Trying to imagine Will with someone as wild as him sounded like an explosion waiting to happen. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“He never brought girls around. I don’t think he had the patience for them. So, the first step would have been for him to find someone who he wanted to make room for in his life.”
“He didn’t make time for much,” I agreed. “He would have loved having this houseful of people surrounding him, though.”
“Yes, indeed.” Deb looked back at the house, taking in the people mingling through the windows. The sun had set, leaving us in the magic hour right before the sky turned black.
“Why aren’t you in there?”
“I just needed a moment of quiet. Bob’s got it handled.”
A quick glance back at the house proved that she was right. Bob was laughing with someone over something on their phone.
“You and I are a lot alike, you know,” Deb said. “We can be social when necessary, but we both like the quiet.”
It was a fair description for me. I did like being social but given the choice, I’d be at home with George any day of the week. Will had made it easy to be sociable and following him around the world had been a wild that I hadn’t been eager to stop, until life had stopped for me. “My mom was too,” I said. “Probably where I got it from.”
“Your mom was lovely. Proud, but kind.”
She had been proud. Too proud to tell me her health had worsened. Too proud to tell me she’d prepared her will a full year before she’d passed—the day after she had been told of her diagnosis.
“I never got to say goodbye to her.” Or to Will. And if anything bothered me, it was the fact that I’d lost the two people closest to me and I hadn’t been there to say goodbye.
“We rarely get the opportunity to say goodbye to those we love, sweetheart. You can’t dwell on it. They wouldn’t want you to.”
“There you are,” Vince said, coming from up behind us.
“Hey, Vinny.” Deb stood and motioned to the seat. “Take it. I’ve got to say hi to some new faces, I suspect.”
I took a deep breath, preparing myself. He was the last person I wanted to sit beside at Will’s visitation.
“Where’s your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” I looked back the house, but knew she wasn’t here yet. She said she would text me when she arrived, and I had only checked my phone a half dozen times with no texts from her.
“Whatever you say, bro.” He settled in beside me and I could smell the whiskey on his breath when he sighed. Leaving Vince and me alone together was a bad idea, but I hoped we could keep it relatively civil considering the venue. He took a swig of his cup and clicked his tongue. “Can’t wait until all this shit is over. I fucking hate funerals.”
I didn’t know how to take what he’d said. It wasn’t like this was a funeral for someone who was little more than an acquaintance. “You’ve got two more days.”
“At least tomorrow will be fun. Four wheeling. Will loved that.”
He said it as if I didn’t know it was one of the things Will loved to do. As if I was just some outsider on the periphery, feasting on scraps tossed my way by those who knew Will best. “I know. We got into a few scrapes out in the desert.”
“So why did you bail, man? Will was excited for you to join him.”
I couldn’t do this here, have this conversation about our dead best friend at his parents’ house during his fucking visitation. “Vince, I don’t think that this is a good—”
“Whatever,” he said, interrupting me. “I don’t know why I bothered asking. That’s what you do—you bail.”
There was no defensiveness in my tone when I told him to chill out. In fact, I was impressed with my own composure. Vince was fucking drunk, again, and this was one of the worst times for him to be drunk. I guess it had been a blessing in disguise when he’d come out to sit beside me.
My phone buzzed and I picked it up.
Tori: I’m here! Where are you?
Thank the Lord.
“That Tori?” Vince asked as I stood.
“Yeah, she’s here. See ya.”
Vince stopped me with a gentle swat across my leg. “What are you going to do when your girlfriend goes home?”
I should have ignored him. I should have walked away. But I was worried Tori would