Page 4 of The Best Wild Idea
Si raises the champagne an inch higher to begin again. “My favorite memory of college was the whole damn thing. You guys know my family is kind of nonexistent to me so you all became my family over the last four years.” He clears his throat. “Even longer for you, Grant.” He tilts the bottle up to take a pull, I think to distract us from the emotion welling up in his eyes.
“Ah—” I exclaim, pointing at the bottle, and Grant does the same, adding, “Not yet!”
Si takes his time with a long drink, then adds a second, somehow without it all shooting back up at his face when he’s done.
“Sorry, kids, my game, my rules.” His eyes shine.
“And where on God’s green earth do you plan to be in five years?” Grant asks, watching him finish the game.
Silas stares past us and out to the water for a beat, lost in his own thoughts before answering.
“That’s a great question.” He speaks slowly. “With any luck, I’ll be as far away from an office or a desk as I can possibly be. As long as my father hasn’t nailed me to one yet.”
We each fall silent, knowing the weight of what he’ll eventually have on his shoulders one day. How he’s watched his own father devote his entire life to eighteen-hour workdays behind a desk. Imagining Silas with a company — an empire, really — of that size under his sole responsibility seems impossible.
He snaps out of it and grins back down at us, shoving the reminder of his inevitable future to the side. “And until then, I’ll probably be shacked up in that spare bedroom of yours, unless a couple little ankle-biters kick me out of it. In which case, I’ll religiously show up to your Sunday dinners, no matter where I am in the world. Bringing a healthy dose of chaos to your lives whenever Uncle Si comes to town.” His eyes shine brighter. “But until then . . .” He holds the bottle up in a silent toast as he trails off, then takes another pull of champagne.
He hands it back to Grant.
“Until then,” Grant repeats solemnly, taking the next sip.
He passes it to me next, and I hold it out, nervous to try this for a second time.
“To us,” I tell them, rounding out our toast with the real reason why we’re all gathered here, adding silently to myself,To friendship. To love. To the two people I’ll never want to live without. But instead of saying all that out loud, which I know will only bring more emotion than I can handle without welling up again, I say, “And to a lifetime of even better memories ahead.”
Then I close my eyes and take the final sip — leaving nothing left to spill out the top when I’m done.
Chapter 1
Silas
Seven years later
My body feels like it’s vibrating as everything in me screams to turn around.
Just jump off the porch and run before Jules opens the door.
Sure, her doorstep would be empty if I ran now, but a doorbell ditch is probably a more welcome prank than me showing up here unannounced. I’m not exactly on the short list of people she’d like to see right now.
I stare at the little Ring camera mounted on her doorbell.
Fucking hell.
It’s too late. She already knows I’m here.
I shift back and forth. One foot to the next. Shocked I’m still standing upright after today. Everything about this feels unreal and wrong, right down to my fingertips that are just as numb as my mind.
I nearly called Grant on my way here, purely out of habit.
Flexing my fist beneath her porch light, I zero in on my right index finger, the one that had hovered over his name in my phone while Patrick drove me here. I’m still wondering how my own hand hasn’t caught up to the fact that he’s gone, and how long it’ll take until the urge to call him disappears.
Never, most likely.
It feels just as surreal now as the day I got the call. Stepping off my plane to get here, to talk through his last wild idea face-to-face, before it was too late. That was the worst day of my life, and I have quite a few to choose from.
Quite a few now, including today.
And today’s not over yet.
