“I know, Blake.” I held his gaze, seeing in his face the college kid I’d met ten years ago. “But I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”
Blake lowered his voice even more. “I was involved with a woman, Ryan. This . . . thing lasted a short time. And I want to be clear: It happened when Sam and I were broken up. And it ended once Sam and I were putting things back together. You know Sam. She wouldn’t stand for infidelity, even when we’re dating, and I wouldn’t do that to her. I’m a commitment-phobe but not a cheater.”
“I know that,” I said. “You wouldn’t hurt Sam that way.”
“But I did spend time with this other woman. We had some really good times, to be honest.”
“I still don’t see the problem,” I said. “If you were broken up when you dated this woman and then ended it to get back together with Sam, what’s the issue?”
Blake leaned back in his chair. His cheeks flushed deep red above his beard. “You’re trying to oversimplify it, Ryan. You’re trying to fit things into a neat little box.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you’re telling me?”
“You’ve got the perfect marriage and the perfect kid. You’ve got your PR firm, for God’s sake, and you have a stake in a hipster brewery. You’ve made every correct step since we finished college. You could have gone in a lot of different directions when your dad died, but you went into a higher gear and haven’t looked back.” He shook his head. “Sam and everyone I see tells me about your posts. The fund-raisers and the charitable donations and the pro bono work. You’ve got the world by the short ones. Your life is always shown through just the right filter, isn’t it, Ryan?”
“Okay, I’m not sure where all of this is going. You said you wanted to ask me something, but instead you’re going on about this woman who you didn’t cheat on Sam with. Are you looking for advice?”
“I don’t need advice. Maybe I’ve outgrown that part of our friendship. I can go to Sam. I can talk to her. Isn’t that what you have in your marriage? A partner?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I’m not looking for that here.”
“I’m in a hurry.” I pushed back from the table, the chair scraping against the concrete floor so loudly that the other people in the coffee shop turned to look. “Amanda’s waiting for me. I have to help her put Henry down. You think everything’s perfect. I’m going to go home and have to change a shitty diaper. I can’t put that on Instagram. Nothing’s perfect. I’m happy for you, Blake. I really am. I’m glad you told me about this. Sam’s amazing. I hope you’re happy. But you’re not really telling me anything—”
“You can’t go.”
His voice was flat, slicing like a steel blade through the Cat Stevens song now playing overhead and the murmured conversations around us.
I looked around, and the other patrons continued with their own conversations. The barista, a college student with fuchsia-streaked hair, and what looked like thirteen piercings in her left ear, chatted with a customer while she sloppily poured milk from a gallon jug.
We stared at each other for a moment, Blake and I.
I scooted forward.
“Why not?” I asked.
But I already knew.
And so did he.
“You haven’t even heard what I want you to do yet, Ryan,” he said. “The request. And you know—and I know—you have no choice but to do whatever I ask you to do.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I braced myself for what was next.
No choice indeed. I stayed rooted in my chair, my spine rigid as a board.
“Things didn’t end well between this woman and me,” he said. “I broke it off abruptly. To get back with Sam. This woman didn’t like that. You know, things with Sam, the clarity I acquired about our relationship, that came to me kind of suddenly after all of our fits and starts. Sometimes you just have an insight about your life—an epiphany, I guess you could call it. And then I knew what I wanted, the direction I needed to go. This woman I was with is so carefree. So fun. I love Sam, but her background, her family—they’re all so . . . serious. So proper. I love them all, but I also never quite feel like I can be myself with them. Sam, yes. But the family . . . It was a relief to be with this other woman. It was liberating, and I really let my guard down.”
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“I got carried away in the things I said.”
“Did you promise her something? A commitment? Marriage?”
“No, not that.”
“Who the hell is she?”
Blake shook his head, affecting a casual, devil-may-care approach to such mundane facts as the woman’s identity. “I don’t want to get into all the details, Ryan. Her name is Jen, okay, and she lives here in town. She has a good job. She’s smart too. She’s getting her MBA online. It’s not important to know more, and I don’t want this to be embarrassing for her. No more than it already is. It’s over. I’ve told her that in no uncertain terms. She knows about Sam. She knows I’m getting married.” A slightly amused look crossed his face, as though something had surprised him. “In fact, Sam and I are getting married on Saturday. This Saturday.”
“Saturday? That’s two days from now.”
My own reaction to the news confused me. On the one hand, I felt relieved I hadn’t been asked to participate. On the other . . . one of my oldest friends was getting married, and he hadn’t bothered to tell me about it until the very last moment.
And he hadn’t bothered to invite me either.
As I said, we’d been by each other’s side for everything important up to that point. We’d depended on each other, just not lately.
Blake must have read the look on my face, because he jumped in to explain.
“It’s a small wedding,” he said. “We’ve planned it quickly. Sam’s mom knew someone who could get us in at that place on Deer Valley Road. You know, the Deer Valley Barn. That’s where the ceremony and the reception are going to be. They had a cancellation, so we got in.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Hey, look, we didn’t invite you because of all that stuff Amanda said about me the last time we saw each other. You can understand that, right? I mean, if Sam went off on you that way, you wouldn’t invite her to your wedding. Not that Sam ever would say those kinds of things, of course.”
I understood what he was saying. And why.
Six months earlier, not long after Henry was born, Blake had come over to the house to see the baby. When he came in, Henry was still asleep, and Blake made a grand entrance, carrying a gigantic stuffed elephant. It had taken us what felt like a long, long time to get Henry down, and Blake spoke in a booming voice that immediately woke the baby up. We were new parents, and Amanda was dealing with changes to her body—sleep deprivation, a painful breast infection, the soreness from the delivery itself—so anything might have put us both on edge. Not to mention the whirl of emotions that came with having a baby. I whispered to her that I’d get Blake out of the house in under an hour. And I almost did.