The Luckiest (13 page)

When Aaron turns back to the table, Jasmine is the only one watching, and for once he can’t read what’s on her face.

After breakfast, Nik stands behind Alex and puts his hands on her shoulders. Before, Aaron resented how close they seemed to be becoming. For years he pushed down that jeal­ousy, and now that everything is changing around him it feels different; he’s suddenly so grateful that they’re close, now that he knows that there’s plenty of space for him. He smiles into his coffee cup.

“Okay, lady—your playlist is done. You ready to check it out?”

Alex grins, bouncing a little in her seat while he smiles behind her. “Now?”

Tu pipes up from the other end of the table. “I have you at eleven, Alex. Don’t forget.”

“Right, and you need to do makeup and hair for you and Jasmine before that,” Aaron adds.

“But I thought you were working on the cake this morning,” Nik says, frowning a little.

“Oh, shit, the jam—” Alex is on her feet and slipping out the door, and they can hear her pounding her way up the stairs.

Stress gathers in Aaron’s shoulders and he sighs. “Okay, here’s what needs to happen. Nik, you can hang out with Jas­mine and Alex and me while I’m getting them ready, and you can go over the playlist while we’re doing that. Nicole? Nicole!” She looks up from where she has been blearily staring into her cornflakes; her brown eyes are hazy through a cloud of frizzy red curls. “Are you
actually
awake?” At her nod, he continues. “You’re not going to be in the kitchen today, are you?”

“Not really? We need to do some prep work, but you finally made your point about the cake, and we won’t take up too much space, I promise.”

“Thank you. Actually, though, I need your help. If I put some­thing on to reduce, can you keep an eye on it?”

She looks slightly more aware. “How far do you want the reduction?”

“Just about halfway. I’ll walk you through it, but it needs some time to cool before it goes on the cake.”

She stands, taking her bowl with her to the sink. “Yeah, I can do that. Let me get showered, see if it’ll wake me up.”

“Okay. And Tu,” Aaron says, turning to find Tu watching him, “you… go do whatever you need to do. Take Stephanie with you; you guys walk around and find the best spots for portraits.” They both nod. “And that leaves David and Mia. David, can you call the florist and confirm that everything is still on track for Saturday?” David salutes. “And Mia, assuming she ever gets out of bed and drags down here, can help Nicole with their prep work.” He looks at the ceiling, counts things off on his fingers and nods. “There. No problem.”

Alex runs back in with a plastic bag from the grocery store H-E-B, which contains clinking jars of jam that weighing it heavily. “Here!” She thrusts the bag at Aaron. “Six jars of David’s grandmother’s strawberry jam, from last year’s garden.”

“Perfect.” Aaron takes the bag and turns into the walk-in pantry to rummage for supplies.

Alex looks around the room at the bemused faces and settles on Nik’s, on his gentle smile. “What happened?”

“Just… Aaron. He was channeling his mom for a minute there. You know how she is.”

Aaron breezes past toward the stove. The jam is gone but two bottles of champagne dangle from one hand and he holds a box of powdered sugar in the other. “I was amazing. You missed it.”

Alex sighs and sits back down, then pulls her coffee cup toward her. “Damn it. Sometimes being the bride
sucks.”

* * *

Aaron gets the champagne syrup to a boil just as Nicole and Mia make it to the kitchen, and he walks them through what he wants for the reduction. Mia gets it quickly—as it turns out, she was a bar-back for a cocktail bar for a while during college, and the bar manager had insisted on a proper, rich simple syrup, so the concept is clear. Aaron has to reiterate that it should be way more reduced than simple syrup, and then she’s got it.

He sets out butter to soften, takes one last peek at the wrapped cakes in the refrigerator and heads up to Alex and David’s room.

Jasmine has already put on her dress. The alterations really are perfect. Bringing up the hem a little bit more makes her legs look fantastic. She’s touching up her toenail polish, and her hair is already twisted up and back on the sides and falling in gentle waves.

Nik and Alex are sitting on the bed, poring over iTunes and checking out what Nik has put together for the reception music. Alex is silent, concentrating, and when Nik looks up and winks, Aaron just smiles and crosses to Jasmine.

“Hey there. Want me to do your eyes?”

She beams up at him, waving her hands over her toes to get the polish to dry faster. “I’ve gotten better, but it’s still a pain in the ass. You don’t mind?”

“Not at all, if you’re willing to trust yourself to my hands.”

“You still know how?”

Aaron shrugs. “How hard is it? Hell, it might be the only thing I actually learned in high school. Theater had to be good for something.” He looks at her. “Natural colors, big lashes?”

“And like a deep pink lipstick—something natural-looking?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he says, nodding. “Okay, get to work!”

Jasmine sets up her makeup on the little table between the wing chairs by the fireplace, while he opens the blinds and drags the other chair over so that he’s sitting right in front of her. And then, as on so many other days, he gets started.

She’s already put on foundation, so he goes straight for the eyes. He’s beginning with a simple highlight to her brow bone when Alex says, “Oh, God, this song! That was such an amazing album,” and the opening notes to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” start.

Aaron sings as he works; he can’t help it. This song was in heavy rotation with him and Nik during their senior year of high school, and for long weeks it seemed as if every time they made out in one of their cars it was the soundtrack. So
many
songs were important to them, songs that remind him of being young and in love and so wrapped up in Nik, audio snapshots of moments he’ll never forget. But this one always reminds him of Nik’s mouth, hot and fervent against his throat, of wan­der­ing hands on steamy afternoons and the sound of his own broken gasp loud in his ears. Years later, he heard it in a cab on the way home from a late night, and as he sat on somebody’s lap in the too-crowded back seat and listened to the heart­broken lyrics while he stared out at a cold and wet New York October, he suddenly understood the song all over again—he’d never realized how sad it was, that it had been strangely prophetic and perfectly fitting the whole time.

Aaron pulls back to switch to a pencil and casts a glance over at the bed; Alex sings along and Jasmine takes advantage of the break to join in, but Nik stares at him, a cryptic smile on his face. Aaron tilts his head and raises his brow, and Nik shakes his head and looks down.

He looks back at Jasmine as he picks up the pencil, and she’s a little drawn-looking; her eyes are downcast.

Aaron leans closer to do Jasmine’s eyeliner. “Look up,” he says, drawing a faint line with a steady hand. Quietly, he says, “You gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

Her eyes fill with tears and he quickly whispers, “Oh God, fuck, no crying! Jasmine, your eyes!”

Jasmine dabs at her eyes with her middle fingers, and then quickly presses both to the inner corners of her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Right, okay. Sorry.” She opens both eyes. They’re glassy, but the threat seems to have passed. “Mitchell sent me an email. He’s not going to make it to the wedding.”

He squeezes her knee and then bends to do the opposite eye. “I’m sorry. Do you miss him?”

She exhales, still gazing up at the ceiling and trying to keep her face still. “It’s not that. I think—I think there’s some­­body else.”

He pulls back and looks at her. “That is such bullshit. Honey, I will just remind you again—if you are not his top priority, then he should not be yours.”

“It’s not that easy, Aaron. And besides, two days ago you
finally
put together a relationship that you let stay broken for four years—you’re really gonna give me advice?”

He’s stung—that was sharp, even for Jasmine. “We’re not talking about me, though, are we? We’re talking about
you.
”

“I keep telling you: It is
not
that easy. Besides, tell it to some­­body who hasn’t known you for fifteen years. I read your blog, Aaron, and even if I didn’t, I know you’re not
nearly
that together. You and Nik found each other again: Con­grat­ulations. How long were you just jumping into bed with whom­ever seemed like a good idea?” He hates how she fixates on that; he always has.
She
might have grown up religious and con­servative, but he didn’t.

Aaron puts down the pencil and thinks while he opens a package of false eyelashes. Big dramatic eyes are standard for photos and performances, and he learned to apply eyelashes on this very set of eyes, so long ago, back when Jasmine was sure that her future was in disappearing into characters on the stage and he was trying to pad his college applications in his own desperate attempt to escape. He readies his tweezers and looks up at her. “First of all: You know that’s your baggage, not mine, so please stop trying to share. We have
had
that conversation.” She rolls her eyes and frowns at him, but she nods—the hardest thing they ever had to get over was what it meant to her when he came out of the closet; one fight about God was enough to last a lifetime, and at this point he’s pretty sure nagging him about his sex life and his lack of shame about it is only habit for her. “Also, though, ma’am. It is not that I think this is easy. It’s that I like you
way
too much to watch him do this to you, and I don’t think he’s making you happy, and I hope you find a way to get off of his hook soon.”

She sighs and watches his hands. “You know, I don’t even think I really care. It’s not about
him
. I’m just
bored
, and I miss college already, and I’m nervous about what comes next. I still haven’t found a job I really
want,
and I
sure
as hell don’t want to actually go to grad school
,
and I’m moving back in with my
parents,
for God’s sake. Whatever else Mitchell is, he’s been one hell of a distraction.”

Aaron tilts his head to the side in one sharp motion, and says, “Okay,
that?
That I understand, better than you realize.” He thinks of the distractions he’s pursued over the years and then he gives her a sad smile and says, “Close your eyes, and when you open them, at least you’ll have the eyelashes of your dreams.”

Just as Aaron is finishing the second set of lashes, Alex says, “Nik, this is pretty much perfect. I can’t think of a single thing I want added or taken away. Thank you so much!”

Aaron hides a smile at the relief he hears in Nik’s voice. “You’re so welcome—I’m just really glad you’re happy with it. David would give me endless shit if you weren’t.”

“I do have a favor to ask you, though,” Alex asks, her voice hesitant and wheedling.

“Watch this,” Jasmine whispers as she opens her eyes to watch. “She’s about to totally play him.”

He turns, and yeah, it’s going to be brutal. Alex knots her hands together, the very picture of a distraught bride, and Nik looks so worried and… yep, there it is, his hand is on her shoulder. He wants to help, and it’s going to end in blood.

“It’s just… this is so awesome,” Alex says, “and I realized that I really want to have something
great
to send home with the guests. Do you think it would be possible for you to collect, like, fifteen or so of the songs and make some CDs for people to take home with them?” Alex, drama queen that she is, has clenched both of her hands together in front of her in some parody of prayer.

Nik’s face is growing more and more uncomfortable—it’s a big ask, over one hundred and fifty CDs to burn and label in under forty-eight hours, and it’s not as if there aren’t a million other things to do. Alex can’t know how Nik’s been worrying about the performance they’re meant to pull together tomor­row afternoon, and it’s that thought that makes Aaron say, “I can help,” because he has an idea that will probably be impos­sible, but would make the CDs
amazing
if they can pull it off.

Nik looks at him as if he is a lifeline and asks, “Are you sure? You have so much to do.”

“It’s fine—I’m not terrible with graphic design, and this is something we can do in fits and starts over the next couple of days. Really—say yes, Nik.”

Nik grins, looks back at Alex and says, “You heard the man—I’m saying yes.”

Alex throws her arms around him and Jasmine murmurs, “Damn, she got
you
, too? I
have
to figure out how she does that.”

“I’ll tell you later. Now. Mascara, and then Alex is up.”

Aaron steps out into the hallway with Nik while Alex gets her dress on, and after he whispers his questions and plans, Nik kisses him hard and says, “God, I love you and your ideas.”

“You think we can make it work?”

Nik bounces on the balls of his feet. “I think I know who can. Let me get started on that. I’ll find you later?”

“Please do.” Nik gives him a quick kiss and turns to go.

Aaron grabs his hand and says, “Wait, just a second,” and then he kisses Nik one more time, long and slow, dragging Nik into it with him so that Nik backs into the wall for support, pulling Aaron along with his hands in the small of Aaron’s back. Aaron keeps him there, falling into the kiss and letting it linger, and when he pulls his face away with a hint of teeth to Nik’s bottom lip and plasters himself against Nik’s body, they’re both breathless.

“Aaron,” Nik whispers, his voice breaking and desperate. His hands don’t let go.

“Just…
thank you,
” Aaron whispers back fiercely.

Nik looks at him, lost in a haze of want and confusion, and says, “Whatever it is, you’re welcome to it.”

An hour later, Nik strolls into the kitchen, hands tucked in his pockets, looking exceptionally pleased with himself.