Page 47 of Unexpectingly Happily Ever After

″What can I do? It’s over with Justin. We’re not getting married.”

″But you brought us all the way to Las Vegas for a bachelorette party!” I burst out.

Brit smiles sadly. “I’ve always wanted to go to Vegas with you, Casey. I thought this was as good a time as any. I keep waiting for you to announce you’re pregnant again.”

I keep my mouth shut. Now is not the time for true confessions from me.

″I know you didn’t want to come,” she adds sadly.

″It not that I didn’t want to come, but I have three kids, Brit. It’s really hard for me to get away. J.B. can handle them but they’re my responsibility. You don’t understand.” I bite my tongue as soon as the words leave my mouth. I’ve always tiptoed around the topic of the kids with Brit, just like we’ve always skirted the subject of why she doesn’t want kids.

″No, I clearly don’t.” Brit’s tone is as icy as the prison floor. “But do you ever stop to think thatI’myour responsibility too?”

″You’re a grown woman, Brit. How do you figure?”

″You’re my oldest friend. You got me through my parents’ divorce when I was fourteen, my mother’s death when I was twenty. You were the first one I told when I lost my virginity. You stood beside me at all three of my weddings and held my hand through the divorces. Don’t you ever think that Ican’t do thiswithout you?”

″What are you talking about?”

″I’m not strong like you, Casey. I don’t have people around me that care–like you have Cooper and Emma and your sister. Lacey is nothing like Libby. And even your mother, as freaky as she is. I don’t have a mother.”

″Brit…”

″And J.B.,” she continues with a scornful toss of her hair. “Have I ever had a man love me like that? And to think you almost threw it away. The kids. I don’t have anyone giving me unconditional love like you do, Casey. I have to work for it. People love me because I make them, and it’s hard.”

″You don’t make me love you,” I say awkwardly.

″I don’t have anyone else.” She enunciates each word. “I had to fight Morgan for you so I just gave up. But I’m your responsibility too because I don’t have anyone else. And it hurts–” She pauses and I’m stunned to find her blue eyes have filled with tears. “That you wouldn’t want to be here with me. To share this with me.”

″It’s not that I didn’t want to come,” I tell her. “It’s just hard.”

″Sure,” she says in a clipped voice. “I get it that I’m not as important to you anymore.”

″I was afraid to leave them,” I admit in a rush of words. “Not to leave them with J.B., because he couldn’t handle it. I thought they’d like being with him, maybe too much. That they’d love him more than me.”

Brit narrows her eyes. “You’re jealous of your husband? The father of your children? That’s even more screwed up than I am.”

″Maybe,” I laugh. “They’re mine. I wanted them more than anyone else, and I need to keep them.”

″You’re not going to lose your kids because you go away for a couple of nights.” Brit laughs but trails off when she catches sight of my expression. “You’ll never lose them.”

″What if I get shot, like that concert here last year?” I ask, voicing one of my fears.

″I won’t let you get shot,” Brit says stoutly. “I’m your responsibility, but you’re mine too. I won’t let anything happen to you.”′

I glance around. “You let me get arrested.”

″That was Morgan’s fault,” Brit says briskly. “I would never have created such a ruckus over a man.”

″It was a fun ruckus,” Flora admits. I’m so intent on my conversation with Brit that I forgot that she and M.K. are still close behind us and hearing every word. “Hitting that woman felt so good, almost like I’ve been cleansed.” Flora’s voice drops, and she glances around with hunched shoulders. “She’s not in here, is she?”

″I don’t think so,” M.K. assures her.

It’s then that the officer comes to the bars. “Okay, so no one really wants to press charges, so we’re going to have to let you go. Anyone still drunk? Need to sober up?”

Morgan and a hovering Bron are there to greet us with tearful hugs as Brit and I file into the waiting room with the other women.

″I’m so sorry!” she wails, throwing her arms around me.

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