Carole Buck - Zoe And The Best Man

Zoe leaned back in her seat, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters. Look, Zoe, both Eden and I have always taken it as gospel that Gabriel Flynn was a Neanderthal in camouflage whose hobbies probably included biting the heads off live chickens. But after seeing him today, after hearing Luc and other people talk about him…”

“You think I’ve been unfair to him?”

“I’m not saying that,” Annie denied. “Maybe the guy had an emotional epiphany after he left you and totally transformed himself. People can change. Improve. Still, I can’t help thinking, if the Flynn of sixteen years ago was essentially a younger version of the Flynn of today, he probably was capable of having a pretty stunning effect on members of the opposite sex. Especially those without any real…experience. Heck, if I’d been thrown together with someone like him back in my virginal days I would have been lucky to escape without having my psychological circuitry permanently fried! So what I’m wondering is, well, is it possible you developed some sort of, uh, crush on Flynn?”

Zoe said nothing. This was partly because there was nothing to say, partly because she seriously doubted that she had the wherewithal to utter a single syllable. She wanted to avert her head but the same paralysis that had gripped her vocal chords seemed to have severed the link between her brain and body.

“Oh, honey.” Annie reached forward and placed a soothing hand on her arm. “You don’t have to look like that! It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not—” Zoe gulped convulsively “—ashamed.”

But she was. Lord in heaven help her, she was. And it was all Flynn’s fault!

“Embarrassed, then,” Annie quickly amended. “Look. I don’t have any idea what happened when you and Flynn saw each other outside the church before the wedding but I don’t imagine you had time for any meaningful conversation. I do know that you’ve been avoiding him since then. And except for that incendiary stare he gave you when he was walking down the aisle with Eden after the ceremony was over, he’s more or less been ignoring you. You’re not going to achieve that ‘closure’ you were talking about earlier unless you make contact with the man. So why don’t you get up and go talk with him as soon as he finishes dancing with Peachy?”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can. Tell you what—I’ll even go over with you.”

“Oh, great.” There was a bitter taste on Zoe’s tongue. “You can perform the necessary introductions.”

“Huh?”

She looked her friend directly in the eye, wanting there to be no misunderstanding. Then, slowly and distinctly she said, “He doesn’t remember me, Annie.”

“Who doesn’t remember you, Zoe?”

The source of this pleasant, baritone inquiry was Annie’s husband of roughly four months, Matthew Douglas Powell, who’d just materialized next to the table where Zoe and Annie were seated.

Stunned by the interruption, Zoe watched as Matt dropped a brief but obviously tender kiss on the top of his wife’s head. He then sat down next to Annie, saying, “Sorry I took so long. I bumped into Francis Smythe—you know, the Brit who supposedly used to be a spy—outside the men’s room, and we started talking about cyberspace security.”

“Heavens.” Annie’s lips curved in a deeply affectionate smile as she shifted emotional gears with no apparent glitch. “I’m surprised you came back at all.”

Matt, who co-owned a small but highly successful Atlanta computer company with his older brother, Rick, grinned seemingly unaware that he’d disrupted a minor psychodrama. “Well, I was tempted to ask whether he could offer any tips about hacking into the Bank of England and borrowing a couple of billion pounds, but I managed to restrain myself.”

“Such willpower.”

“I can resist everything but you, love,” Matt declared, scooting his chair closer to Annie’s and slipping an arm around her shoulders.

“Funny,” his wife riposted as she snuggled contentedly into his embrace. “You seem to do a pretty good job resisting me whenever I ask you to pick up your socks.”

Matt gave Zoe a comic look. “I guess this means the honeymoon’s over. Just wait. She’ll start nagging me about leaving the toilet seat up next.”

“I’ve given up on that,” Annie informed him sweetly. “I’m resigned to having my tush hit water every time I sit down on the commode.”

Zoe slumped in her seat, dizzyingly grateful for the diversionary banter. Matt and Annie shared one of the most remarkable relationships she’d ever seen. They’d been friends all their lives. Literally. Born in the same Atlanta hospital just twenty-four hours apart, they’d grown up next door to each other. The first time Annie had spoken to Zoe about him, she’d described him as “my best buddy.”

There’d been nothing sexual between them for thirty-one years. Indeed, Zoe could remember Annie guffawing—and occasionally getting angry—at people who suggested there might be. Their platonic bond had unexpectedly turned to passion after the untimely death of Matt’s wife, Lisa.

Zoe knew Lisa had been Matt’s first love. He’d fallen for her—“Like he was struck by lightning,” Annie had recalled during an all-night gab session back in college—at age seventeen and married her some nine years later. He’d taken her loss, after less than five years of marriage, very, very hard.

He’d needed a long time to recover from his grief. Zoe had heard a lot about his struggle during anguished telephone conversations with Annie, who’d been terrified he might surrender to his grief and do something irreparable. Fortunately Matt had stumbled back from the brink and healed to the point where he’d decided that he should try to move on with his life. He’d turned to his happily single, socially active “best buddy” for help in doing so.

If she lived to be 150, Zoe doubted she would forget the phone call during which Annie had reluctantly confided in her what was going on. Looking at Annie and Matt now, it was difficult to believe that that phone call had taken place just a little more than a year ago.

“I know how worried you’ve been about Matt since Lisa died,” she’d said, realizing that her friend was deeply troubled and wanting to discover why. “I should think you’d be relieved that he’s finally getting out and about.”

“I am,” Annie had claimed. “It’s just that Matt and I…we, uh, dated a few times.”

“What?” Zoe had been unable to hide her shock.

“It was for practice,” Annie had rushed on. “Matt decided he didn’t know much about being single. I mean, he spent his entire adult life with Lisa. From the first time he saw her, he was totally in love. She was his all. His everything. He never thought about another woman. He never had a chance to get into the, uh, contemporary male-female thing.”

“I see.” She hadn’t, of course. But what else could she have said?

“It was Matt’s idea.” Annie had stressed the possessive with great force.

“The dating?”

“The practicing.”

She’d stayed silent for several moments, acutely aware that she was treading on very alien territory. Still, as the daughter of anthropologists, she was accustomed to trying to make sense out of strange-seeming situations. Finally she’d said, “This ‘practicing’ you and Matt did. I gather it didn’t…ahem, work out?”

“Of course it worked out!” Annie had sounded indignant. No, worse. Insulted.

“Then what?”

“He kissed me, Zoe.”

“Matt kissed you?” She’d been flummoxed. “Where? When?”

“Outside my condo. At the end of our third practice date.”