Riptides (Lengths) (11 page)

TWELVE

We leave the cool quiet of the rec room and drive over to Deo’s. We beat down the door and wake him up just as Adam pulls in.

“We were just talking about how you’re not even good for comedy anymore, Abramowitz. You haven’t wiped out in forever.” I nudge Cohen, and he and Deo snicker with me.

“Why don’t you call Ryan? That guy’s gotta be a riot on a board,” he says with that mild punch he manages to deliver whenever we rag him too hard.

Deo’s eyes shine like Adam is Santa Claus offering him a tour of the North Pole workshop. “I’m calling him
now
!”

By the time we’re out on the beach, I feel like it’s a decent enough hour to text Jess. She can breathe all she needs, but she’s got to expect me to check on her now and then. I send a general, non-committal ‘good morning’ message.

“That your girl with the abbreviated name?” Deo yells when he catches me staring at my phone.

“Yeah.” I toss it back onto my gear bag. “I’m not sure what’s up.”

“No worries on the cake if she’s stressing about it,” Deo says. “My mom had this freaky premonition or some bullshit. She called Whit over early, and the two of them baked some crazy hippie shit for the wedding.” He frowns at Cohen. “Sorry, man. We could always stop by the supermarket or whatever and get something actually edible.”

Cohen shakes the water out of his hair and waves it off. “No worries. If your mom made it, Maren will love it.”

“I know Mare will be cool. But the ‘gogue has limited bathroom access. Are you sure you wanna play with all your guests’ intestines like this?” Deo asks.

We all laugh hard.

“We’ll do the cake last,” Cohen declares. “Hey, guys, look. I think Ryan is gonna…whoa! Shit. Nope.”

As bad as Ryan was at dancing, at least that was dry land and he was marginally in his element. He’s a thousand times goonier on the water, and it’s an unquestionable laugh riot to watch him wave his huge arms around and topple off the surfboard.

“I’m sure Jess will come through,” I say with way more confidence than I feel.

It takes thirty minutes for Jess to text back. My stomach sinks when I read i
t:

so sorry. never had this happen before…cakes burned, fondant went dry. i am restarting now. may be a little late. so, so sorry.

Part of me is excited because there’s still a chance she’ll come through, make it to the wedding. But the realistic part of me knows I have to give her an out.
:

great if you can, if not don’t worry we got a last minute cake from family
. thx

I look up and squint into the roaring, foaming waves. I want to blank. I want my mind to go somewhere where I don’t have to consider all the craziness tied up in my situation with Jess. I grab my board and paddle out. After a few seconds, I find my footing, and there’s nothing but the suck and pull of the waves, the rush of being out in the open water, and the satisfying crash of finding the shore and starting again, over and over.

I almost miss Ryan screaming, waving me down. The other guys are already starting back. I stow the board and head to my truck, where Ryan is leaned against the door, waiting.

“Need a lift?” I ask.

“If you don’t mind. Rocko dropped me off on the way to deliver the flowers.” Ryan climbs in and buckles up. “You can bring me to your parents’ place. Hattie had my dress blues sent over.”

“Cool.” I pull onto the highway. “Hattie is organized as all hell. That girl is going to be president someday.”

“Funny,” Ryan grins, “I always tell her to join the Guard. Only problem is, I bet she’d make admiral in, like, two years and then she’d have total control over my life.”

“At least she’d get shit done, right?” I say, and glance over at Ryan. Hattie was anything but easy on him when they first met. That girl put him through the ringer because she knew she’d be heading back to the East Coast when the summer was through, and she wasn’t banking on the two of them having anything more than a summer fling.
She up and left him without a trace, and I bumped into his drunk, pathetic ass at O’Shea’s bar more than once those first few weeks after she left.

“For sure.” Ryan shakes his head, clearly proud. “If you ever need anything done, Hattie is your go-to girl. Which is awesome. Except it makes me feel pretty unnecessary sometimes.”

“Dude,” I laugh. “You can’t be serious. Your job is
literally
saving lives. Like diving into the freezing Atlantic to save drowning people. I think you’ve got your Captain America bases covered.”

“Well, if Hattie is ever stranded in the ocean, yeah, I’ll be her hero for sure. But in the day to day? My girl is so damn independent. It’s hot. It is. But sometimes I wonder if she’d miss a beat if I wasn’t around.” Ryan adjusts his hulking bicep so it’s comfortably set against the window and stares out at the passing hills.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” I think back on the way Hattie looked at Ryan last night, like he was Atlas holding up the whole damn world on his shoulders. “Everyone sees the way she looks at you. A girl like her would never bother pretending. And trust me, if I thought I had a snowball’s chance in hell, I would have swooped in back when you two first started dating.”

“What the fuck, man?” Ryan stares at me, his mouth hanging open.

“Like I said, quit feeling sorry for yourself. The girl loves you. And she
is
crazy independent, which I bet means she’ll find this mopiness you’re rolling in irritating as all hell. Stop being insecure.” I’m being a little bit of a dick, but I guess I just feel like if a guy’s lucky enough to have an amazing girl fall all over him, he should embrace that.

I know I would if I could get Jess to look at me the way Hattie looks at Ryan.

“Tough love is kinda this family’s style, huh?” Ryan asks, rubbing the back of his massive neck.

“That’s right. Now you wanna have some kind of push-up contest, or are we cool?” We’re pulling up at my parents’ place, and Ryan shakes his head, grinning.

“Nah. Did I mention Hattie followed it up with sushi and carnival rides? Sometimes I think she loves to see me weak.”

“Don’t go too hard on her there,” I tell him. “That was Whit, and I’m sure she was mostly pissed at Deo.” I swing out of the truck, and Ryan and I walk past the thousands of potted herbs and plants on my parents’ wide front porch.

“No kidding.” Ryan stands back as I open the door. “That sucks, since Deo and I were
both
puking our guys out the entire night after.”

We walk into the living room and Cohen is sprawled on the couch, snoring. Deo is snoozing is my father’s recliner and Adam is nowhere to be found. I tell Ryan he can crash in my old room if he wants, but he tells me he’s used to getting up at dawn, and he’ll just go out back and call Hattie.

It sucks to be a jealous freak over the fact that Ryan can call Hattie anytime he pleases. That’s normal with people who date, right? There isn’t supposed to be all this intel, setting up times and reasons to call or not call.

I brood over Jess and my relationship the whole time the guys sleep, and keep right on brooding when our tuxes go on and the photographer Deo nabbed shows up to snap a million pictures.

“Sunshine!” Deo cries when the girl with long, strawberry blonde hair comes up the walk. “Look at you. How long before you pop?”

She rolls her eyes and pats her protruding belly. “Three months now. And how are you, Mr. Grown Up and Responsible? I hear your woman made an honest man of you?”

Deo holds up his left hand to show his ring off. I’m half-surprised he doesn’t rip his shirt off so she can see his mer-Whit tattoo, too. “I’m a respectable member of society now, employed and married to the girl of my dreams.”

Sunshine smiles and pushes us out the door and onto the freshly mowed lawn for some candid shots. “Pretty soon you’ll be calling me to do belly shots.”

Deo screws his eyebrows low. “Belly shots?”

She pats her belly again and barks at Papi to get back in line next to Cohen and
smile
. “You know. Pregnancy shots.”

We all laugh at how pale Deo goes in the matter of a couple of clicks of Sunshine’s camera, but that’s the second when the weight of this whole day hits me.

We’re all standing here in our tuxes in the yard where we used to make ramps to ride our bikes off and shoot each other with Super Soakers. And now we’re all grown up. We’re the adults. Soon we’ll be having kids and our parents will go silver and become grandparents. Life is moving the fuck on, and I’m ready. I’m ready for it to take me where I need to go.

I know I’ve got years before it’s my turn, but it nags at me anyway. It makes everything that’s happening with Jess feel more pressing, more intense.

By the time Sunshine has snapped the last pic of our mangy asses and is heading over to the girls’ hotel, I’m in a dismal mood. Maybe Jess will walk in with a three-tiered cake that will blow everybody’s mind. Maybe she’ll be looking at me the way Maren looks at Cohen, and maybe she’ll fight and claw the other girls to get that damn bouquet that means she’s next in line to commit.

Or maybe…not.

I feel a sullen darkness that’s not shaking, no matter how much I laugh and joke with the guys. It lasts all the way to the synagogue, even when Rabbi Haas gives us all tight, garlicky hugs and reminisces about our bar mitzvahs like the damn
mensch
he is. Deo pulls a bottle of Yarden out of some secret tux pocket, and the rabbi’s eyes light up. It’s all goodness and happiness, but I can’t catch my groove.

Even when the synagogue fills to bursting with friends and family. I jump to action, helping usher everyone in and getting them to their seats. It’s nice to see so many of my family members, all of them eager to see Cohen finally settling down and assuming his place as next heir of the Rodriguez family. It all feels so damn official.

The procession starts and I make my way down with Adam and a few of my male cousins. Cohen took me aside before the wedding and asked if I’d be his best man.

I was honored. I really was. But I knew my brother was asking me because that was what he thought was right. Blood is thicker than water and all that.

The truth is, Deo was the right choice. My brother sometimes has a hard time doing what’s right for him if it isn’t right for everyone else, and I know that. Which is why I turned down his best man request and gave it to the goofy ass idiot who deserves it completely.

Deo walks down the aisle and stands proudly at the left side of the
chuppah
that was set up early this morning.

Cohen walks down the aisle flanked by our parents. My mom is a damn knockout. I remember watching her get dressed to go out dancing with my dad when I was a kid, and I
knew
, sitting on the edge of the bathtub with my sisters while they squabbled over who got to ‘try out’ her high heels for her, that she was the most gorgeous woman to walk the earth. It still holds true to this day.

My father looks nervous as all hell, and I think I can actually see his mustache shake as he takes his place next to Deo, who leans over and says something that I guess is totally hilarious and inappropriate based on my dad’s choked laugh. Deo turns back and grins, and I’m more sure than ever that the job of best man went to the right guy.

The bridesmaids head down the aisle. My sisters look really damn pretty in their blue dresses, smiling wide and walking proud. Hattie follows after them, and I catch Ryan watching her as she watches him right back. How could he seriously not notice the way she looks at him like he’s got every single answer she’s ever been looking for? Idiot. There’s another girl I don’t know, a girl with light brown hair and Maren’s big blue eyes. I guess she’s Maren’s sister Rowan, who came from Napa to be here.

And then Maren walks down the aisle, her parents on either side. I’ve never seen her mom, but the woman gripping Maren’s arm looks like a slightly older version of her, right down to the nervously excited smile on her lips. And the guy? Mr. Walshe looked exactly like a washed up rocker a few months back——apparently a stint in rehab and his foray into yoga was a success, because the guy looks about two decades younger and a hundred pounds thinner than the last time I saw him.

And Maren.

Holy shit.

Damn. She looks like what every little girl must want to look like when they imagine being a bride. She’s wearing an ivory dress that hugs her curves in all the right places with a big, billowy veil over her dark hair. Her eyes are wide and shiny, and they find Cohen and stick hard, like there’s not another thing to see in the whole room. With each step, her feet peep out from under her dress, and she has bright blue shoes that match the bridesmaid dresses. She’s also wearing the necklace, the infamous bad luck necklace that really does seem elven, the way it shimmers and glows on her milky skin.

I know just from that raw look radiating off her face and reflecting back off Cohen’s that he was right: there’s not a damn thing that could bring bad luck to either one of them on this day.

Her parents lead her up to the right side of the
chuppah
and she turns to face Cohen.