The Wedding Sisters by Jamie Brenner Page B

it was only to keep her mind from replaying the image of Caroline’s face as she walked out the door. “It’s over with Caroline. She ended it.” The words didn’t sound real. They sounded like lines from a play about someone else’s life.
    â€œDamn, Jo. I’m sorry.” He retrieved a bottle of Stoli and two shot glasses. “Did you see it coming?”
    â€œNo. Not at all. I was completely blindsided.”
    â€œWas this a fight?”
    â€œNo. It wasn’t a ‘heat of the moment’ thing. She’d clearly—” Her voice broke. “—she’d clearly thought it out. Planned to tell me. Was tormented by it.”
    â€œI hate to ask you this—I don’t want to upset you more, but…”
    â€œYeah. There’s someone else. A guy.” With this, a sob came loose, hard and abrupt, a branch suddenly falling from a tree with a sickening crack.
    â€œFuck,” Toby said, pouring two generous shots. “There’s only one thing to do at a time like this. And lucky for you—though you mock my lack of gainful employment—I have nowhere to go tomorrow and am therefore available to get completely, irrevocably annihilated with you.” He handed her a shot, then raised his own for a toast.
    She ignored him and downed the drink, welcoming the burn. “I just don’t know what to do,” she said, lost.
    â€œThere’s nothing to do,” said Toby wistfully. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t make someone want you.”
    â€œHow could she do this to me? We love each other.”
    â€œDon’t beat yourself up, Jo,” Toby said, pouring another round. “The best thing to do tonight is not think too much.”
    Jo drank, and she drank some more. “I started in the friend zone, and I’m ending in the friend zone,” Jo said just as it became difficult to speak clearly.
    â€œI hate the friend zone,” Toby said.
    â€œWhat do you know about it? You sleep with every woman you meet.”
    â€œExcept the only one who matters,” he said softly.
    Even through the haze of alcohol, there was no missing the intensity in his blue eyes. His eyes were filled with longing, the longing she had recognized when they first started hanging out but had become inured to over the years. Now, raw with her own grief, she couldn’t ignore the pain that was just under the surface of his gaze.
    â€œNo, no, no, Lord Tobias Hedegaard-Kruse. Don’t do that. Don’t make me feel bad. You are rich, you are gorgeous, and you get laid more than any guy I know. I will not feel bad for you!” She poured them both another shot. The room tilted, and the heaviness of her heart lifted. The small shred of rational thinking she had left told her that she would be sorry in the morning, but for now it was sweet relief.
    â€œSex is nothing,” he said, now slurring too.
    â€œSex is nothing? Can I quote you on that—when we’re not hammered, I mean.”
    â€œLet me finish,” he said, taking another shot. “Sex is nothing compared to love.”
    â€œWhat do you know about it?” she countered.
    â€œI know I’m in love with you.”
    I’m in love with you. Even through the thick sludge of alcohol slowing her brain synapses to a fuzzy mess, she couldn’t avoid the irony. The love of her life had told her just hours ago that she loved her but was not in love with her, and now her best buddy was telling her that he was in love with her.
    â€œOh God, Toby.”
    â€œYeah,” he said. “Tell me about it.”

 
    five
    â€œI’ll help you clear,” Meg said, the first one to offer when it was obvious the dinner party was hurtling toward its conclusion. All that was left was dessert.
    All in all, Meryl felt it had been successful. The conversation, while lively, had steered clear of politics. Hugh