A Love Letter to Whiskey (37 page)

The way Whiskey looked that morning nearly killed me. He watched me intently, eyes sleepy, hair mussed from my hands. It was the last morning he would wake up as my Jamie, and he wasn’t really even that. He never had been, and yet he always was. We would never be together, and yet we’d never be apart. It was sick, it hurt like hell, and for some reason we both held onto the racking agony.

“Time to get you to the altar,” I said softly, smile weak and shaded with words unsaid.

Jamie swallowed, nodding as he leaned up on the palm of his hand and ran the other through his hair. His eyes focused on the opening of his tent, still half-zipped from Charlie, and I let him take the time he needed. After a moment, he stood, swept his shirt off the floor of the tent, and stepped out without looking back at me.

He didn’t look at me as we packed up the campsite, or as we drove back into town, or even as he dropped me off at my hotel. I told him I’d see him soon, and he simply nodded, shifting the Jeep back into gear and pulling away as I stood there with my bag on my shoulder.

I had two hours before I had to be at the club, so I took a long shower, letting the water scald my skin before it turned to ice. I was shivering when I finally shut it off, stepping out and staring at myself in the mirror as I wrapped a towel around my chest. Mascara ran under my eyes, my tight curls dripping water onto the swell of my breasts as I let my focus fall to the freckles on my cheeks.

It was time.

“OH, THANK GOD.”

I had just stepped out of my cab, hand shielding the sun that was now high in the sky as an older gentleman rushed toward me. Another younger, rounder version of the man followed quickly behind him, both of them weighed down by large cameras and multiple bags.

“Are you with the Shaw wedding?”

“Yes?” I tucked my lipstick I’d been reapplying in the cab back into my clutch.

“Wonderful. We’re supposed to be shooting the bride and bridesmaids getting ready, but no one is answering their phones, and the groomsmen are acting like security guards. They won’t let us back to the dressing room area.”

The man was wiry, and frankly too much for me in that moment, but he was sort of adorable, too. I held up my hands, calming him. “Okay, don’t worry. I just got here, so give me a second to figure out where everyone is and then I’ll get you where you need to go, okay?”

He nodded, sighing with relief. “Okay. Thank you.”

I smiled, pushing past them into the country club. I didn’t see anyone at first, not even Angel’s family setting up decorations outside. I glanced briefly at the aisle out back as I passed through the main entrance and took a left toward where rehearsal had been. No one in sight.

But the closer I got to where dinner had been, the more my hairs stood on end. Something wasn’t right. I heard faint yelling from down the hall, and I walked faster, nearly slamming into Charlie when he popped out of the rehearsal dinner room and landed a hand hard on my shoulder.

“You don’t want to go back there.”

There was definitely yelling happening, and Jamie was most certainly one of the voices. I tried to push past Charlie, but he strengthened his grip on my shoulder.

“I’m serious. Not your fight.”

“What’s going on? Where’s Jamie? Why is no one setting up? The photographer is freaking out,” I said, gesturing behind me. I saw Ryan and Andrew then, standing at the bar behind Charlie, both drinking what I was sure was hard liquor.

“B?”

I turned, and Sylvia gave me a sympathetic look before wrapping me in a hug.

“What’s going on?” I asked, pulling back. Everyone knew something I didn’t, and the uneasy feeling in my stomach bloomed even more.

Jamie’s voice rose above the commotion in the room Charlie was blocking me from and we all turned just in time to see him rip the door open. It slammed back against the wall, propping itself open as he tore out of the room.

He didn’t look at any of us as he pushed past Charlie, yanking on the tie around his neck until it was hanging loose. He kept walking, down the hall and out the front door without so much as a single word to any of us. I made to go after him and Sylvia pulled me back.

“Just let him go.”

“What the hell is going on?” I asked, whipping around to face her again. She opened her mouth, but another voice spoke before her.

“You,” Angel seethed, and my eyes adjusted to where she stood in the room behind Charlie. Her face was makeup-free, red and blotchy and shining with freshly shed tears as she stood. She was in a silky white robe that said “bride” in gemstones on the right breast, and she pointed one hard, shaky finger right at me. “This is all
your
fault!”

She kept screaming, but her mother popped up then, shutting the door before Angel could storm out after me. I looked to Charlie then, mouth open.

No. He wouldn’t have…

“It’s over,” Sylvia said behind me, but I was still staring at Charlie. He seemed to be amused by my discomfort, and I realized I didn’t know him at all. Of course he could have told her what he’d seen this morning, even if nothing had happened between Jamie and me. He didn’t owe me anything, least of all loyalty. Sylvia said something else and it snapped me out of my thoughts.

“What?”

Her face crumpled. “She cheated on him. Last night.”

The air was gone then, and I stared at her in disbelief. She cheated on
him
?

“I don’t understand.”

Sylvia blew out a breath. “I guess she saw Jamie post on Facebook that you guys had decided to go camping. It was a group shot of all of you, and his arm was around you, and it just set her off. She was drunk, all the girls fueled the fire and told her how wrong it was that he was going to be with another woman overnight. So they took her out, got her even more wasted, and she slept with one of the guys they met.”

My mind was spinning. “I’m so lost. She saw a picture, so she cheated?”

Charlie butted in then. “She assumed if you guys were in the same place all night, you’d end up sleeping together.” He frowned, crossing his arms, and I scowled right back at him.

“Yeah, well we didn’t. And her trying to use our friendship and her own insecurities as an excuse to cheat is pathetic.”

I expected him to argue with me, but the crease between his brows softened and he nodded. We may have
technically
slept together, but we didn’t have sex, and I didn’t want to explain myself to Charlie but it seemed I didn’t have to.

Sylvia sniffed, and I turned to find her eyes glossy.

“He’s got to be crushed,” she said softly.

I sighed, rubbing her arm soothingly. “I’ll go talk to him.”

I was fuming now. I wanted to march through the door behind Charlie and rip Angel up by her pixie cut. She cheated on him, she betrayed his trust, she hurt him. But then my lips tingled where Jamie had kissed them not even twelve hours before, and I remembered that though she’d put the final nail in their coffin, Jamie wasn’t completely innocent, either.

Neither was I.

“I just don’t know how you come back from something like this,” Sylvia added, wiping at her nose. My ribs crushed in a little tighter then, and I glanced behind her at the door Jamie had fled through.

“Me either.”

PERCEPTION IS REALITY.

To some, whiskey is a crutch. It’s a drug, it leads to addiction, it dulls the senses and damages the mind.

To others, whiskey is medicine. A shot of bourbon can chase away what ails you, whether it be a sore throat or a broken heart.

That night, I realized that maybe I was Jamie’s whiskey, too — and maybe we existed in both realities. Maybe we were bad for each other, but maybe we were good, too. As much as I hurt Jamie, as much as he hurt me, we were there for each other always — without hesitation, without expectation.

We were each other’s drug as much as we were each others medicine. And in reality, they weren’t really that different at all.

It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be to find him. I checked our spot at the beach, rang the doorbell at his house, and ran by all his favorite bars. I’d racked up over one-hundred dollars in cab fare by the time I found him, where I didn’t expect him yet wasn’t surprised to see him either. He was slumped over, still wearing dress slacks and shoes with that loose tie hanging around his neck at the DoubleTree bar where we’d spent my first night in town.

His hand was gripping a neat glass of whiskey as I took the seat beside him. The bartender nodded to me, pouring up the same Crown Royal Black I’d ordered the first night. He served it on ice, and even though I hadn’t planned on ordering a drink, I sucked half of it down anyway.

Jamie looked miserable. He stared down at his glass, eyes bloodshot and glazed over. I debated reaching out, rubbing his back or squeezing his hand, but nothing felt right. So I waited for a while, just sitting beside him, drinking my medicine while he drank his.

I’d sat in so many comfortable silences with Jamie in my life, but that wasn’t one of them. Every second of quiet felt like a needle prick to my lungs, making it harder and harder to breathe. I just wanted to comfort him, to help him feel okay, and I didn’t know if I could. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I finally spoke.

“You want to talk about it?”

It was such a lame question — cliché and overused. In reality, I think I already knew what my next move would be, but I buffered it first.

Jamie spun his empty glass. “No.”

His voice was thick, and I simply nodded, already knowing that would be his answer. I wanted him to talk, to tell me everything running through his mind, but I knew that wasn’t what he needed right then. What he needed was to escape, and I knew exactly how.

Fingering through my clutch, I fished out enough cash to cover both of our tabs, dropping it on the bar as I stood and drained the rest of my drink. My stomach flipped as I flicked down my spare hotel room key next. It landed right next to Jamie’s hand, and I didn’t wait for his reaction, just turned and walked casually to the elevators.

My heart raced as the elevator shot me up to my room, and my hands were already shaking when I slid my own key into the slot and let myself in. I tried to tell myself I didn’t know for sure that he’d come, but it was a lie. I knew he would, and every inch of me sizzled in anticipation.

Jamie couldn’t use his words that night, so I would have him use his hands.

Once I made it inside my room, I didn’t know what to do. I paced, kicking off my heels before checking my reflection in the bathroom mirror and splashing some water on my face.
I shouldn’t do this
, I thought first.
WE shouldn’t do this.
I thought the words, but I didn’t believe them, because Jamie was all I wanted. I wanted him to want me. I wanted to heal him, to take his pain as my own, even if just for the night. I wanted him to know I was here, that I always would be.

I was patting my face dry with a towel when I heard the click of the door, and I froze, towel in hand. I looked up into the mirror, catching Jamie’s reflection behind me as he dropped the plastic key card on the desk and stepped into the bathroom with me. The air around us buzzed to life, like gas just before the match is lit, and we both breathed it in, feeling the hum of it all.