The Best Man: Part One

The Best Man: Part One

First Digital Edition

©Copyright Lola Carson 2014

THE BEST MAN

PART ONE

You are cordially invited to the union of Noah Malley and Connor Murphy…

Noah’s been sat here for an hour stuffing these things into envelopes. Over two hundred of them in total. He’s got a papercut, and he’s got a bit of a headache, and there’s a chance he’s a little bit grumpy.

He’s only recognised about eight names on these invitations.

It had been a bit of a shock, when he presented Connor with his little list before they went to the printers, and then Connor countered with his own list that filled four pages of A4.

“Do you actually know every single person on that list?” Noah asked him, incredulous, to which Connor had replied, quite simply, “Yes.”

And then Noah’s idea of a small, intimate wedding had suddenly been smothered, and now it’s become the social event of the season.

Because Connor knows people. Connor
is known
by people. He’s a name; he has a reputation. It comes with being rich, with being powerful, with having your money date back generations but not being defined by it, because he’s made his mark on his own standing.

Connor’s bastard of a cousin, a wiry dick by the name of Cormack, had taken Noah aside one evening not so long ago, when he and Connor had first decided to get married. Taken Noah aside and into a bathroom, drunk out of his mind and voice slurring. Leaned into his space and breathed whiskey-scented words onto his face.

“There’s no way you’re good enough for him, kid.”

Noah had rightly told him where to go, and they’d had a bit of a scuffle which—embarrassingly—Connor’s aunt had to break up, but Cormack’s words filter into his brain often, too often for him to ignore.

He’s just a council estate scally, and he’s yet to figure out why Connor’s chosen him.

It’s been the very definition of a whirlwind romance, so much so that Noah’s barely had chance to get his feet back on the ground. He met Connor six months ago in a gay bar, an upmarket gay bar he usually avoided through fear of standing out, but to which Ron had taken him for a treat. Noah had been at the bar, and this man had crowded in close, all tall and blond and charismatic. Bought Noah a drink, took him onto the dance floor. Said he was there for his friend’s leaving party, that the friend had just left and now he was looking for something else to do.

There was no doubt in Noah’s mind that he was that
something else
.

Connor had taken Noah back to his place, a swanky penthouse apartment the likes of which Noah had only ever seen on TV, and they’d fucked wildly and with abandon three times before dawn. Noah’s plan was to leave the next morning, but Connor insisted on taking him out for breakfast, then for dinner, and two weeks later Noah realised he was in a relationship with the man.

Connor didn’t seem to mind that Noah lived in a scummy little flat, or that he worked as a maintenance man in a local warehouse, or that he had nothing to his name but a loud mouth and impressive bedroom skills. He took Noah as he was, and he showed him his world, full of bright lights and money and expensive champagne, business deals that often felt a little shady. Connor works in entertainment, something to do with models, but Noah’s never really figured out how he has so much money, because as far as he knows, Connor doesn’t touch his family’s fortune. Says he’s always wanted to stand on his own two feet, whatever methods necessary, and to Noah’s mind those methods are none of his concern.

Four months later Connor proposed, and the next day he gave Noah the keys to an empty shop he’d bought in the village, and a blank cheque for the refurb to make it into a coffee house. Then days later he took Noah into a glitzy apartment in the same street and told him he’d bought it for them, and now not only does Noah have a wealthy, gorgeous fiancé, he also has his own business and a beautiful home, when just over two months ago all he had was a flat he could barely pay the rent on, and a boyfriend he kept expecting to vanish from his life, find someone better.

It’s enough to make his head spin.

Although it doesn’t change the fact that he’s sick of stuffing these invitations into envelopes.

Connor comes into the living room then, phone plastered to his ear and a scowl on his face. He’s wearing just his boxers, as Noah left him passed out in bed an hour ago, although that satisfaction seems to have vanished now as he pulls the phone away from his ear with a sigh and jabs at a button.

“What’s the matter?” Noah asks him, pleased to have a break from invitation duty.

Connor sighs again, collapses on the couch beside him and rests his head on Noah’s shoulder, all adorable dejection. “Trying to get hold of my friend.”

“Which friend?” Noah doesn’t know many of Connor’s friends. They’ve not been together long enough, and Connor likes to keep Noah to himself for the most part. The only time he’s really been in their company was at their engagement party, with the lovely Cormack and his spiteful words, but Noah can’t even remember any faces now, let alone names.

“You know the night I met you? The guy we had the leaving party for.”

Noah thinks back to that night while Connor sits up straight again, picks up an invitation to examine.

“Right,” Noah says. “I never met him. He left early, you said.”

“Yeah, went off to conquer America. It’s a damn nightmare to get hold of him now.” He drops the invitation back on the table with a little huff, looking so much like a miserable sod that Noah can’t help but wrap an arm around his bare back, prop his chin on his shoulder.

“Why you trying to get hold of him?”

“He’s my oldest friend, isn’t he? Known him forever.” He shrugs, jolting Noah’s chin on his shoulder a bit. “Want him to be my best man.”

“Oh,” says Noah.

He’s already got his best man. There really wasn’t any question of it. Lenny’s been his saviour in life in so many ways, from giving him a roof over his head in those early days, to a steady job when he and Julie were struggling to eat. He’s been Noah’s confidant, and his father figure, and one of his best friends, and Noah owes him more than he can ever repay.

Lenny was delighted when Noah asked him, and they’d shared a bit of a girly squeal and a hug which neither of them will ever speak of again.

“Are you gonna keep trying him?”

“I’ll have to,” Connor says. He looks across the room at nothing, and Noah can see years of memories flashing in his eyes. “Never imagined getting married without him by my side.”

It’s one of the most sentimental things Noah’s ever heard him say. This guy, this old friend, must be pretty special.

“I mean,” Connor continues, “we’ve had our ups and downs over the years. I haven’t always agreed with the things he’s done. But…”

“What’s his name?” Noah asks, because he feels like Connor wants to talk about him, share some of this man with Noah.

A soft smile appears on Connor’s lips. “Patrick,” he says, quietly but with a heaviness, as if the name means something, as if the very sound of it is significant. “Patrick Walsh.”

Noah’s never heard of him.

* * * * *

“I don’t know, Noah,” Julie shouts over the racket of the wedding band they’re auditioning. “I just don’t think you’ve given yourself chance to really think about it.”

Noah sighs, although it goes unnoticed in the horrendous music being forced upon them. Connor recommended this band for audition, said he’d heard them play at a friend’s wedding last year. Noah reckons he needs to get his ears tested.

“We’ve been over this. How many more times d’ya wanna give me the talk of doom?”

Julie shifts her chair closer while the band on stage launches into another song. In this empty hall, with only Julie and Noah as an audience, the music echoes painfully, drilling into Noah’s head.

“I know I keep going on,” she says, looking him in the eye, “but I worry about you. You barely know this guy!”

Noah knows him enough. Enough to know he wants to marry him. It feels right. At least, he thinks it feels right. It feels good, at any rate, and he loves him. There’s not really any reason not to marry him. And Connor’s given him so much already, turned his whole world around in the matter of months. Noah can barely reconcile his life now with what he had before.

“I know what I’m doing, Jules,” he says, and he’s about to launch into yet another defensive speech explaining to her all the reasons why this makes sense, but his phone vibrates against his leg in his pocket, distracting him.

It’s a text from Connor.

Got him! He’s flying in on Sat. xx

Noah doesn’t care as much as he probably should. He’s pleased for Connor, of course, that he gets to have his best friend by his side on his wedding day. But if this guy—this Patrick Walsh—is as much of a high-flyer as Connor says, and if he’s got a life for himself in America now, then he’s really only going to be a snapshot in Noah’s life with Connor. It’s not really worth his time to give the man much thought.

“Look,” he says to Julie, slipping his phone back in his pocket and wincing at a particularly off-key screech from the singer. “I know what I’m doing, right. Stop worrying.”

Although he knows he’s asking the impossible. Fortunately, Ron’s more optimistic, beaming at Noah when he arrives at the coffee house later that day, launching into a hummed recital of the wedding march.

“Leave off,” Noah says, laughing, as he slips his apron on. “Anyone would think you’re more excited about this wedding than I am.”

“Just pleased for you,” Ron says. “Not long to go now!”

About six weeks, give or take a few days. The thought of it makes Noah’s stomach squirm, and he heads straight to the kitchen to prepare sandwiches, give his mind something else to do, Ron bellowing orders at him from out front as he serves customers.

He’s worked here with Ron since the day it opened. Hired Ron as his co-manager when he realised he wouldn’t be able to do it all himself. Although over the weeks Ron’s become more like his partner, running the place as efficiently as Noah, sometimes better, and Noah’s often had the thought of making it official, some kind of legal business arrangement. He’ll have to talk to Connor about it sometime.

The day flies by, the business benefiting from the national-chain café over the road shutting down after a failed health inspection. Noah’s kept on his feet, and he works seamlessly with Ron, serving and chatting and watching the time tick by so quickly, he’s surprised when closing time comes around suddenly. He takes Ron for a drink at the pub after work then bids him goodnight, goes home to cook dinner for Connor, gets the inclination to put a little romance in it—bottle of wine, a candle on the table.

In the early days of their relationship he would plan for seduction—wait for Connor’s return with his dick hard, having spent time working himself up, getting ready to fuck. But Connor always came home tired, or wearing something he didn’t want to mess up, or generally paying no attention to Noah’s attempts at allure, and so Noah had given up. They have sex in bed at night, two or three times a week. It’s good, and he always climaxes, but he can’t help thinking there’s something missing—something to get his blood burning, make him so desperate that he doesn’t care about Connor’s protests, smashes through them and fucks him dry on the couch, or over the kitchen counter, or in the shower.

But he is, after all, brought to orgasm at least twice a week. He doesn’t really have anything to complain about.

But Noah’s heart has never raced for him, and he’s come to realise that it never truly happens in the real world, not like in the movies. It didn’t happen when he first met Connor, and it doesn’t happen now. His time with Connor is pleasant, and he loves him, and that kind of hungry passion, he decides, exists in the movies and in romance novels and in frenzied, drunken one-night stands that mean nothing come morning. That moment these movies and books try to tell you about isn’t actually real, that there’s a moment in your life when that one person walks in, and the world stops spinning, and your breath freezes in your lungs, and for that one unbelievable instant nothing and no one exists but you and that other person.

So when it does happen to Noah, he’s so far from being prepared for it that he doesn’t know how to process his reaction. It happens when he’s sat at the bar in a fancy restaurant, talking to Julie and trying to get a drink. Behind them their table is laid out, a reservation for god knows how many—the wedding party, mostly, and a few members of Connor’s extended family. A get-together before the rush of the wedding preparations really begins. Julie’s rabbiting in his ear about her college coursework, and Noah’s sighing and staring around while waiting for the bartender’s attention, and then the door of the restaurant opens, and everything jolts into slow motion, and
he
walks in.

He’s tall and dark and pale, looks about thirty or so, wearing a tight white shirt and black trousers, every stitch of his clothing clinging to his body as if designed especially for the shape of him. He’s got these dark, deep eyes that Noah zeroes in on, and wide shoulders that make his stomach lurch, and he’s looking around the restaurant as if searching for someone and Noah’s welded to his bar stool, can’t move, can’t look away.

“Noah,” Julie says, snapping her fingers in his face. “Noah.”

“Oh my god,” Noah says under his breath, and he’s talking to himself more than to Julie, has to vocalise some of the heat shocking through his system. “Look at that guy. Wait, don’t look! Okay, you can look.”