The Next Best Thing (Gideon's Cove #2)(112)

“To Lucy and Jimmy,” the crowd echoes.

“Sweet,” Matt says.

But I’m frozen. Unable to breathe or speak. Because there it is.

As Ethan finishes, the camera cuts to Jimmy and me…we kiss, and then Jimmy gets up and hugs Ethan, who thumps him on the back and grins.

I fumble for the remote and hit Rewind.

“What’s the matter?” Matt asks.

“Shh!” I hiss. I rewind too far, then fast forward. There. There it is again. Then Jimmy and I are kissing…

I rewind again, more slowly this time, and watch again.

Ethan, who gave that beautiful, funny, touching speech, raises his glass, and toasts us. And for one second, just before the camera cuts over to us, I see it.

His job was done. He’d made the toast, and all the attention was back on Jimmy and me, and for one second, the mask dropped, and there it was. The love. The loneliness of watching the one you love choose someone else.

And I see something else, too. As Jimmy looks up at his brother, his face has a momentary flash of apology. Of guilt. And then gratitude.

Ethan loved me. And Jimmy knew it.

Check the toast.

Oh, my God. My body breaks into gooseflesh.

“Lucy?” Matt says.

“Um…” I breathe, still not looking away from the screen, “Matt, you need to go.”

“Are you okay?” he asks, leaning forward.

“I’m…I’m in love with him,” I say, jerking my chin toward the screen.

“Jimmy?”

“Ethan,” I say. My breath rattles in my throat. “I have to go. So you need to leave. I’m really sorry. I can’t…it’s just…I need to go.”

“You—you don’t want to go out with me?” Matt asks slowly.

“Um…I’m sorry. No. I really have to go now.” I leap off the couch, grab his coat from the closet and shove it into his hands. “Okay. Bye. Really sorry.” I jerk open the door and usher him out.

“Well. I don’t know what to say.” Matt frowns, stepping slowly into the hall and turning to face me. “This is quite a surprise. I thought—”

“Sorry. Bye,” I say, closing the door in his face.

Once more, I stand in front of the TV and watch Ethan’s face fall. It only lasts maybe a second and a half, but it says everything.

Three things are clear. One, Jimmy wasn’t perfect. He knew how Ethan felt, and it didn’t stop him.

And, two, Jimmy had loved me with all his heart.

And three…oh, number three. Ethan loved me, too. He still does. Or he did, before I ground it out of him.

Fat Mikey is crouched on the kitchen counter, eating the remains of the crappy chicken. “I have to go,” I call to him. Check the toast. My hands are shaking so hard I can barely open my closet, but I manage, shove my feet in some shoes and race out the door. I pound upstairs, but God, it takes so long, my feet feel like they’re made of lead. I explode onto the fifth floor and run down the hall to Ethan’s, bang on his door. “Eth! Ethan, open up!” I yell. “Ethan, it’s me!”

And my God, I love him, too. The idea of living without him suddenly seems breathtakingly stupid and absolutely unbearable. Ethan Mirabelli is, simply put, the best person I know. The only one I want.

Oh, dang it, the party, the Mirabellis’ anniversary party. Down the stairs I run, swinging around each landing, jumping the last few steps. Then I burst into the foyer and onto the street. The air is sharp and cold, and my breath fogs the air.

Without another thought, I run across the street, into Ellington Park.

Toward the cemetery.

It’s time.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

THERE ARE A LOT OF WAYS TO LOSE someone.

As I run down the path, my mind is in the past, on Ethan’s steady friendship, the comfort of his company in those dark days…months…years after Jimmy died, when all my other friends felt I should really have moved on by now. When we started sleeping together, his irreverence toward the two of us…it was the only way I could handle being with him. Even when I pulled away and started to look for someone else, he let me. Ethan has always done…and been…exactly what I needed at the time. And he asked for nothing in return.

I can’t lose him.

My feet pound on the gravel in a steady beat. I remember when I told him a couple of months ago that I wanted to get married, have kids, that look on his face…he thought, for one second there, that I’d meant him. Instead I told him we needed to break up…ah, damn it. Damn me, for being so cruel and blind. In the hospital, when he was bleeding and bruised, I did it again. And then just two days ago, he told me everything, and all I did was cling to my image of St. Jimmy.

There’s the cemetery, the stone pillars that flank the entrance offering a perpetual and somehow sinister welcome. Almost against my will, I slow to a walk, my breath coming in gasps. My hands are blocks of ice.

The trees are bare, the branches jagged black fingers scraping the November sky. Thin clouds hide the moon, but it’s there somewhere, offering a feeble, diffuse light that makes the headstones seem to glow.

I’m surprised at how familiar the cemetery is to me. Over there, under the big beech tree with the wide spread of branches, lies my uncle Pete, who rolled out of his coffin twenty-six years ago. Not far away, right in the middle of one of these rows, is Uncle Larry, Rose’s husband. My mother’s parents…I can see their headstone from here.