Page 60 of Shameless With Him

Chapter 12

Caleb

“Why arewe calling it a stag party instead of a bachelor party?” one of the other groomsmen asked as I leaned against the leather interior of the limo we were currently riding in.

“Because it sounds better than a bachelor party?” I answered, shrugging.

“I don’t know, this sort of sounds like we’re all going to rut on each other or something,” the guy said, clearly having had a little too much whiskey at the first stop we’d been at.

John sat next to me, his shoulders shaking as he tried to hold back laughter.

I just glared at him. “Hey, you need to deal with this. These are your friends.”

John wrapped his arm around my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Hey, we can all be your friends. We all come from different walks of life, but we’re coming here for a common purpose. The stag.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You had one drink. One drink at that whiskey and cigar bar.”

“I think the smell of cigars got me drunk.”

“I don’t think that can actually happen,” I said, but John just shook his head.

“I like the word stag because it’s British. Isn’t it?” I stared at him. “Back in the old Georgian or Regency days, isn’t that what they would call it? And I think they still do over there. Anyway, I wanted to sound fancy. And so did my future wife.” John grinned. “My future wife. Don’t you just love hearing that? Wife wife wife wife wife.”

I held back a smile, letting John continue talking about stags and British people and his future wife. John was only one drink into the evening, and he was already a little tipsy. But that was John for you. He just couldn’t hold his liquor, and that’s why I knew John would be drinking club soda for the rest of the night.

I too was drinking club soda all night, but mostly I wanted to have my wits about me. Someone needed to be the responsible one in the group, I just hadn’t known it would be me. When had that happened? When did I become the responsible one?

How scary was that?

I wasn’t usually the person who held back and made sure everybody else was doing what they should, but you know, time changed a man. That and a possible brain tumor that wasn’t actually a brain tumor. Yeah, that did things, too. Not to mention the fact that I was actually worried that Zoey might hurt me if I let anything happen to John. Oh, I didn’t want anything to happen to John. But Zoey was so stressed out over everything that Lacey needed her to do, especially over the past couple of weeks when things had started to really move along, that I did not want anything to put her over the edge.

I didn’t know when she had become a driving force in my decisions. Though maybe I liked it. Or perhaps I just needed to pretend that that wasn’t the case.

“Where are we heading next?” John asked.

“The comic shop,” I answered for the third time in as many minutes since the entire group kept asking. “Remember, you’re the one who helped me make the itinerary.”

John just grinned. “Oh, yeah, we get the whole night with comics.”

“But no booze allowed in there,” I said, glaring at the rest of the guys. Be on your best behavior. And if you hurt any of those precious comics, you not only have to buy them, the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound muscular guy who owns the place might actually kill you.”

“I could take him,” one of the guys said, flexing his muscles. The guy was an actual bodybuilder, so he might be able to take the owner of the comic shop, but that wasn’t something I wanted to risk.

“Or we could just not be assholes.” I winked as I said it and sipped at my club soda as we pulled into the parking lot.

“You’re no fun,” one of the guys said, thankfully joking.

“Hey, we always need a sober one,” John said, already less drunk than he had been before. It didn’t take long for John to get drunk, but he usually fought through all of the booze haze pretty quickly.

“That is true. Never thought it would be you, Caleb,” the drunkest guy said, giggling.

A grown man, giggling. How much whiskey had they had behind my back?

“Well, I’m just keeping you guys alive. Because that man could kill you with one hand.”

“But, comics. I’m excited. Are we allowed to buy things tonight? I don’t remember. No more whiskey for me.” There was reverence in John’s tone that made me smile.

“You can buy anything you want, but I am going to be holding your credit card,” I said, shaking my head as John mock pouted.

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