That I didn’t settle or compromise.
That I trusted that the kind of love I longed for was out there waiting for the time to be right.
The time is indeed right, a fact Nix and I prove with another scandalous act in our garden later that night, when we’re tipsy on food and champagne and each other.
Always each other.
Always.
Epilogue
Jai Archer Blue
A man firmly on the path.
Therightpath.
Right?
The mechanical bull is wearing a diaper.
A massive, white cloth diaper, pinned with safety pins the size of trumpets.
I stare at it, swirling my melting smoothie, trying to recover my center.
It isn’t easy.
The Brass Monkey is trippy at the best of times, under a cover of darkness, with a shot or two of hard alcohol to soften the rough edges. On a stone-cold sober Saturday afternoon, with the bizarre, animal-themed décor modified for a baby shower, it feels like I’ve wandered into a surreal theater production.
Or one of Dante’s levels of hell.
Probably the “gluttony” level.
I may be sober, but most of the people here aren’t.
The rest of the Voodoo is making the most of the fact that we don’t have practice again until Tuesday morning by getting utterly blasted. Torrance has told everyone he loves them—twice—Jean-Louis did a strip routine to Elly’s karaoke song that made the very pregnant Elly “nearly pee her pants,” and Makena and Parker are giggling maniacally at the bar as they spoon lumpy food into diapers for a baby shower game, like a pair of unhinged elves.
But they’re happy.
Very happy.
I’m happy for them. I don’t judge them for being unhinged. I simply can’t afford to live my life that way.
I really can’t.
I make accidental eye contact with the taxidermied raccoon above the bar. “Is that so?” it seems to query. “If you ask me, you doth protest too much.”
I doth.
It’s right.
I sigh as I force down another sip of my Virgin Diaper Genie, the shower’s signature drink. The mixture of chocolate liqueur and banana puree isn’t bad, but it leaves an odd aftertaste lingering on my tongue that reminds me a lot of regret.
I haven’t tasted regret in years, but I remember it all too well…
“You okay, man?” Nix slides onto the stool next to me.
He looks happy. Relaxed. A man in love who has no idea his best friend did things a best friend should never do.
