to the marriage. They care a lot about what their standing in society looks like, so on the surface, they’re the perfect kind of family, but underneath, it’s all rot and sadness.

I met Connor in my first year of college, and it didn’t take long for him to confess everything. Basically, on day one, over the first beer. He just looked at me, and with that strange frankness I’ve always admired, he told me about what a fucked up childhood he had and how his family was a hot mess on the underbelly.

Usually, he doesn’t get into it with strangers, but after our crab appetizers arrived, I admitted how Evilla and I met. She and Genevieve shared a few guilty looks about that, but then they started laughing, and I joined in. Any hard feelings I had about the switch-up have been lost. I needed to learn a few things, and laughing at myself was one of them. I’ve never been able to do that. Since I then had to admit the rest of what I did, I suppose it opened up a door for Connor to expound on his theories about relationships.

The real Genevieve sits next to the window and across from me, on the same side of the booth with Evilla. This was the only booth open, and the fact that it was the same one as last time seemed a little bit funny and odd to me, but what did I really know about these things? Well, just that Evilla and I shared a look about it when we got here. Connor and I had waited outside for the women to arrive, and we all went in together and sat down.

The real Genevieve is a tall, blonde bombshell. Now that they’re together, it’s easy to see that they look nothing alike, though they’re both lovely in different ways. Alright, if I’m honest, Genevieve is pretty, and anyone could see that, but Evilla iscaptivating.

Genevieve snorts, and she makes a face like she’s auditioning for a role in a movie exclusively about pulling funny faces. “Jesus, that’s quite a dismal attitude.”

Connor shakes his head. “I don’t think looking at marriage like a business agreement is wrong. The marriages that involve the careful planning and assessment of two different people’s characters to determine compatibility and workability, those are the ones that last.”

I’ve had a crab cheese stick paused halfway to my mouth for the past two minutes, so I take a bite, letting the juicy crab flavors roll over my tongue. I can’t believe Connor put this out there. I always thought he didn’t want to be anything like his parents.

“I think you’re crazy if you’re getting married with that kind of attitude,” Genevieve tosses back, but he keeps it light.

She and Evilla are both wearing green. Evilla’s dress is emerald with lime green flowers all over it, and if it’s not vintage, then I’m a coconut tree. Genevieve’s is probably designer and much more modern. It’s strapless and streamlined, and when I walked in, I noticed her designer bag and heels. Evilla’s heels,however, are funky and fun in contrast. They aren’t nearly so high, and they’re bright purple like she doesn’t give two flying figs on foxes about blending in. At work, she might dress in a more understated way, but I like this wild side of her.

Evilla’s smile matches her fun outfit. She’s not going to get too serious, either. She and Genevieve might not look all that similar, but I can see they have the same sassy spirit. “I think I’m too old-fashioned for that. I’d like some emotional investment to play into the mix, but I think that, on some level, being rational about things isn’t so bad as well. People should be compatible, even if they’re opposites. They don’t have to come from the same place or like the same things or be the same age to want something similar.”

Genevieve picks up from there, waving a crab stick with marinara sauce at Connor in mock disapproval. “I think it’s more important how people grow over the years and react to different circumstances that life throws at them. You both can be the most compatible people on earth when you get married, and you can think you want something. You can also think you can make it with or without emotion, but things change. People change.”

“Maybe marriage just isn’t for everyone, and it’s the way society pushes us into thinking we have to conform and do it; otherwise, there’s something wrong with us as basic-level human beings. That. That makes the whole thing go so wrong,” I volunteer. I should probably just eat the crab stick and stop pretending I know what I’m talking about.

Evilla is frowning, but she reaches for a nacho and dips it in the spicy crab and cheese sauce in the middle of the tray. “You’re probably right. Marriage is a lot of work, and it’s a lot of pressure from society, from family, from friends. It’s hard being the one inside it. A lot of marriages that end seemed perfectly happy to everyone else.”

“It’s probably better not to get married until you’re fifty,” Genevieve says before having a nice laugh. She doesn’t seem like someone who takes herself too seriously. She probably thought Evilla’s date from hell with me was hilarious. After she sympathized and extrapolated about how sorry she was for the whole thing.

I can laugh about it now.

But the light obsession that led to buying the company? That one’s a little bit harder to admit to.

I just couldn’t handle the thought of letting Evilla be out there in the universe and never seeing her again. Isn’t that exactly what I’m contemplating now if I leave the company in someone else’s capable hands? It’s surprising how it only takes a few weeks to go on quite a journey of self-discovery, though I haven’t yet. I’m giving myself too much credit. I’ve justrealizedI need to go down that path.

Should self-discovery be done alone? Or can one discover oneself by surrounding said self with other people? Or maybe just oneparticularperson? Does that still count, or does it then become less about the discovery of self for self’s sake and more for the sake of losing oneself?

“You’ll be pushed into it sooner or later,” Connor says with more conviction than he should. Genevieve and Evilla share a discreet look, and I want to elbow Connor. We’re both wearing jeans, but he’s rocking a mint green polo, and I’m in a henley. We both probably look like assholes.

“No one is going to push anyone into marriage,” I try and say by way of apology.

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