Page 81 of Behind the Bars

“Maybe she canbe—”

“She’s nothing,” I cut him off. “I don’t even know heranymore.”

“That public tongue-fuck told a differentstory.”

“Yeah, well, I had an offmoment.”

“Are you gonna see heragain?”

I slammed my hand into the punching bag. “Nope.”

“Why not? Look, man, I know you got this whole ‘I hate the world and everything that exists’ emo phase going on, but…there was something there. Therewas—”

“Last time I saw her was right before K-Katie…” My voice trailed off, and I took a breath. “I won’t see heragain.”

“Oh.” Jason frowned. “I see.” He shrugged his shoulders and gave me a pat on the back. “Well, at least you guys had one final good bang before calling it quits. What’s that like, anyway, huh? Having sex in public? I feel like I should bleach my bartables.”

“Jason?”

“Yeah?”

“Shutup.”

“Okay.”

But of course, he kept talking, because Jason never knew how to shut up. “But you do need a date to thewedding.”

“Idon’t.”

“Yes, you do. You’re the best man. How would it look having the best man not have a date to mywedding?”

“Um, like he doesn’t have adate?”

“Come on, Elliott. I can setyou—”

“God, no,” I told him. “No moresetups.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Is this because of Susie and her extra toe? Because I’ll be honest, I didn’t know she had an extra toe when I set you up withher.”

I smirked. “Just notinterested.”

“Well, fine. You can come to my wedding dateless as long as you come to my bachelorparty.”

“Dude, like I said downstairs, I’m not coming to your bachelor party.” I’d already told him that a million times, but he kept asking each day hoping I’d give in. After high school, Jason had gone off to college to join a fraternity and had some of the best years of his life. He met his fiancée, Kelly, at one of their frat parties sophomore year, and they’d been together ever since. Jason was infatuated with her. It didn’t take long for him to propose after they graduated, and ever since then, all he talked about was the wedding. He was an extremegroomzilla.

It wasn’t shocking to me, though. That was how Jason was about everything. When he did something—he did it big. When he fell in love, he fell hard. When he planned a wedding, he planned it huge—which was exactly why I didn’t want to go to his bachelor party. It was going to beextreme.

“You know your friends c-can’t stand me anyway,” I told him. “I’m not a partyguy.”

“Yes, but I am a party guy, and I’ll party enough for us both. I just want you sitting right there beside me, being your lame-ass self daydreaming about macros and proteinshakes.”

I wished I could agree to his request, but I couldn’t. I knew his friends would want to go hang out on Frenchmen Street, and I hadn’t been back there since the incident withKatie.

I was almost certain I’d never go backthere.

“I’ll be at your wedding,” I promised him. “Standing right by yourside.”

Jason groaned. “Okay, but if you could not look so hot and tempting, that would be great. It’s my time to shine, beer belly and all, okay? I better get back towork.”

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