PROLOGUE
SAWYER
“She’s so beautiful.” A cooing aunt swoons.
“Absolutely breathtaking,” a mother admits while waving her hand in her face, warding off tears.
“Simon is one lucky SOB,” a man says while turning to Simon and giving him a wink.
“Oscar de la Renta in white looks spectacular on Annalisa. Don’t you think?” Armie, Simon’s brother, says as he nudges me with his elbow, pulling me from my lethal reverie.
“Yeah . . . a real goddess,” I say, my voice dripping in sarcasm as I watch my ex-girlfriend walk down the aisle, hand in hand with her father, toward my best friend, Simon Fredrickson.
You read that correctly.
My ex-girlfriend is marrying my best friend.
A large, wet sniff echoes through the illustrious cathedral, which is coated in white from the light-washed floorboards to the vaulted ceilings connected a forty-foot pitch. A church made in Hollywood Heaven.
I glance over at Simon, who’s dabbing at his eyes with a light-blue handkerchief, a tender yet purposeful groom’s gift from his bride: a statement that it’s not just okay to cry while she walks down the aisle but required, because the cameras will be flashing.
The cameras have not stopped flashing since they were caught together on a boat cruise to Catalina. She was wearing a floral-print sundress, Gucci leather sandals, and her hair in loose curls, while he sported a pair of simple navy-blue shorts and a light-blue button-up with the top four buttons undone. No man undoes the top four buttons of his shirt as casual wear unless his first name starts with Douche and the last ends with Canoe.
The reason I know exactly what they were wearing when they were “caught” is because I read the caption under the picture of their love tryst at least 752 times before it actually processed in my head.
Annalisa Morton, my girlfriend of five years—the woman I planned on marrying—and breakout actress from the wildly popular streaming platform Movieflix, known for starring in wholesome romantic movies, was cheating on me, with my best friend.
Not just my best friend.
But her costar.
Her costar in the movie I wrote for both of them.
Some blogs said I practically wrote the script for their love, and with the undeniable force between their looks and my words, it was bound to happen. I should have been smarter.
Yeah, sure, blame it on the guy who was cheated on.
Couldn’t have been the fact that my ex-girlfriend and best friend wouldn’t know loyalty if it slapped them in the face with the latest fad drink from Starbucks.
Overnight, the affair erupted, and the world embraced the new couple.
Embraced!
I thought that was a kick in the crotch, until Simon asked me to meet him at the pub around the corner from my beachside apartment and begged me to be his best man at their wedding.
Begged.
Pleaded.
At one point . . . threatened.
Which has landed me in this very spot, staring down Annalisa in a slim-cut silk dress that screams old Hollywood, tears brimming in her eyes as she walks down the aisle toward Simon.
Why not say no?
Why not tell them to fuck off?
Because you see, there is a hierarchy in society we must follow. It goes: God, Hollywood, the president, and then it trickles down from there. At times, Hollywood and God duke it out for the power to make decisions, and more often than not, the greed from Hollywood wins out.
Unluckily for me, the producers of the movie we were all making together, as one big happy family, pulled me to the side and whispered in my ear that if I ever wanted to write in “this town” again, I needed to suck up my pride and do what was best for the film.
With my career in the balance, I sucked up my “pride” and I went along with the romance, acting as if everything was okay.
I smiled gaily when their engagement pictures spread like wildfire.
I gleefully shook Simon’s hand when he asked me to be his best man—after the ominous threat, of course.
And I even gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to a paparazzo when Simon’s bachelor party was staged in Vegas.
And now that I’m here, standing at the altar with my sniffling weasel of a best friend, all I can think about is how I’m not sure I can possibly take any more of this fanciful mockery of a union.
When she’s midway down the aisle, because Annalisa is living up this nauseating moment, the congregation breaks into joyous applause, as if she’s Miss America taking her victory stroll, sash and flowers clutched dramatically to her bodice.
The men next to me clap.
The parents in front of me clap.
The bridesmaids to the right of me tear up and of course . . . clap. Trained actors at their finest.
I’m the only sane person in the building who is looking around, wondering what the hell is going on—until I’m on the receiving end of a sharp elbow jab to the ribs from Armie, accompanied by a ferocious side-eye that can only be described as the embodiment of derisive contempt.
I lift my hands and offer a slow clap, laced in sarcasm.
Thankfully, no one notices the true meaning behind my subtle clap. As long as I’m performing joyful noise, they don’t bother considering my intent.
After what feels like half an hour, Annalisa makes it to the altar, kisses her dad on the cheek, and then sucks in a sharp breath as she makes a scene of giving her besotted groom a slow once-over. And because they are expert performers, she turns to the audience—oh, excuse me, ahem, friends and family—and gestures to Simon with her bouquet.
“Give our groom a round of applause. Have you ever seen anyone more handsome?”
The best man cleans up pretty well, but who am I to argue with the bride on her wedding day?
Once again, the chapel rings with clapping, and as all eyes are on us, I smile and give Simon a few claps as well while I envision his head between my hands, and instead of clapping my palms together, I’m slapping him right in those floppy, surgically pinned-back ears of his.
The chapel finally calms down, people take their seats in the sturdy pine pews, and the pastor begins his speech.
I tune him out. Not quite in the mood to hear about how the happy couple is the model for a perfect marriage. Instead, I stare down at the light-blue wing tip shoes that expertly match my light-blue Armani tuxedo, Danny Kaye–style.
The shoes bring me back to a time I brought Annalisa to my Boyle Heights apartment, which was littered with friendly drug dealers and ruled by an unspoken agreement—you don’t rat us out and we won’t murder you in your sleep. It was a deal I didn’t mind taking. Annalisa was a struggling actress at the time, so she understood the need for low rent and didn’t even think twice about where I lived. Instead, we cuddled up on the futon on my floor and streamed White Christmas. I marveled at the timeless story line, and she sighed over the costumes, declaring that one day, she was going to marry a man who wore a suit that matched his shoes. I promised her that on her wedding day, I’d make that happen.
Only . . . at the time, I was convinced I was going to be the groom, not the best man.
“The couple has prepared their own wedding vows,” the pastor says with an impressed lilt to his voice.
Of course they have.
Bet they didn’t actually write the vows themselves.
I refrain from crossing my arms over my chest and tapping my toe indignantly as they proclaim their everlasting love for each other.