Page 2 of The Best I Never Had

“I’ll give you a minute to look over the menu,” I say around the knot in my throat, rushing to check on my tables before Addy can say anything else.

I should go straight to the man whose frustration over the wait has gotten progressively louder, but I need a friendly face, so I stop by the young couple’s table near the front. The boyfriend has a gleam of sweat on his forehead, and I give him an encouraging smile, a nonverbal reminder that I have his back. The ring will come out with dessert, just as we planned earlier today.

Moments like these are what keep me here. Cibare is one of the nicer restaurants in town, a place families and friends come to celebrate big events. I get to watch and play a small part in these happy moments that build a life. Pour the wine that the couple will use to toast to twenty years. Help put the young girl at ease when her parents bring her out to a fancy birthday dinner. Take the picture that will go on the fridge of the family celebrating their son’s college graduation. Things I never got to experience.

I swing by Tube Man’s table to put him out of his misery before heading back to Addy.

She takes my hand as soon as I come into reach. “I know this is all … unexpected, but I need your support. He loves me, and I love him just as much. It’s my chance to build a family. Please.”

The family I’ve always kept her from. She doesn’t say it, I don’t know if she even thinks it, but I feel the words in my bones.

“Please, Thea. Can you support me?”

I swallow thickly. “Of course.”

The serious expression melts from her face, transforming into a wild glee as she stands so quickly her chair teeters on its back legs.

“Thank you, Tia!” she squeals, throwing her arms around me.

And just like that, we’re back to solid ground. She always did forgive me too easily.

“You’re working, so I won’t go through it all now, but I’m going to need your help as my maid of honor. It’ll be nuts trying to get this all sorted out in the next month.”

My knees buckle, and I drop into the seat across from her. “A month?”

She glances down at me, her head tilting to the side. “Didn’t I mention that?”

“No, Adelaide,” I say, and she scowls at the use of her full name. “You did not mention that you were marrying the guy you’ve been dating for three months a month from now.”

She shrugs.

I barely hold back my scream. If I’m going to help her realize her plan is fucking bonkers, I need to find another approach.

“Why?” I ask, forcing a level of nonchalance into my voice to keep her defenses from going up again. “Your wedding should be perfect, and we’ll have so much fun taking our time to make it exactly what you want.”

“His family has a vineyard in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The mountains, Tia! Our whole lives we’ve talked about running away to the mountains. It’s a sign from the universe, right?”

The first time in her life Addy has played into anything even approaching New Age thinking, and it’s making her run off and marry a guy she’s just started dating. Great. Of course she couldn’t start with something small, like an interest in crystals.

“They host weddings, and they had a last-minute cancellation. Pretty much everyone except his immediate family lives up there, and I only have you and the Fischers”—I can’t hold back my flinch this time, though I don’t think she notices—“so it makes sense to go there. Plus, it’s special. He spent his summers there with his cousins and brother. You’re going to be shocked by how beautiful it is.”

I’ve been to the Blue Ridge Mountains, but she doesn’t know that.

Addy was a sophomore in college when I got hit with the world’s worst string of luck. I kept it quiet because I didn’t need her swooping in when she should have been focusing on school.

But a girl’s gotta eat. So when my best friend came to me with the opportunity to make a little money by pretending to be his other friend’s girlfriend, it was an easy call. I knew his friend—Owen—had to be a good guy because Vaughn wouldn’t put me in a dangerous position. So up Owen and I flew to North Carolina and spent the weekend pretending we were wildly in love to keep his family off his back. I walked away with several months’ rent and the relief that I wouldn’t have to ask my baby sister, who had been saving for school since she was old enough to realize it was a thing, to give me some of her college fund.

And then, I have a horrifying thought. A family in our small town with a vineyard in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Owen had a little brother. Shit, I can’t remember his name. It’s a big mountain range, but the similarities are too many to ignore.

“Addy,” I start as the acid in my stomach churns and I fight the urge to throw up. “What’s Harrison’s last name?”

“Hayes. Why?”

I hold in the breath of relief as the nausea fades. That isn’t Owen’s last name. It’s a bizarre coincidence, but at least I won’t have to come clean about what we did or make a scene at her wedding.

I shake my head dismissively, and she watches me, her face pinching. She has the same strong, dark brows and thick brown hair as our mother. With her lightly tanned skin, she’d fit right in with the Greek family that gave us our last name, even if we have no real connection to any of them. I, on the other hand, inherited my father’s bright blond hair, or so my mother said when I was little. I remember resenting that Addy looks so much like Mom when I only got her dark brown eyes. I spent hours staring in the mirror after she died, like it was a portal to the next life, and if my gaze didn’t stray it would actually be her looking back.

Addy’s lips purse, and I know she’s chewing on the inside of her mouth, a tell she’s had since childhood.