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Chapter Twenty-One


Kevin

I woke up on the day of Nick’s wedding, my stomach in knots.

Despite having spent the last several days making a choice, I had yet to actually make the choice. Every time I thought I absolutely had made up my mind, I got this sinking sense in my stomach that would drive me right back into my indecision. On the one hand, I had twenty years of a relationship history and children with Kristin, but we’d been falling apart and there were now things between us that threatened to undo everything, no matter how much I loved her, and I was genuinely afraid of whether, given the same situation, she would choose me. On the other, I had Caroline, who I’d loved strong from the roots of my life and who had practiced, multiple times now, that old saying if you love something, let it go, who had chosen my happiness over her own. But Kristin was my wife...

And that’s pretty much the circle my mind had been going in for days.

I got up and opened the box the off-the-rack suit had come in and I carried it with me to the bathroom in the hallway. I could hear the shower running from the bathroom in Nick and Lauren’s bedroom. I pulled the suit on in the bathroom, dusting the shoulders off and fixing my hair.

When I was finished, I stepped into the hall, sock-footed, my tie over my shoulder. Lauren was just coming out of their bedroom, her dress over her arm, purse in her hand. “Morning,” she said.

“Morning,” I answered.

She smiled and came down the hallway, looking my suit over. “You look nice.” She paused. “Nick says I’m not supposed to bug you about it, but… did you choose?”

I sighed and shook my head.

Lauren reached out and put her hand on my heart. “Choose from in here,” she said, “Not your head. Or your dick. It’s gotta be the soul.” She pulled her hand back, “If it’s from in there, it won’t even be a choice, it’ll be as easy as an exhale.” Her phone vibrated and she looked down to pull it out of her jeans pocket, then looked back up at me, “I gotta go, the girls are out front waiting for me. I’ll see you and Nick later. Make sure he gets to the altar this time, will ya?”

“I will. I promise.”

Lauren smiled, “Thank you.”

I watched as she hustled down the stairs, then I turned back to the guest bedroom to get my shoes and wallet before going to collect Nick from his room. When I knocked he yelled out, “Does the groom have to wear a bowtie?”

I opened the door. He was sitting on the bed, legs crossed, in his nice shirt and suit jacket over boxers, the pants laying on the foot of the bed waiting for him. He had the bowtie around his neck tied in a knot and a frustrated look on his face, a diagram of how to tie a bowtie glowing from his iPad on the bed next to him. “Kevin, help,” he whined.

“C’mere,” I said. Nick got up and I realized his jacket didn’t cover his junk. “Put your pants on and then c’mere,” I revised.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said as he tugged his pants on.

“You know you could’ve got ready there,” I told him. “Just a thought.”

He shook his head, “I don’t wanna have much downtime, I plan to mingle while we wait. Lauren’s getting ready there. I’m gonna stay busy so my brain doesn’t start playin’ tricks on me again.” He was buttoning the waist and zipping his fly, then came over to me.

I waved my hand to spin him around so he was back to me. “Let me see your hands, I’m gonna show you how to do this.” I guided Nick’s hands through the motion of making the tie. “Over… through… loop… and pull,” I said, directing his hands. Then I undid the tie. “Try it.” He fumbled his way through it a couple times until he succeeded at getting a windsor knot tied, albeit kind of crooked. I reached up and straightened it out. “Good job. You’re officially a man.”

He grinned, touching a hand to the tie at his throat. “Thanks, Kev. It’s rough not havin’ my dad here. I mean, helpin’ me with my tie’s traditionally his job and all.”

“I didn’t have my dad, either,” I reminded him. I fixed it one last time ‘cos he’d knocked it crooked again feeling it. I felt like I’d come full circle.

Nick looked at me with this strange expression, and I had a feeling that was the first time he’d thought about the fact that we had the lack of paternal influence in our lives in common.

We finished up getting ready, putting on shoes and headed out. I drove this time, Nick sat in the passenger seat nervously twiddling his thumbs. I glanced over at him with a smile, “You doing okay over there?” I asked.

Nick nodded.

“Left your running shoes at home, right?”

“Yeah,” he squeaked, “I ain’t runnin’ far in these bitches, they’re slippery.”

I laughed.

The wedding was being held outside at a resort on a cliff overlooking the beach this time. Lauren had joked that it’d be harder for him to run if one side of the venue was a cliff. It was beautiful outside, the sunlight playing on the water, making it sparkle far into the distance. We passed a couple of savvy reporters, leaning against their cars, polishing their lenses, but otherwise nobody much had arrived yet other than Lauren and her wedding party, whose cars were in the lot.They’d set up chairs and flowers all over and there was a tent with tables and there were some caterers getting ready to put out champagne and finger foods. Nick led the way up the walkway into the main building where a sign at the door declared that the reception was being held in a conference-ballroom to the left. The lighting was low since we were among the first to arrive. At a bar across the room, Alex, Lauren’s little sister, was standing between two stools, watching as a bar keeper mixed some drinks.

“You look nice, soon-to-be-big-brother,” she commented to Nick with a wink. “You’re staying this time, right?”

He had to be getting sick of that joke by now, I thought, and I promised myself I wouldn’t make it again.

“Yeah,” he replied, “Couldn’t run if I tried in these slippery-ass shoes,” he added, recycling the joke he’d told me that morning. The best defense for a repetitive question was a repetitive answer. That was something we’d learned somewhere about the twenty millionth time we’d been asked the boxers or briefs question.

She got the drinks she’d been waiting on and with a wink and a wave, headed back to the bridal party. “Hope to see you later,” she called as she left.

Nick looked at me. “I should charge every person that makes that joke a dime.”

I patted his shoulder and turned to order a drink.

People started trickling in and as they did, Nick’s riches would’ve been piling up if he really did charge for that joke. It came in various forms, but almost every person made it nonetheless. He laughed good naturedly and came up with an array of stock replies that he recycled, and I hung out like a landing place as he made his way around the room, ordering drinks and leaning against the bar.

Then I saw her.

Kristin walked in, holding a purse in her hands, looking around, Mason at her side. I don’t know where Max was. Probably with her mother, I thought bitterly, Who she doesn’t need help from. I shook the comment from my mind. I needed to be better about that. Especially if I was going to stick to my choice to stay with Kristin. I’d need to wash all that negativity out of my system.

I finished my drink as she walked into the conference-ballroom. I was going to need all the alcohol I could get.

I was just about to start my walk across the room when the door opened again.

And there she was.

Caroline.

I stopped two steps from the bar, hanging back, my heart racing.

Kristin. Caroline. Kristin. Caroline. Kristin. Caroline…

Nick came over quickly, making a beeline for me from clear across the room. “Dude. Kristin’s here,” he said lowly.

“So is Caroline,” I answered.

Nick’s eyes roamed over to the door. She spotted us. Caroline did, I mean. She waved and started over.

And at that exact instant, I heard Mason. “Daddy!”

Nick looked at me, “Good luck.” And he turned away.

Mother fucker had been making jokes all night about not running away, yet there he went. I hoped his damn shoes would slip.

Mason ran into me at a full run, slamming into my waist and burying his head against my stomach. “You didn’t come see my dinosaur transformer the other day,” he accused.

“I’m sorry, bud,” I answered.

Kristin was following Mason, and as I watched her approach, I saw Nick rushing across the room to greet Caroline, to stop her from advancing toward me. I patted Mason’s back as he hugged me. “I miss you,” he said. I didn’t know what to say to him to make everything that had happened right in his little mind.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you lately, little man,” I said.

Kristin came to a stop in front of me. “Hi,” she said. Her voice shook with uncomfortable formality.

I stood up, my hand on Mason’s shoulder. “Hey,” I answered. A hundred thousand words tumbled through me, a mess of pros and cons, some of the words telling her I wanted her back, some telling her I was letting her go. I didn’t know how to form them, either way, my heart just sat in my throat, all tight and beating against the lining.

“I know you got the papers,” she said. She took a deep breath, “Did you sign them?”

“No,” I replied.

Kristin sighed, “Kevin.”

“If I sign it, it’s because I agree and I don’t,” I replied.

She looked down at Mason, “Look, I don’t want to make a scene here, but let it suffice to say that I know exactly what you were doing in Kentucky all weekend.”

“What?” I blinked. How’d she find out about the song? I wondered if Andrew had tweeted about it or something. I opened my mouth about to voice my confusion, when Caroline walked up, Nick trailing behind her, wide-eyed, his shoes squeaking as they slipped on the wood.

I felt bad now that I’d prayed his shoes would slip.

Kristin looked back as the squeaks approached us, her eyes slipping over Caroline and Nick. She turned back to me. “Speaking of,” and she reached for Mason’s hand. “C’mon, Mason. We need to go find Lauren.”

It clicked what she’d said. “Wait, Kris, it’s not what it looks like.”

Kristin peeled a reluctant Mason from my waist, “Don’t you act like I’m stupid, Kevin Richardson, why else would you go to that camp after twenty-one years?”

“Because Nick needed a place to go,” I said.

Caroline was just far enough away she could hear, but had come to a stop. She was biting her lips, Nick slipped into the back of her, catching himself on her shoulders with a blush to his cheeks.

“Bullshit,” Kristin hissed.

Mason looked up, “Are you guys fighting?” he asked.

God bless the kid had taken a year to notice.

“No,” Kristin said firmly. Too firmly. Mason’s eyes lit up with worry, like he suddenly could feel the tension that we’d somehow managed to keep from him for so long. I felt this overwhelming sense of guilt all of a sudden. Of all the things I’d never wanted our fights to hurt, it was the boys.

“Kristin, nothing happened,” I said lowly. I didn’t really want to have this conversation with Caroline right there.

She stared into my eyes, “Nick said you apologized.”

I looked at Nick.

His eyes were wider than wide.

“I was faithful to you,” I said to Kristin. “Saying sorry doesn’t mean I was unfaithful.”

“You haven’t been faithful to me since you walked out of the house last year,” she snapped.

“Nick,” I barked, “Can you please… take Mason somewhere? Anywhere?” His eyes were tearing up and I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t fight in front of him. I couldn’t. It wasn’t right. And the fact that Kristin was willing to give in to emotions like that made me angry.

Nick shuffled around Caroline, hand out, “Hey, wanna come see if they got the little weiners out at the catering table yet?” he asked, bending low for Mason’s palm.

Mason grabbed hold of Nick’s hand, looking longingly at me.

“Go ahead, Mase, I’ll see you in a few minutes,” I said.

Nick led the way out, bent down for Mason’s hand, talking about all the great stuff the caterer was bringing. Caroline hovered, looking uncomfortable, unsure if she should follow Nick or stay here, unsure if she was in or out of the conversation. I looked back to Kristin. “I have never cheated on you,” I said in a low, hard voice that I hoped left no room for discussion on the topic.

“I never said you cheated, I said you were unfaithful,” Kristin snapped. “Faithful would’ve been staying and helping me. I’m not having this fight again Kevin. Just sign the papers.”

A couple other groups were facing us now.

“Kris, I’m not signing them,” I hissed, “Until I’ve had a chance to try to make it right.”

“You can’t make it right,” Kristin said. “If there was a way, then I wouldn’t have sent them to you to begin with. This isn’t high school or college or what the fuck ever, Kevin. This is marriage and it is broken and it’s over.”

“Please.”

My voice sounded so pathetic.

She opened her mouth to say something, but instead Caroline’s voice broke through. “Why don’t you just give him a damn chance to tell you how he feels? Don’t you owe him at least that after all this time?” she snapped, stepping up beside Kristin.

Kristin’s focus shifted from me to Caroline. “I would think you of all people would be rooting for him to sign the papers and so you can finally run away with him.”

“Oh. Like you did?” Caroline snapped.

Terror sank through my body like cold water being poured over my head. I felt like all the organs in my body had fallen to the base of my core.

“That was different,” Kristin’s voice was sharp.

“How?” Caroline asked. “It was my wedding day and you came and literally ran away with him.”

“You were ruining his life.”

“And what do you think you’re doing by being such a bitch?”

I looked around. Where the fuck was Mike or Drew or any of the damn bodyguards that usually swarmed around any place that we were at? I could sure use one of them right about now. Lauren was gonna kill me if this escalated much higher. I could see one or two photographers that had managed to get in discreetly taking pictures from the corners of the room as the scene unfolded.

I grabbed at their arms, “Can we go somewhere more, uh, private?” I requested under my breath, nodding toward the press guys hungrily collecting images for their ragazines.

“I shouldn’t have come,” Caroline deduced instead of us moving anywhere. “This was a mistake. Nick invited me, I just wanted to come to support him.”

“Right, and to collect your bounty,” snapped Kristin.

Caroline turned on her with a speed that could only have been explained by her time working with the horses. “For your information, all I have done is told him to try like hell to make your relationship with him work.”

“I’m sure,” Kristin said.

Caroline looked angrier than a spitfire.

Kristin’s eyebrow was raised, a cool, smouldering anger in her eyes.

I didn’t know how the hell to diffuse this. The clicking of the paparazzi’s cameras felt like heart beats, slowly speeding up, getting more frantic. I felt like the room was getting smaller around us.

“I have waited for twenty-two years,” Caroline said, her voice shaking, “For him to even apologize to me.”

“And apparently wait around for him to come back so you could pounce right on him the moment he was in town,” Kristin said coldly.

Caroline’s jaw was set, “I work for Ann at the camp.”

Kristin’s eyes widened with humor and a smile, “Oh. Ohhh.” She looked at me. “No wonder you suddenly decided to go back to the camp after decades of avoiding it.” She turned back to Caroline. “You’re disgusting, stealing married men from their wives --”

“YOU STOLE HIM FROM ME FIRST!” Caroline shouted, her face red.

“He wasn’t married yet!” Kristin snarled.

“That’s enough,” I said, but neither of them heard me.

“Only by minutes!” Caroline snarled back.

“You were going to break his spirit,” Kristin snapped.

“Like you’re one to talk about breaking his spirit,” Caroline cried, “You didn’t have to see the way he cried over you. Like his world was shattered. I have never seen anyone cry like that before!”

“Oh so you were there then, too.”

“At least I was there for him,” Caroline said.

“I was there for him through a lot more than you’ve ever been. I saved him from you when you were trying to bottle him up and keep him as your very own up there in Hickville because you didn’t even love him enough to think about his dreams.”

“Why do you think I haven’t tried to get him back for twenty fucking years?!” Caroline yelled.

“Enough,” I tried again.

“SO! You admit you’re trying to get him back?” Kristin took a step forward.

“So what if I am, you clearly don’t want him anymore!” Caroline stepped forward, too.

Kristin’s eyes were fire. “Well, until he signs the divorce papers, he’s still mine. And he doesn’t want to sign the papers, so maybe you should think about what that means, you little bitch. He doesn’t want you.”

“ENOUGH!” I bellowed the word as hard as I could.

They both looked to me.

My words were quieter now, “Enough.”

Caroline nodded, and I could see tears glistening in her eyes. “You’re right. Enough.” And she left. Quicker than I could form the words to stop her this time, heading out the door.

I looked at Kristin.

“That was completely uncalled for,” I said roughly.

“I want the papers signed by the end of the day,” she said, and she left, too.

And there I was at the bar, alone. I’d gone from too many women to no women at all.

Everyone in the room quickly turned away, trying to act like they hadn’t been watching and listening to everything that had been said. Polite, forced conversation sounds suddenly filled the room where as moments before the only sound had been Caroline and Kristin’s voices. The paparazzi looked like they were gonna piss themselves with delight as they reviewed the photos they’d taken.

“Fuck,” I whispered, turning to the bar.

The bartender was staring at me, absently swiping a washcloth on the counter, not even really trying to look like he wasn’t listening to that whole thing. He was looking at me with this expression of pity or something. “You, uh, want another drink or something, pal?” he asked. “On the house?”

I shook my head. “No. Thanks.”

I needed to get out of that reception room.

I needed air.




I was sitting on a bench outside of the resort, looking out to the parking lot rather than the cliff or the wedding area. I felt like my negative tension needed to stay away from the wedding areas. My heart metaphorically hurt. The only thing keeping me from getting in the car and driving away was the fact that Nick had been so excited that morning when I’d helped him with his tie. He needed me there and I couldn’t choose to deprive him of that. But I didn’t want to infect everyone with my crappy mood, so I’d exiled myself away from the party.

I’d been there a good twenty minutes when Nick suddenly planted himself next to me. “So you almost caused a girl fight at my wedding, huh? That’s a bad ass wedding gift, bro.” He smirked, elbowing me.

I shook my head. “I feel like shit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s my own fault. My lack of decision left me with no women at all.”

Nick sighed, “So… Caroline was gonna leave but I told her not to.”

“She’s still here?” I asked, my voice hopeful.

“Mhm,” Nick nodded. “So’s Kristin.”

I looked over at him.

“You gotta pick, man. And you gotta do it now, before one of them kills the other one. Seriously, them bitches be crazy.”

“I know,” my voice was raw.

“What can I do to help?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

Nick leaned back against the bench, staring up at the sky. “Yanno. Okay. Here’s what I think.” He sat upright and turned to look at me, “And I know I ain’t very smart about this shit ‘cos, I mean, y’know. I don’t have a helluva lotta experience, but… Lauren says we’re a strong couple, the strongest we know actually we decided this week,” he smirked, “Anyway… So I think you need to talk to Kristin either way. Like whether you’re makin’ up or not, you gotta talk to Kris. You gotta do it today. Before the ceremony.”

I stared down at my lap.

“If not for you and Kris, for Mason. You know how upset that poor kid was? Jesus. I had to feed him like twelve hot dogs.” Nick paused. “Oh. Yeah. Your kid might have a stomach ache later and it was definitely not because he had twelve hot dogs.”

I looked at Nick with an eyebrow cocked.

He shrugged. “But seriously man. Y’all gotta work out what to tell him. If nothing else you gotta do that. So here’s my thing. If you talk to Kristin, and you get in there and you realize hey this ain’t over, you fix it. Right there. But if you get in there and for even a second there’s still a question about you and her and you and Caroline and all that shit, then you gotta let it go. Because if you go into it, fixin’ it, with Caroline on your mind, the second somethin’ goes down between you, the first time anything even remotely dumbass happens, she’s gonna flip out on you or you on her and both of you is gonna be thinkin’ of Caroline.”

I digested the words slowly. He was right.

I looked up at him. “When’d you get to be so wise?”

“On Dagobah, sometime, when in exile I was,” he said in his best Yoda voice.

I smacked his arm.

Nick smiled and stood up. “So, fuck you by the way, stealing the thunder on my wedding day. All those damn paparazzi saw me come back after I got Mason back to Kris and they’re all do you have any comment on the fight and I’m like yo what fight and that’s how I find out there was like almost a fuckin’ fist fight in my reception hall while I’m out not eating twelve hot dogs with your kid,” Nick led the way back toward the conference-ballroom. “I mean, dude, you get me a chick fight for my wedding and you couldn’t even make sure I was around to see it…”