Bait: The Wake Series, Book One(57)

Grant had contracted workers to do most of the major renovations, but he was adamant on doing what he could on his own at the house.

We set a date for the wedding, May 23rd of the next year. My mother proceeded to buy anything and everything that said the words “groom,” “bride,” or “wedding.” I was thankful, though, since I was busy working, she told me she would handle everything. Wedding plans barely registered on my radar. Of course, it wasn't like it was swept under the rug. It was in every conversation I had with my family or Grant.

The wedding. The house.

The house. The wedding.

I almost felt like two different people.

The wedding and the house Blake, the work and the Casey Blake. It was only sometimes when the two met that my brain dissolved onto itself. Like talking to Reggie or Micah.

“I can't believe you're getting married,” she said when I told her.

“I know, sometimes I don't even believe it myself.” That was true. Work and Casey Blake didn't really act very affected by the upcoming nuptials either. I don't think that half of my brain really accepted it was happening.

“Cory and I are pregnant,” she said, in the middle of our wedding conversation. She blurted it out like she'd being trying to hold it in for some time.

“Oh my God! When are you due?” I was shocked. I knew they were serious and that they’d moved in with each other, but I wasn't expecting a cart before a horse with them.

“I'm due at the end of April. With your wedding in May, I might still be fat, but you know I'll be up there with you. If that's what you want.” The last sentence sounded weird off her tongue.

We never spoke about Casey and me. I hadn't told her a thing. I assumed that Casey and his brother spoke, though. She always seemed to hint or mention him. Even though I think her question was made to sound like, if she wasn't too fat she'd be there for my wedding. But it sounded a lot more like she didn't expect there to actually be one.

It didn’t feel right hiding what was going on with Casey from Micah, but I wasn’t really sure what to say. We were friends…who sometimes f*cked?

We talked about how she was feeling and how it all came to be. She was in love with Cory and her, although nervous, excitement still sounded happy. When I spoke about my wedding and Grant, I tried to impersonate her enthusiasm, but I couldn't even convince myself.

Casey and I were in constant contact over those weeks and what led into months. I was starting to do shows on my own and he was traveling most of the time.

I'd missed him in at the beginning of August. He was in Seattle, but I’d been in San Francisco. It always seemed to work out like that. He came with Audrey and his dad to help her get situated at school. She'd chosen to go to Cornish, a great art focused college, against her father's best advice, but Casey said she was really happy to get away from California and that it would be good for her.

He told me one night he was glad she was in my city, because if she needed anything I could be there in a hurry for her. That made me feel pretty good.

We talked incessantly. I could tell you the local time in almost any stateside city by late September.

I knew that when I got married it would all have to stop, so I guess I was cramming as much Casey in as I could.

It didn’t sound or seem fair to either Grant or Casey, but I didn’t know how to stop. I couldn’t imagine a world without Casey in it, but felt I needed to stay in the world with Grant as my center.

When we got too intense during phone conversations, or when things got over-heated, I'd ask to switch back to texting. He always sounded annoyed with it, but did it anyway.

We were, for all intents and purposes, friends.

We debated everything and he pissed me off. He told me that I was a poser because I was a gourmet-trained chef who liked Cheetos and canned cheese. He let it go after I called him a poor man's Sam Adams. In fact, he hung up on me that night.

I welcomed those nights. The ones where I laid in my bed and he told me how sea horses mate, or about all the theories he'd read on the never ending controversy of which came first: the chicken or the egg? I'd fall asleep on those nights, wherever I was, and I felt like I was home.

The other nights were more difficult for me. My nights with Grant.

From the outside, everything looked like a best-case scenario for a young couple and their happy future. Things were typical, calm, and I painted on the face of a woman starting a future with a perfect man.