“Nice.” I nod approvingly at my friend.
“I’ll get the champagne!” Mabel bounces over to the kitchen and pulls a bottle from a bag she stashed in the fridge.
Benny opens the bottle while I find more wine glasses and we all drink a toast to the engaged couple.
“We didn’t tell Andi and Ford, or Trevin and Brooke, because we didn’t want them to know before you,” Mabel says, mentioning the others they were with. “Now we’ll tell everyone.”
“Was it romantic?” Nikki asks, smiling. “The proposal?”
“Yes.” Mabel sighs. “Ben did good.”
“Our butler helped me arrange it.” Ben grins.
“It was on a private catamaran cruise,” Mabel says. “At sunset. We had champagne and snacks and music and watched the sunset, and we saw the green flash.”
Nikki and I both say, “Green flash?”
“It’s some kind of optical phenomenon that happens right when the sun goes below the horizon. There’s a flash of green above it, but it’s super quick and you have to really watch for it. We figured that was a good sign for us.” She exchanges a smile with Benny. “And then that’s when he proposed.”
“That sounds lovely.” Nikki seems genuinely happy for this couple she barely knows.
“Maybe we should get married there,” Mabel muses. “A destination wedding.”
“I like that idea.” I lift my glass in approval.
When Mabel and Nikki go into the kitchen for snacks, Benny looks at me. “I have a question for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Will you be my best man at our wedding?”
I smile, my chest going weirdly fizzy like the champagne I’m drinking. “Oh, hell, yeah, I will.”
Benny smiles, too. “Great.”
23
NIKKI
“Do you feel like Mom and Dad pushed you to play hockey?”
I’m on the phone with my brother, lying on my bed, one leg bent, the other crossed over it.
“Uh… no. Not really. I wanted to play hockey. They did everything they could to help me do that.”
Hmmm. “Yeah.” I think. “Do you feel like you’re letting them down if you don’t do well?”
“What is this? A therapy session?”
“Just stuff I’ve been thinking about.”
“I guess maybe they’re disappointed if I don’t play well.”
“They don’t give you shit when that happens?”
“Not really.”
“Criticize you?”
