Page 10 of Three Grumpy Groomsmen

He’s lucky he’s on a plane right now.

I lean against the doorframe at the edge of the dance floor and watch her dancing with a group of her girlfriends and her little sister, arms raised above her head as she dances off beat.

Okay, so maybe she’s not perfect. She really can’t dance, which I have on occasion informed her of, because I’m nothing if not brutally honest. That is, I am about most things.

I’ve never been totally honest with her about my feelings for her.

I’ve never shared with Ivy that I don’t just love her as a friend, that I’minlove with her. Even if once upon a time, for a brief moment, I’d thought maybe she and I…

But no. It never happened.

When Ivy and I first met three years ago at a launch party for a new celebrity-owned gin, I was dating Anthony, an Italian model. Once I realized that he was all beauty, no brains, and ended it, Ivy was casually dating some guy she met playing beach volleyball. That didn’t last long, but by then I was casually seeing someone else.

I’m attracted to women but I haven’t dated them as often as men because they usually try to change me. They want more emotion from me, more romance. That isn’t me. Never going to be. That’s one of the things I love about her. She accepts me exactly as I am—brooding, deep, a little prickly, but fiercely loyal.

For the last few years, the only woman I’ve wanted is Ivy.

But while I was trying to extract myself from the disaster that was Paul, the podiatrist, Ivy met Brad on set at his cooking show and that was that. Love at first demi-glace.

So because she’s my best friend, and she was going to marry Brad, I was going to grit my fucking teeth and endure it because I want her to be happy. More than anything else in the entire world.

Besides, you can’t talk anyone out of anything.

Even if they’re mistakes.

Like fucking Brad.

Who is still too much of a coward to answer his phone or his text messages.

When he gets back to L.A. he has some fucking explaining to do.

“Let’s hear it for the bride!” the DJ says enthusiastically as he launches into a remix of early two thousands pop music.

The guy is trying. I’ll give him that.

And truthfully, so is Ivy.

She almost might be drunk.

Ivy yells, “Woo!” with her arms up. Her breast almost pops out of her gown, and she grabs at her dress, almost toppling over.

Okay, she’s definitely drunk.

No one can possibly blame her.

The one hundred or so guests who stuck around for the party all clap and cheer.

They’re here to support Ivy, because they love her, and probably not because they want to dance to Usher’s “Yeah.”

Though her aunt Becky is really getting down right now. But mostly, they’re out there on the dance floor to protect her, to surround her with her people. Ford is out there, dancing as poorly as Ivy, but he’s giving it his all.

Brad’s family has left, which was for the best.

Since dinner, this has been my post, watching over Ivy on the dance floor, simultaneously studying her to make sure she’s okay and tamping down my feelings of complete and utter fucking relief that she isnotmarried and hours away from wedding night sex in a hotel suite with a guy who isn’t me.

Sex with Ivy…yeah, I’ve thought about it once or twice or a thousand times.

I sip my whiskey.

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