As if that was a fact he realized all of a sudden, he turned to Seth. “How about you and Nicole? Going to make a bunch of baby Chapmans?”
“A fucking basketball team,” Seth said with a grin.
“What’s Nicole say about that?” Vince asked.
“That I need to grow a vagina if I want that many.” He laughed and finished his beer. “No, she wants kids. But she’s got to get her masters first. Then we’ll plan.”
At that, Chad laughed. “Good luck with planning. We planned for one and got two. And now Naomi has moments where she’s like, ‘let’s have a handful of them.’”
“But not tonight,” I quipped.
Chad laughed and shook his head. “Definitely not tonight. Her sister is going to come over so she can hopefully sleep in tomorrow.”
Vince was growing restless at my side. I could tell he was bored by this conversation because Vince had no plans at all to marry and have kids. He’d grown up in a troubled house, his parents constantly having all-out, drag-out fights that usually ended up with the cops at his door. I knew, because for most of my life he had been my neighbor. He was my first best friend, but when Will came along, and then Seth and Chad, we all just sort of became one big unit. Incomplete without all members present.
“What about you, Liam?” Chad asked, settling on his stool and picking up the pub snack bowl. “Any ladies tying you down?”
At that, Vince perked up with a laugh.
“Come on, Vince,” Seth said from beside me. It was a warning, a gentle one, but Vince ignored him and turned to face me.
“Am I wrong? You’ve got no one tying you down. Still boring ol’ Liam Best.”
If Vince and I had been as close as we had years ago, it might’ve hurt to hear him say this shit. But Seth and Chad’s ensuing silence—which I took as their quiet agreement with Vince—hit me. It wasn’t their fault we weren’t as close as we’d once been. It was all me. I’d declined many invites for the last year or so. I’d said no when I should have said yes.
“Is your silence confirmation or are you just going to ignore us again?” Vince was poking me, hoping to get a rise out of me. Of the group of us, Vince and I were the only ones who frequently butted heads.
“I don’t ignore you guys.”
“You don’t exactly reach out. After Chad’s wedding, you ducked out before they even cut the fucking cake. And you missed Seth’s engagement party. And when I had my accident, who drove me to and from physical therapy? Oh, it was Will.”
Vince was on one tonight. I saw Seth’s subtle shake of his head at the bartender when she picked up Vince’s empty beer and gestured for a refill. “You didn’t ask me for rides.”
Vince smacked his fist on the bar, rattling what bottles remained so that we all reached to steady them. “I shouldn’t have to fucking ask, Liam. You know—better than anyone—I didn’t have family helping me.”
He had me there. Shame slid into me, becoming friends with the guilt I’d been carrying.
“And when Will invited you on the trip, you didn’t fucking go.”
There it was. I had been waiting for it. That fact had existed between the four of us in a quiet corner of our brains. We were all conscious of it, but all four of us had tiptoed around it since reuniting.
But there was nothing I could say or do to take back my mistake.
“Maybe we should all get to our rooms,” Chad said, checking his watch. “It’s been a long day for all of us.”
“Just what I thought,” Vince said, ignoring him. “You don’t have some witty remark to that, do you? Boring Liam Best, as I expected.”
“Phone calls and texts work both ways,” I mumbled and shoved my beer away from me. “You haven’t asked how I’ve been doing. As you said, we all lost Will.”
“Well, am I wrong? You don’t have anyone tying you down. You don’t have anything going on in your life.” He pressed a finger to my chest, and Seth and Chad move to potentially pull Vince away if this got bad. “You have no good reason for bailing on us all the time. But still you do.”
Vince and I had gotten into scraps before—including one memorable one in high school over a girl. I’d won, because Will had backed me up. I didn’t