Like I was supposed to know he’d get seasick when I offered to take everyone deep-sea fishing this morning. Or that his video screen was broken on the plane and he spent the entire flight watching the movies I picked since he was behind me, and that I apparently spoiled the ending of the latestAvengersmovie for him.
Lucky glances their way and sighs too. “Don’t get it, dude,” he says. “Chandler’s not usually tighter than an inflamed sphincter, yet here we are, in paradise…”
“Not hearing this,” I reply. Last thing any of us need is Chandler’s groomsmen turning on him. Dude has issues. Needs some wingmen this week. But not me. Definitely not me. “Go be on his side.”
“Shouldn’t be sides.”
“There’s always sides. Don’t tell Emma.” Chandler’s not my favorite person in the world, but I’m not marrying him.
Emma is.
Her choice. Her right. He’s made her happy more years than not. I’ll play nice for her sake.
“Bar later?” Lucky asks.
I sneak another glance at my sister, who’s now comforting Chandler likehewas the one who almost had his face melted off because of a bug zapper and drink umbrella malfunction.
I shake my head at Lucky. “Groomsman duties for you, my friend. We’ll hook up next week at home.”
“I’ll text you if he goes to bed early. There’s a karaoke bar down the way.”
“Fuck, yeah.” I love karaoke.
“If who goes to bed early?” Decker asks as he approaches too. Guess Chandler’s mom has recovered from the horror of seeing the flamingo die a flaming death and no longer needs to cling to him while he records everything.
“You,” Lucky says. “You’re too boring for bars.”
Both of them crack up.
I would too—messing around with these guys is generally my thing—but Emma’s giving me another look.
Theplease just give him spacelook.
And she doesn’t mean any of the triplets.
That look hits me in a spot that hasn’t been super vulnerable since high school. Been a long time since I felt this level of guilt creeping in. But here we are. In paradise, where everything was fine five minutes ago, before Chandler set me on fire with a present I gave him.
So I sneezed.
Everyone sneezes.
Apparently I need tonotsneeze the rest of this week though.
Time to regroup.
“Have fun tonight,” I tell Lucky and Decker while I pull myself to standing, bringing my sopping wet costume with me to cover my underwear.
The triplets all seem to realize we’re the only ones enjoying ourselves on the pool deck, and a collective sigh goes up among the three of them.
Identical sighs, much like they’re all brown-haired, white-skinned, blue-eyed identical triplets. Pretty easy to tell them apart once you get to know their personalities though.
Even Jack’s sighing as he finishes pulling Delaney to her feet too.
“Remind me to elope if I ever find the woman of my dreams,” Lucky says. “This wedding stuff is dumb stress.”
“Like anyone would have you,” Decker says.
“Fuck, yeah, they would. I’m the pretty one of the three of us.”
