hear him call her my girlfriend and scare her away. After the conversation we had the night before, I knew she was more vulnerable than ever. “She’s not my girlfriend. Don’t call her that.”
“You look at her like she is.”
I set my jaw. “She’s a friend.” Fuck, what a shitty way to describe her.
“A fling?”
It was the closest thing to what we were, on paper. But in my mind, it was much more than that. “A friend,” I repeated.
“A friend you fuck.”
With a glare, I said tensely, “Watch it.”
“Am I wrong?” The lines around his eyes crinkled in laughter as he lifted his cup to his mouth. He was amused and getting enjoyment out of pissing me off.
“It’s none of your business. She’s none of your business. Leave her alone. Better yet, don’t fucking talk to her. Especially when you’re drunk like you are right now.”
“I’m not drunk.”
I glanced meaningfully at the glass in his hand. “You’ve lost half your drink to the ground.”
“She’ll go home after the funeral, you know.”
Once again, this was my chance to walk away. To ignore him. But this particular statement hit me in my solar plexus, because it was absolutely true. “You don’t think I don’t know that?”
“How do you manage to drive everyone away? First your mom, then Will, then her…”
I paused to collect myself. “Vince, you’re drunk so I’m going to let the bullshit you’re saying slide. But—” I pointed a finger at him “—make no mistake. If you keep this shit up, it’ll be you who loses everything.”
I left him out staring at the night sky as it crept in.
I had barely made it through the back door before Naomi’s parents enveloped me in a hug, ensnaring me before I could find Tori. We spent a few minutes catching up before Naomi approached and gave me an apologetic smile, allowing me to excuse myself.
The family room was full of people, but no Tori. I searched the den, the living room, the dining room and circled back to the kitchen. She was standing at the island, trash bag in one hand and an empty paper plate in the other. She was talking to Bob about something, causing him to tip his head back and let out his big, boisterous laugh. She laughed with him and Deb leaned in next. Whatever she said made Tori laugh so hard that she bent over at the waist, still holding the trash bag.
She looked like she belonged. There, behind the island, cracking jokes with Will’s parents. It was unfathomable that a mere five days ago I had met her for the first time. It was hard to rationalize the feelings that had grown since that first meeting, but then again, I didn’t know anyone else who married two days after meeting someone and then proceeded to spend every single day with them from then on. Maybe we were on an accelerated path thanks to spending the last four days constantly together.
I watched them a moment longer, observing how Deb wrapped her arm around Tori and said something directly at her ear that caused her to turn her teasing grin toward Bob who held up his hands as if he’d been caught.
Were it not for the few crying faces at the table filled with Will portraits, you might think this was any occasion other than a funeral. But it was exactly how Will would have wanted his farewell to be: full of people who loved him, people who would remember him fondly, people who could tell stories and laugh despite the ache in their chest.
The pain would likely linger for all time, a spasm that I would never be able to reach. I supposed that it was better to grieve him, to have that piece of him in a way, than to have nothing else.
I lost sight of Tori and Will’s folks as I moved through the crowd, craning my neck over the dozens of bodies to see which way she went. But I came up empty.
“She went to the den,” Nicole said, pressing a beer into my hand as she passed me. “She’s in there with Bob.”
I mouthed ‘thanks’ because she had already moved far enough away that she couldn’t hear me over the other noise and made my way down the hallway, past more bodies, until I was in the den. Surprisingly, it was the only room in the house not absolutely crammed with bodies. Just the two, Bob and Tori, bent over looking at