“But Chapel Hill is just forty minutes from her school. I’ve been driving forty minutes to get to school every day,” Senia continues. “And I’m sure Jackie would let her use her address so it looks like she still resides within the district lines.”

I’m positive Chris’s mom, Jackie, would allow Molly to use her address, but that’s not what I’m most worried about.

“What about Grandma? I can’t leave her alone in that house.”

“She could come too,” she replies without hesitation. “She could have our bedroom and we’ll sleep on a sofa bed or something. It will be … comfortable.”

“You have a warped idea of what constitutes comfortable living conditions.”

She shrugs as I turn onto the main road. “Whatever. I just think it would be good for Molly.”

And that itchy restlessness in the pit of my stomach is gone. I reach for her hand and she smiles as I give it a gentle squeeze. Maybe Senia understands more than I give her credit for.

The day our wires crossed,

You were broken, I was lost.

But I found my way to you,

To a place I didn’t know was true.

Now I can’t conceive of living without the sound of us too.

Chapter Twenty-Six

We’re nearly at the restaurant when Senia’s phone rings. It’s her parents informing her that the restaurant reservation has been canceled. Dinner will take place at her parents’ house. I turn the car around – again – and ten minutes later we arrive at a large two-story stucco house in a country-club housing tract in North Raleigh.

I know Senia’s family does well with the family real estate business, but I did sort of fantasize that her family’s house would be a rundown shack I rescued her from. I reach for the door handle to exit the car, but Senia grabs my arm.

“Wait!” She holds my face and kisses me hard – the kind of kiss that melts your insides and makes you want to stay under the covers all day. “Just wanted to get it out of the way since I won’t be able to do that for a while.”

I chuckle as she lets go of my face and hops out of the car. We walk hand-in-hand toward the front door, passing under a bare bougainvillea archway that drips with melting snow. I’m not sure what she’s thinking, but I’m thinking that this feels an awful lot like walking down the aisle. She reaches for the doorknob and, I swear, the next twenty minutes are a slow-motion blur of handshakes and hugs. I can’t really remember much of it, but I do remember someone grabbing my ass and the look on Senia’s father’s face when he sees me.

He’s wearing a gray suit and he’s in good shape for a man his age. His dark hair is cropped short and impeccably styled. I can’t tell if he looks more like a real estate agent or a mobster. His nostrils flare as his gaze takes in my shoulder-length hair, my gray jeans and the black sweater I’m wearing under my army-green twill jacket.

I hold my hand out to him. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

He cocks an eyebrow, exactly the way Senia does when she’s not impressed. “Aren’t you going to remove your jacket?” he says with a slight accent that makes me feel as if I’ve stepped into a scene from the movie Scarface. I begin to take my jacket off and he laughs. “I’m only kidding!” He holds his hand out for me to shake. When I take it, he pulls me into a bone-crushing hug, which gives him the perfect opportunity to whisper in my ear: “Keep it in your pants in Las Vegas, okay?”

I swallow hard as he lets me go and he’s still wearing a huge smile. He nods and I nod just enough for him to notice, then I try not to smile. We’ll only be in Vegas for two nights. I can handle two nights without sex. Good thing is, with Senia being pregnant, I don’t have to.

Dinner actually goes pretty well after that. Senia’s mom serves up some fried fish and something called pupusas, which just look like fat tortillas stuffed with cheese and various meats. Senia rolls her eyes when I tell her I hope this food doesn’t give me explosive pupusa, then her cheeks flush red when I ask her for some ketchup for my fried fish. Just the sight of me pouring the ketchup onto my plate makes her mom, Nancy, cringe. Fried food always tastes better with ketchup. They’ll learn.

Senia’s three older sisters are a whole different story. They ogle me all through dinner and I catch Senia burning them with her laser eyes multiple times. None of them are as hot as Senia, but her sister Maribel, who’s just two years older than Senia, keeps glancing at me as she blathers on about her volunteer work at the local boys and girls club. It starts to make me a little uncomfortable, so I reach up and pretend to wipe something from the corner of Senia’s mouth.

“What is it?” Senia asks as she attempts to wipe her face clean.

“Nothing. Just a piece of pupu … sa. I got it.”

“You think that’s funny?”

“I think you’re smiling.”

I kiss her cheek and she pushes me away gently. “Stop.”

But Senia’s little sister Sophie, who Senia proudly claims to have named, is the most persistent of them all. She sits next to me on the couch as the family watches football and we draw pictures. She draws pictures of all the new friends she’s made in kindergarten and I draw a picture of Molly. She trades drawings with me and asks me to draw something on her picture. I think this is her subtle way of trying to get me to improve her drawing. So I add a sketch of Senia and me on the right side of the page and she makes me squeeze in a picture of her so the three of us are together.

Senia pretends to be playing on her phone the whole time, but I catch her stealing glances at Sophie and me every once in a while with a tiny smile curling the corners of her lips. By the time we leave her parents’ house, I’m confident I passed the test, if only for the blood-curdling tantrum that Sophie threw when I told her it was time for me to leave. After I’ve pulled my car into the garage and plugged it in to charge overnight, Senia and I take my tuxedo and her maid-of-honor dress upstairs and go straight to bed.

I don’t know if this is what it feels like to be in an adult relationship, but if it is, then I could get used to it. It feels good to be adored. But knowing that there’s only one girl who I adore is freeing. Unless the little sac of DNA inside Senia’s belly is a girl. Then I’ll have two girls to adore. In which case, the more the better.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I don’t know what I’m more nervous about today: being the best man in both my best friends’ weddings or the fact that Senia’s parents found out about the baby yesterday.

Senia wasn’t feeling well yesterday, so I took a trip to the grocery store to replenish her supply of saltine crackers. I didn’t know that her oldest sister Claudia had come over to visit while I was gone. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have called out How’s my incubator? while approaching the bedroom. Between the incubator comment and the saltine crackers, it didn’t take long for Claudia to figure out our secret.

I’m trying not to panic now that the pregnancy is out in the open, but I have a million questions racing through my mind. Will her father insist we get married? And what about the tour this summer? Will I have to cancel? What will Chris think? I can’t leave Senia here while she’s eight months’ pregnant.

I wish Grandma and Molly could be here to see the wedding. They both love Chris and Claire, but Grandma’s in too much pain. I don’t want to think of the possibility that she may not make it to September, when the baby’s due.

I leave Senia with Claire so they can get ready for the wedding, then Chris, Jake, and I head out of the hotel to a tattoo shop in downtown Vegas.

“So you’re still not going to tell us what you’re getting?” Jake says with a laugh when I refuse for the twentieth time to tell him and Chris what I’m getting tattooed on my wrist today. “That’s weak.”

“That’s weak?” I reply incredulously. “I’m not the one getting Jay-Rae and today’s date tattooed on my wrist. That’s some weak shit right there.”

Chris and Jake are both getting their wedding dates tattooed on their wrists, but I’m not getting married tonight. I racked my brain trying to come up with something I could get tattooed on the inside of my wrist that was both small enough and significant enough to display so prominently. What I decided on was something that makes sense to me and only me. Maybe someday, it will make sense to the person I allow into my fucked-up world forever.

After we leave the shop with our tattoos conveniently covered in gauze, I get a text from Senia telling me to meet her in tent number six. The wedding is being held in the middle of the desert with Jake and Rachel saying their vows at 11.30 p.m. and Chris and Claire saying their vows at midnight. Chris insisted on paying for the entire wedding so that he would have the privilege of getting married as the clock strikes twelve. If I had half as much money as that asshole does, I’d probably do the same.

When the band broke up briefly last year, while Chris was recording in L.A., Jake and I used to get drunk and try to figure out the terms of Chris’s recording contract. It turns out our guesses were way off the mark, but I’m not complaining. Even if Chris does earn about seven times as much as Jake and me, I’m happy with the fuck-ton of money I made this year. And to show Chris that there are no hard feelings, I got him a wedding present that he will never forget and that I guarantee will top every other gift he and Claire receive today.

After I shower and change into my tux, I hop in a cab and head for the desert. It’s about 9.30 p.m. when the cab pulls into the sandy lot. The half-dozen tents they have set up for the wedding glow like paper lanterns on a blanket of sand. They’ve laid paths of grass and lights between the tents so no one gets lost. It’s freezing out here. I hope Senia’s wearing something that will keep her warm.

I can’t knock on the silk tent, but I can see silhouettes moving inside. “Knock-knock,” I call out and the sounds of shuffling come as a reply.

Senia appears at the entrance to the tent, still wearing a T-shirt and sweat pants and rollers in her hair. She takes one look at me in my tux and her jaw goes slack. “That is so fucking hot.”

“You’re not so bad yourself. The curlers really work with that ensemble.”

“Shut up. I can’t get dressed until all my make-up is done. I paid six hundred dollars for that dress. I can’t get make-up on it.”

“Why did you pay for the dress? I would have paid for it.”

“Uh, hello? You were standing right there when I forked over my credit card the other day at the bridal shop and you never said anything about paying. You were probably too busy trying to block out our conversation.”

“Sorry. I guess I was trying to tune it out.”

She reaches up and adjusts my hair a little. “Do you mind if I fix your hair later? I have to finish Rachel right now.”

I laugh at this suggestion. “Yes, I do mind. Is that why you asked me to come here?” She smiles sheepishly as she reaches for my hair again and I push her hand away. “You’re not doing anything to this hair. I’m like Samson: my hair is my strength. No one touches this hair except my hairdresser Kali. Understood?”

“Ooh, you do take your hair seriously. I like that.” She plants a soft kiss on my lips then turns around to head back into the tent. “Jake is in tent number five. See you in a couple of hours, best man.”

Jake and I hang out in tent number five for a while, taking shots of tequila as we wait for Chris to arrive. Chris isn’t a big drinker when he’s with Claire, but I can always count on Jake to get plastered with me. And I’m really fucking nervous right now. Not about the weddings; about the toast and the wedding gift, and I’m nervous about Senia seeing this tattoo.

By our fourth shot of tequila, Jake’s reddish-brown hair and beard are starting to look a little disheveled. “Maybe you should slow down,” I suggest. I grab the bottle of tequila off the glass tabletop before he can pour another shot. “You don’t want to forget your vows.”