That Wedding (55 page)

"Bradley, in this bar, I always had the hots for you," I flirt.

Sorry, I can't help it.

"You wanted to hookup with me, yes. But you've always had the hots for Phillip.

"Of all the boys I've kissed in this bar over the years, you tell me I had the hots for the one boy I
never
kissed?"

Bradley ignores my question and raises his shot glass. Nick and I follow suit. He says, "Here's to hookups."

"Here, here," I say.

He pours us each another shot. "And here's to finding true love. Congrats, Jadyn."

"Here, here," Nick says.

Bradley leans across the bar toward me and lowers his voice. "Although, I'm still
extremely
available if you came here for a hookup."

Nick gets a disgusted look on his face. "We're going to our booth. Bring us a pitcher, okay?" Then he drags me away.

"God, you're a flirt, and what's all the Jadyn babyyy bullshit?"

"I don't know. He just always called me baby. It was cute, but I wasn't flirting with him. I said one sentence, and it was about Phillip."

"You said
here, here
to hookups. I'd call that flirting, considering you've hooked up with the guy on numerous occasions."

"What, all of a sudden you're anti-hookup? I'll be sure to let all the girls who talk to you tonight know that."

"Hell, that's not a bad idea. They'll think I'm good guy, and that I'm not looking for a hookup. So then when we do hookup, they'll think it's cuz they wanted to. It's like reverse psychology. You just might be brilliant. So, do you wanna go back and flirt with him? If you hooked up with him, I probably wouldn't tell Phillip."

"You're such a liar. You would so tell Phillip, but it doesn't matter. I don't wanna flirt with or hookup with him! I'm engaged to be married! AND I have enough to worry about. Plus, I could never cheat on Phillip."

"You cheat on other guys?"

"Um, not on purpose."

"I'll take that as a yes. Accidental cheating. Ha! This is why I love you. You make me laugh."

Just as I say, "So can we
please
get back to the burning bush?" Moose slides in the booth and says, "Ooohhh, I heard you had an STD, but I thought it was just a rumor. Does it really burn?"

Oh. my. gosh.

Nick starts laughing hysterically again.

Seriously, can no one have a serious conversation anymore?

I should have known before I even opened my mouth that you can't have a serious conversation with a guy named Moose, but I keep trying anyway. I mean I drove all this way.

"Uh, no, I don't. We're talking about the
religious
burning bush."

But he's a boy. And apparently his mind is not on the religious side of the bush right now.

Bradley brings us a pitcher and three glasses just as Moose says, "I love hot bushes."

Which causes Bradley to sit down.

Why, oh why, isn't the bar busy?

"My favorite subject," Bradley says. "Are we talking about Jadyn's? Cuz I can speak from experience on that one."

"Do tell," Moose says.

And I'm not going to say what he said. If I told this story, all our ears would be bleeding.

Mine might be right now because I can't seem to totally tune out Bradley's discussion of my uh, well, oh, never mind.

My ears just perked up though because he's now telling Moose, Nick, and Chaz, who just slid into the booth, what it was like to have wild alcohol-fueled sex with me. He's telling them about the time I fell up his stairs. They all laugh about that.

People fall down stairs. They don't fall up them.

But I'm getting nervous because I know what's coming next in this story.

I try to get him off track by saying, "Chaz fell down the dorm stairs one time. It was really funny."

They ignore me.

Bradley says, "She was kinda drunk when we got to my apartment. I was dragging her up the stairs with me, but she was giggling and kept kissing and grabbing me. I just wanted to get her to my room before she woke up my roommates. We were about halfway to the top when she fell up the stairs. She giggled then pulled me down on top of her. It was so hot."

I tune out the rest. I know the rest. I possibly coaxed him into, um, doing it, uh, right there on the stairs.

This is all allegedly, I might add.

He might be making it up.

Because clearly I was drunk.

At least that's what I'm gonna tell the boys. I say, "I don't remember that. Obviously, I was drunk, or maybe you're thinking of another girl."

Bradley seems hurt by this and slunks back over to the bar.

A few minutes later, I feel guilty and decide to go for a pretend pee.

As I walk by the bar on the way back from the bathroom, I stop and ask Bradley for a round of shots.

While he's pouring them, I confess. "Sorry about that. I do very
vividly
remember the stairs, and I wasn't drunk. I just really wanted you, but you telling that story was pretty embarrassing. You know, talking about it in such graphic detail."

"So you do remember, huh?" He gives me a smoldering look.

"It was one of the hottest experiences of my life," I say truthfully.

And it was.

Oh my gosh, was it.

His face lights up in a grin. "Me too. You sure you're not up for a replay of that, like tonight?"

"Bradley, I'd never try a replay of that."

"Why?"

"It was perfect as it was."

"Mmm. True. I was so afraid my roommates were gonna wake up."

"I don't think I cared."

"Yeah, that was the best part. We had fun, huh?"

"Yeah."

"And now you're getting married. Where is Mr. Wonderful anyway?"

"At work."

"And why are you at the bar with a bunch of boys?"

I look back at the boys loudly discussing their sex lives and sigh. "Well, I went to the museum. Really, I've been trying to talk to Nick about the burning bush, but it's not working because they keep turning it all sexual."

"So are we talking the religious burning bush? Like Moses saw?"

"Yeah."

"You know I'm a philosophy major, right? Next semester, I'll finish up my doctorate."

"Really? And here I thought you were just the hot bartender." Who knew he had brains too? I sorta never got past the hot physical parts.

"So talk."

And I do.

It just all comes out. How cliche. Spilling my guts to the bartender.

"So how do you know if God is speaking to you, versus your own subconscious telling you something, versus a premonition, versus a warning, versus a hunch, versus an omen, or versus your mind just freaking out?"

"Do you want my professional opinion?"

"Please."

"Right off the bat, I'd say it sounds like you've been doing way too much thinking."

"Yeah, probably." I let out a big sigh.

"Tell me what happened."

So I tell him about the dream.

"Jadyn?"

"Yeah."

"You driving home tonight?"

"I don't know. Yeah, maybe. Well, probably. I mean, I hadn't really thought about it yet."

"I know you pretty well and can see where this is heading. So you're not now. You can crash with me if you need to."

I raise an eyebrow at him. He says, "Okay, hang on."

He walks over to the loser table, says a few words to Nick, and comes back.

"You're staying with Nick. He swears he won't do what I would do to you if I took you home."

And sorry, but my mind can't help but think about the things that he'd do to me.

Oh boy.

He grabs three bottles and simultaneously pours them into a shot glass. Then he flips the bottles dramatically and hands me the shot.

"That was cool," I say.

"Drink, then listen."

So I drink. "Mmmm. That's good."

"Thanks, it's my own creation. I still need to figure out a catchy name for it."

"Okay, so back to my problem."

"Baby, you're freaking out about getting married. About having to love the same guy, sleep with the same guy, for the rest of your life. God is not speaking to you. God is not going to set you on fire. From what I can tell, you're lucky enough to have found your true soulmate. You should be celebrating this, not second guessing yourself. Plus, you found true love with your best friend. That's even cooler. Have you ever heard of Seneca, the Roman philosopher?"

"I don't think so."

"He said,
You might say that love is friendship gone mad
. You just had a bad dream. Don't try to see something divine in it."

My phone buzzes. I look down at it.

I don't get to respond to Phillip because I was messing around with the philosopher's hand, trying to steal a bowl of pretzels, and my phone sorta went flying out of my hand and into the bartender's sink full of soapy water.

Bradley quickly fishes it out of the sink.

Shit.

He takes the battery out, lays it on a bar towel, dries it off, runs in the back, and comes back with a ziplock baggie. He tells me to run across the street to the Chinese restaurant and have them put rice in it for me.

I do, and proudly come back with a bag of fried rice. I'm expertly eating it with chopsticks.

Kinda.

Bradley looks jealous, so I try to feed him some rice.

He shakes his head at me. "You're so blonde. My waitress called in sick, and her replacement can't be here for a few hours, so come stand behind the bar and look pretty. If someone comes in, just pour them a beer." He goes in back, grabs another baggie, and runs across the street.

I eat my rice, and since no one comes in, I pour myself a beer and am drinking it when two cute boys come sit up at the bar.

"Beer?" I ask, like the professional that I now am.

"Pitcher," Cutie One says. "Are you new?"

"No, I'm old. I've been a regular at this bar for years."

"Oh, we meant are you the new bartender?"

"No, I'm just eating rice and drinking."

I pour them a pitcher and have Cutie One come get it from behind the bar, along with some glasses cuz I'm kinda still eating. I finish my rice and am just doing a shot with the cuties when Bradley jogs back in.

"Oh, more rice for me?"