Love Her Wilde

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

My best friend, Ryder, rolled his eyes. “No one’s doing anything TO you, ya fuckin’ drama queen. Believe it or not, my wedding isn’t about YOU.”

“Couldn’t I pair off with someone else?”

“You’re the Best Man. Dylan is the Maid of Honor. You’re stuck. Deal with it.”

“I’ll take a demotion.”

“Jesus, dude. What’s your problem?” Ryder asked, his annoyance at my questioning just barely bubbling beneath the surface. “Dylan is a sweet girl. I don’t know why you’re being such a prick about this.”

“Because my girlfriend is going to kill me.”

Boy, if I thought Ryder had rolled his eyes before, this one about took those peepers right out of his head. “Tell ol’ Bridget to get fucked.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

“Okay, Ash, it’s my turn to be a prick,” Ryder began sinking back into the cushy coffee shop chair and crossing an ankle over the opposite knee. “Your girlfriend? Little Miss Silver Spoon up on her high horse? She’s a fucking asshole. Literally no her likes her except you.”

I just stared at him, eyes wide, for a moment. “That’s not exactly the world’s best kept secret, Ry. You and Lita have never been particularly nice to her.”

Ryder glared at me with the fire of a thousand suns. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? Li and I have spent the last fucking… year and a half trying with her. Every time we invite her somewhere, she doesn’t want to go. Every time we plan a trip for all of us to be a part of, she bails last minute, half the time getting you to back out with her. I’M not being nice to her, Asher? SHE’S not trying with any of US.”

“I don’t think…”

“She couldn’t even get the weekend off for your best friend’s wedding, Ash. I somehow doubt she even really tried. How are you so fucking blinded? Is the pussy that good?”

My brows cinched together, nearly covering my eyes entirely. “There’s no reason to be vulgar.”

Ryder’s eyes once again rolled back in his skull. I was beginning to think it was his permanent state, at least toward me. “Dude… I don’t even know what to do any more. I guess… I guess if you have a problem having to hang out with Dylan, then… then maybe you just shouldn’t come.”

I felt like I’d been slapped in the face as I watched Ryder stand and collect his jacket and mostly finished latte. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying this is my wedding. Mine and Lita’s. Dylan is her best friend and I’m not going to ask my fiancée to boot her. If you can’t figure out how to make this work, then I’ll find a new best man.”

“Ryder…”

“I’m serious, Ash. Bridget’s bullshit attitude that everyone who doesn’t have a trust fund is somehow beneath her, is rubbing off on you. And it’s not flattering.” He polished off his likely lukewarm drink and gave me a hard stare. “Figure out how to get onboard or don’t bother getting on the plane next weekend.”

“Ryder, come on…”

“I’m sorry, Ash, but it’s you causing all the problems right now. Not Dylan. None of this has anything to do with Dylan. You just don’t approve of her job, and it’s kind of gross.”

He chucked his empty paper cup into a nearby trash bin and headed for the door, leaving me stunned, jaw dropped low enough it was practically dragging on the table in front of me.

This… this was not how I anticipated my morning starting.

I was still kind of reeling when I walked into the firm about an hour later. Ryder and I had been friends since birth. We grew up together, graduated together, went to college together. The only time we separated was when I went to law school, and he got drafted to the NHL. Even then, we were still best friends. Still both in Chicago, still playing street hockey together when we could both fit it in. Now he was getting married and I… I was practically blacklisted.

Despite the fact that Ryder and I were best friends, our lives, currently, could not be more different. We were both nearing thirty, but that was basically where the similarities ended. I was a junior partner at my father’s law firm, while Ryder was trying to put his life together after an injury ended his hockey career sooner than anyone wanted. He’d recently gotten a job at the University of Chicago as the hockey team’s assistant coach, but he was struggling to adjust to life off the ice. His fiancée, Lita, was a radio jockey for the local mainstream pop station, and did what she could to soften the blow, but Ryder was in a bit of a funk, no matter what anyone did. At least with the wedding looming, he had something else to focus on.

Yes, I had played hockey both in my childhood and in my undergraduate career, but when it came time to really focus in on a career path, I wanted something more than traveling every weekend for games and wondering when the next puck would take me out. I still played on a rec league when I had the time, but hockey had never really been my life, not like it was Ryder’s.

My life? I was just trying to prove myself as more than a junior lawyer at my father’s business law firm. Everyone who was anyone of the Chicago elite knew his name, and I wanted that to be me. Not because he was my father, but because I’d climbed the ranks myself. Which, wasn’t exactly easy. My father had a hard stance against nepotism, in any form. In fact, he was harder on me than any of the other junior partners on staff, but I thrived off it. It only pushed me harder.

My girlfriend, Bridget, was also a junior lawyer at Wilde and Sacks, my father was the Wilde, hers the Sacks, so it was pretty much written in stone how the rest of my life was supposed to go. The career, the girl, everything. I didn’t mind it so much, not anymore anyway. When I was younger, I tried to buck the system, push buttons, stretch limits, but not now. Now it was time to settle down. Bridget was a good woman. She had her head on straight, and she was as focused on her career path as I was. We made a good pair, at least on paper, and we looked good together. Bridge was as gorgeous as she was driven, all porcelain skin and bright golden curls. She knew it, too. Our kids would be beautiful… if we ever got to that point.

It was, in fact, Bridget who was dragging her feet about she and I joining Ryder and Lita on the path of wedded bliss. We’d talked about marriage, like it was some sort of business partnership, but she regularly insisted that I wasn’t ready. That I needed to grow up. She hated that I still had anything to do with hockey. She hated that I would rather spend my nights at some rundown pub playing darts or pool with my friends, than at some stick-up-the-ass country club, and the more I thought about it, the more I knew she hated that I was still friends with Ryder. Ryder and Lita weren’t “our” kind of people, she insisted. Ryder was right. It wasn’t him and Lita making things difficult, it was Bridget. But what was I supposed to do about it? I couldn’t rightly choose my past, my childhood friends over the future that was all but promised to me.

“About time you show up…”

I looked up from the tile beneath my feet to find my father, Alexander Wilde stomping toward me like a man on a mission. “I met with Ryder this morning. I put it in my calendar,” I stated with a bit of a sigh. My father was always on my ass, even when there was little to be on my ass about.

He gave me a shrug that told me he gave little care to what I’d cleared over two weeks ago. “Are you ready for the meeting this afternoon?”

“Of course. All the contracts are drawn up, just awaiting signatures.”

“If this doesn’t go right, it doesn’t bode well for you getting promoted anytime soon.”

My father was sixty-four. He, by all means, could’ve retired years ago, leaving the firm to me, but he refused. I wasn’t “ready,” though I’d brokered some of the firm’s biggest deals in the last four years. I worked my ass off, day and night for this place, yet the one thing that seemed to elude me was my own father’s respect.

“I understand that, sir.”

“Good. I’d hate for your girlfriend to make partner before you.” He added the extra jab with a smirk that made my blood boil.

“Yes, I’m sure you would,” I responded, attempting to bite back the sarcasm in my tone. “Is Bridge in yet?”

“Of course, she is. She knows what time the workday begins around here.”

“Right. I’ll touch base with you after the meeting.”

“See that you do.”

I closed my eyes and rolled my shoulders until I heard a crack as my father turned on his heels and walked away. I had yet to decide if I was going to go speak to Bridget or avoid her at all costs, but as the elevator dinged its arrival, it proved that decision had already been made for me.

“Hello, darling,” Bridget greeted, clacking toward me on her designer heels. She pushed onto her toes a bit to brush a kiss against my cheek, not hard enough to smudge her bright red Tim Ford lipstick. Bridget was a looker; I would have to be blind to deny that. There was a long line of men waiting for me to drop the ball with Bridget Sacks so that they could swoop in.

“Morning, love,” I responded, softly. “You look stunning.”

She grinned brightly, smoothing out the lines of her perfectly tailored business suit. “It’s new.”

“It’s perfect,” I smiled, holding her hand high in the air as she did a little spin.

“How’d things go with Ryder?”

Right into the fire, apparently. I sighed. “Not well. Apparently if I don’t… step in line, I’m not welcome in the wedding party.

Bridget scoffed and flung her golden curls over her shoulder. “He can’t possibly be serious. Just because you don’t want to surround yourself with the trash they call friends…”

“We don’t even know Dylan, darling, not really…”

“We don’t HAVE to. I know what she does. I know how she makes her living. It’s disgusting and reprehensible. Why he would choose that over his supposed best friend…”

“She’s Lita’s best friend, since childhood. Just like I am his…”

Bridget narrowed her eyes at me. “You didn’t back out, did you?”

“No…”

She let out a loaded sigh of frustration. “Ash, how can you…”

“He’s my BEST friend, Bridge,” I interrupted, running my thumb over the pulse point of her wrist. “This is the biggest moment of his life. I have to be there, whether we agree with the… occupation of the Maid of Honor or not…”

“Do you understand how it will make you look? Standing beside her?”

“We’re in the same wedding party, darling. It’s not like we’re required to remain in each other’s lives...”

“Well, I should hope not. You’d just as well give up on the future we’ve spent the last eighteen months building if that’s the case.”

I tried to disguise my disappointment in her attitude about this. Sure, Dylan didn’t exactly fit into our friend group, but it wasn’t like I was being asked to become best friends with the girl. It was ten days. A little over a week in Hawaii, why did it have to be such a big deal? “Bridge, listen to me,” I stated, pulling on her hand until her body was up against mine. Even in her four-inch Louboutins, she was no match for my six-foot three frame. “It’s a wedding. That’s it. It’s a few events, a ceremony and that’s it...”

“These aren’t the sort of people you should be biding your time with, Asher...”

“I don’t know why you have to be so hard on them, darling. They’re good people.” She rolled her eyes. “Come on now, Birdie,” I practically purred against the side of her head. The little pet name I rarely used outside of the bedroom caused her to melt against me. “You should come along. All the sun and sand and fruity little drinks you can handle... I’m sure we can find ample ways to keep each other busy...”

Bridget let out a giggle and squirmed a bit. “You’re awful, Ash.”

“But you love me.”

“Some days,” she sighed. She pushed up on her toes and pressed her lips to mine. “Fine. Enjoy your best friend’s little wedding. I’m still not going.”

“Bridge...”

“I have more important things to do.”

“Like what?” I asked with a grin as she headed down the hallway to her father’s office, giving her hips a little extra swish just to torture me.

She gave me a little shrug and smile. “Hanging out with my own friends, darling. People that don’t embarrass me.”

“Bird...”

“I’ll see you at dinner! Seven thirty, Dorsette. Don’t forget.”

“I would never. Have a good day, love.”

“Bye, darling,” she beamed, waving her fingertips at me before disappearing around the corner.

I sighed and hit the call button for the elevator to head up to my own office on the third floor. That honestly went better than I had expected. Maybe this wedding wouldn’t be so bad after all.