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Evan

“ E v!”

I swivel on my bar stool and grin at the guy I’ve been waiting for. “Jay!”

My best friend snorts and runs his hand through his lush, blond hair, sweeping the floppy fringe up and back. I swear he does that just to stir me up seeing as I am follicly challenged . (Read: I shave my head bald.)

“Why do you insist on shortening my name?” he asks. “It’s already one syllable.”

“Because all four letters of my name don’t need to be shortened either?”

It’s an ongoing joke between us. James insists on calling me Ev, and I, in turn, call him Jay. I’m pretty sure that if we ever revert to using one another’s actual names, it’ll be a cry for help.

“Careful,” he jokes while sliding into the stool to my right and flagging the bartender, “or I’ll shorten your name to ‘Anne’ again.”

“That threat hasn’t worked since we were twelve.”

The bartender, a gorgeous buxom redhead, cocks her head at James. “What can I get you, hun?”

“A Bundy and coke, please,” he answers, then slaps me on the shoulder. “He’s paying, so make it a double.”

“You’re such a dick,” there’s no malice in my tone, just laughter. I push my glasses up my nose, and eye him pointedly. “You’re lucky I love you, man.”

We’ve known each other since grade four and have been thick as thieves since then. We practically grew up in each other’s houses, and we’ve always thought of each other’s families as extensions of our own. There were even a few years there where we combined our families for Christmas, but things changed once we graduated high school.

We went to separate universities —with him staying on the Gold Coast while I moved to Brisbane— and then he knocked up his girlfriend. Life changed significantly for him after that, while I continued the plan I’d set for myself: finish uni, become a Certified Practising Accountant, land a job at one of the Big Four accounting firms, and live comfortably ever after.

I’d never really planned on settling down, but I hadn’t avoided it either. Of course, most of the women I’d dated over the years had pushed for more and I always found reasons not to marry or have kids. James covered the kids thing for the both of us as far as I’m concerned, considering how close we’ve stayed over the years.

“How’s Mia?” I ask once he’s settled with his drink. I adore my Goddaughter, but she recently turned fifteen and suddenly her dad and his friends aren’t cool enough to hang out with anymore.

James groans. “She’s dating .”

I wince. Uh oh. There’s no reasoning with James about his little princess. She’s been the centre of his world since she was born, when her birth mother gave him full custody. I could try to argue that Mia is her own person, with autonomy and rights, but James still sees her as his little girl and not a young woman almost at adulthood. I can’t exactly blame him — he put his entire life on hold to raise her, never once resenting her or begrudging his life choices. Of course she’s his little princess. She’s his everything.

“Please tell me you haven’t threatened or maimed any teenaged boys lately,” I beg lightly. “I can’t afford to bail you out of jail again.”

“You never actually had to bail me out,” he sulks. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

Poor, sleep deprived, nineteen-year-old James had let himself into his neighbour’s flat by mistake after a night spent driving his colicky newborn around the suburbs to get her to sleep. His eighty-year-old neighbour —who really should have locked her front door— had called the cops when she’d discovered him passed out on her couch with the baby fast asleep in her capsule seat on the coffee table. He’d called me from the station in a panic, not wanting his parents to find out about his embarrassing mistake, mostly because he didn’t want to worry them. Even though I lived over an hour and a half’s drive away, I’d ditched my morning classes and come to his aid…and I’ve never let him live it down.

“Either way,” I reply, “please tell me I don’t need to call in any favours with my lawyer mates.”

“I don’t think finance law would help me, unless you’ve made other lawyerly friends?”

I roll my eyes. “Are you saying that just because I’m an accountant I only know other people in finance?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Turning to face him properly, I rest my elbow on the shiny wooden bar top and arch my eyebrow. “You know, when you asked me to meet you because you had a favour to ask of me that you absolutely couldn’t put into text or ask over the phone, I thought it would involve a lot more buttering me up and a lot less spending my money and insulting me.” I study him intently as he sips at his drink, still facing forward and not looking at me. “What’s going on, Jay?”

I’m concerned by the tremble in his hand, which makes the liquid inside his glass quiver and the ice cubes clack against the sides. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my best friend so unnerved and I don’t like it.

“You know,” I figure injecting a bit of humour might loosen him up a little, “short of murdering someone, I’ll do pretty much anything for you. And, hey, even then, it’s not a hard limit. I’ll even help you hide the body if you ask nicely enough.” I wait another beat and frown. “Unless you really did kill some teenage punk for dating your daughter. If that’s the case, you’re on your own.”

James finally snorts and turns his head to look me in the eye. His smile doesn’t quite reach his grey-green eyes. Instead, within them I see apprehension and uncharacteristic nerves. He licks his lips and sets his glass down on the coaster in front of him, the condensation marring the bar’s logo of a deer or elk or whatever the hell it’s supposed to be. Either way, the watermark obscures the antlers from view.

After hanging his head for a moment, my best friend finally turns sideways in his seat to face me directly. He takes a deep steadying breath, then says, “I need you to date me.”

I blink at him, aware that I’m gaping. “Say what now?”

James lifts his glass and gulps down his drink as though fortifying himself further with the alcohol. “Ev,” he pleads, “I need you to be my boyfriend. Well…my fiancé, actually, if I’m putting all my cards on the table.”

And, even though we’re both straight (or, at least, I think we are), I find I still can’t deny my best friend anything.

Without tearing my gaze from James’, I signal for the redhead to return, and I hold up my half-empty glass. “We’re going to need another round.” Not waiting for her response, I lift what’s left of my current beverage and raise it in a faux toast. “To our impending nuptials.”

Then I skol the whole thing in an eye-watering gulp.

What the actual fuck am I getting myself into now?