Well Played (Well Met #2)(6)

Emily’s only reply was a giggle, and Simon’s stern expression melted into a smile as he looked at Emily’s hand in mine. “It is,” he replied, and his smile widened, something I didn’t think was physically possible. Simon didn’t smile like that when he wasn’t a pirate. “Emily agreed to marry me.”

I squealed, and only the fact that I was sitting on the inside of the booth kept me from running around to hug them both. Launching myself across the table crossed my mind, but I managed to restrain myself.

“Well, hot damn! That’s great, you two!” Mitch put down his beer bottle and stretched his arm across the table, offering Simon a fist bump. Simon was not a fist-bump guy, but he returned the gesture anyway.

Me, I stayed on topic. “When did this happen?” I examined her ring. It was a tidy, perfect diamond, nothing showy. Much like the man who had given it to her.

“Um . . .” Emily chewed on her bottom lip. “Monday afternoon.”

“Monday?!” My response was practically a shriek. “That was four days ago!” I dropped her hand and sat back in the booth. “Were you planning on telling anyone?” It was inconvenient that I was so happy, because I really wanted to be mad at her for keeping this news from me. From all of us.

“Of course!” Emily looked chastened. “We were going to tell y’all tonight, actually. We . . . well . . .” She looked up at Simon, and they did that thing that couples do: communicating without words, just via facial expressions and a raised eyebrow. They looked married already.

“We were hoping we could ask the both of you for a huge favor.” Simon cleared his throat, and Emily picked up on his train of thought.

“We want it to be a small wedding, and my big sister April is going to be my matron of honor. But Stacey, you’ve been my best friend since practically the day I moved here to Willow Creek. Would you be my other bridesmaid?”

“Of course!” I clapped my hands over my mouth, and tears shone in her eyes as our joy fed off each other. “Oh, Em, I couldn’t be happier! This is going to be so great!”

“And. Um.” Simon cleared his throat again and looked out into the bar, then up toward the ceiling, and then finally back to where Mitch and I sat across from him in the booth. “Well, as you know, Mitch, I don’t have a brother anymore . . .” His voice faltered, and Emily covered his hand with one of hers, threading their fingers together. Her touch seemed to give him strength, although his smile had thinned. “So I wanted to ask if you would stand up with me as best man at our wedding.”

Mitch’s eyes were round. “Dude. Are you kidding?” That was all he said at first, and in the silence that followed, Simon deflated a little.

“No. I mean, I wasn’t kidding. But . . .”

“Dude.” He extended his hand again, but instead of a closed fist for a fist bump, it was open. Simon took it and the men shook hands, Mitch placing his second hand over their joined ones. “Of course I will,” he finally said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “It would be my absolute honor.”

The two men smiled at each other, and I wished I could travel back in time to our high school days. Mitch had always been a larger-than-life blond jock type, a look that he played to great effect now every summer with his kilt and his claymore. Simon was the intellectual, smaller and slender, with dark hair and sharp eyes. He was a quiet, steady man who let his pirate side come out to play during Faire, transforming into a black-leather-clad rogue with a brash and outgoing demeanor that he never showed in real life. In high school, those two hadn’t been friends. If I could tell teenage Simon and Mitch that they’d be having this conversation now, that they’d be sharing a beer and talking about one serving as the other’s groomsman . . . well. Neither one of them would have believed me, and neither would have younger Stacey in her varsity cheerleader’s uniform, big blonde ponytail bouncing down to her shoulders.

I twirled a lock of my hair—still blonde, but not in a ponytail—around my fingers and turned my attention back to Emily. “So,” I said, “have you set a date yet? Next summer, maybe? We could do it at the Faire.”

Emily’s eyes brightened. “Yes!”

But Simon shook his head. “No.”

She looked at him, a surprised laugh bubbling out of her mouth. “No? I figured a Faire-themed wedding was a given. You don’t want . . . ?”

His head shake was even more emphatic. “No. I don’t want to marry you in character. This isn’t a joke. It’s not . . .”

“Hey.” She laid her hand over his. “No. It’s not a joke.”

“And it doesn’t have to be in character,” Mitch said.

“Right.” I picked up on his train of thought. “We can skip the costumes. But the chess field would be a great place to set up a wedding. Out in the woods, it would be all . . . I dunno, pretty. Picturesque.” I waved a hand; I wasn’t great with words.

“Pastoral,” Mitch supplied, and three pairs of wide eyes turned in his direction. He shrugged and took another swig of beer. “What, I have a vocabulary.”

“Apparently.” A smile played around Simon’s mouth, but he tipped his bottle toward Mitch in a kind of salute. “You do make a good point. And we were thinking about an outdoor venue.”