Never Fall for Your Back-Up Guy by Kate O’Keeffe

Chapter 14

Dear Dad

You know when you think you know someone and then you find something out about them and it changes everything? Well, that’s happened with Asher. One minute he’s my fun-loving single friend, next he’s this guy with a past. A past he’s kept secret.

The problem is, every time I see him now I can see that photo of him on his wedding day, happy and in love.

How do I get past this? How do I get us back to the way we were?

I wish you were here. I could do with some Dad advice.

Miss you. Love you.

Your Za-Za xoxo

A few days,and a whole lot of obsessing over what to do about the whole Asher’s marriage-gate later, it’s Saturday afternoon and Tabitha, Lottie, Kennedy, and I are in a room at the top of an old church in south-east London. We are standing at the top of rows of tiered seating, looking down at an old, beaten-up wooden table.

“I don’t care whether this is historically significant or important or whatever, Lottie. This place is super creepy,” Kennedy declares with a shiver.

“I totally agree,” Tabitha says.

I nod my head. “Yup. Totally creepy.”

Lottie turns to us, her face bright. “But isn’t it so interesting? I mean, this place is at the top of an old church and people used to sit on these levels and watch actual surgeries. That blows my mind.”

“Surgeries with no anaesthetic, babe,” Tabitha replies. “It’s barbaric.”

“Which is why it’s so creepy,” Kennedy adds. “Think about it. People were operated on without any anaesthetic, and they did it in front of an audience. It’s a nightmare.”

The four of us are on one of Lottie’s get to know London and improve your mind tours she insists on us doing. Lottie grew up in Yorkshire and moved to London for a job three years ago now, becoming my roommate when we were introduced through a mutual friend. With the way she gets all excited about London, you’d think she was a tourist, here for a week. We Londoners might visit the odd tourist spot, but it’s usually when we’ve got someone visiting from out of town—or by total accident.

Today’s expedition involves visiting the Old Operating Theatre, Museum and Herb Garret, which is not proving to be nearly as popular as last month’s outing.

And yes, it’s just as creepy as you think.

“I want to go back to Madame Tussauds,” Tabitha complains. “At least there aren’t any skeletons there, and we can perve at whatever celebrity we want up close.”

“And there’s no operating table that looks like it’s used for torture, either,” I add.

Lottie launches into the speech she’s given many times. “Come on, girls. London is rich with history, and this place is a part of it. Imagine being in here, watching a surgery in utter wonder back in the day.”

Kennedy raises her hand. “No thanks. I do not want to imagine that. In fact, I would quite like to think about pretty much anything else right now.”

“I’ve got something for you to think about,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.

This whole “Asher was married” thing has built up and up in my mind and I’ve increasingly needed to talk to someone about it. These three girls are my best friends, and they all know and love Asher as much as I do.

“What is it, Zee?” Lottie asks, her brows pulled together in concern.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Kennedy comments.

Tabitha shudder. “Which is pretty likely in this place.”

“I-I found something out a few days ago and I’m in a weird place about it.”

“I’m worried about you now, Zee. What is it?” Lottie asks.

“Is it more George weirdness? I still can’t get over what he did.” Tabitha shakes her head.

I chew on my lip before I reply, “It’s not George. It’s…Asher.”

“What did he do?” Tabitha asks, her eyes wide.

“Oh, my gosh. You kissed!” Lottie exclaims. “I knew it. From the moment you became one another’s back-up person, I knew it.”

Kennedy gazes at me. “You kissed Asher?”

“Oh, I bet she did,” Tabitha says. “He’s her back-up guy so she probably wanted to give him a test run.”

“A test run?” I guffaw. “Are you serious? Who does that?”

“How was it? Is he a good kisser? Tell us everything. And I mean everything. Lip texture, plumpness, tongue.” Lottie clasps my arm. “Oh, Zee. Tell us there was tongue!”

A mother with two young children standing by the operating table looks up at us with a scowl on her face and then hurries her children out of the room.

Tabitha places her hands on her hips as she watches them leave. “I bet those kids will be more traumatized by this place than some conversation about snogging a hot guy. Priorities, woman.”

“Can you please focus, Tabitha?” Kennedy asks. “This is juicy stuff. Come on, Zee. Tell us about you and Asher.”

“There’s no ‘me and Asher.’ And there’s definitely been no kissing.”

“Shame,” Lottie says as Tabitha asks, “Are you sure?”

I give a firm head nod. “I’m sure there’s been no kissing. I would have noticed that.”

“You could have sleep kissed,” Lottie offers. “You know, the snogging version of sleep walking.”

All three of us shoot her a look.

“What?” she protests. “It could be a thing.”

“So, what’s been going on with Asher?” Kennedy asks.

My stomach churns with anxiety. “I feel weird talking about it, but it’s got in my head, and I need to get it out.”

“Tell us!” Tabitha, Lottie, and Kennedy insist at once.

I take a deep breath and begin. “I was at his place taking some measurements for the new custom wardrobe I’ve got going in and, well, I found something. Something…unexpected.”

Lottie sucks in air. “You went through his things? That’s not cool.”

Kennedy shakes her head. “That doesn’t sound like something Zee would do.”

“No, no. Definitely not,” I insist. “I had to move some boxes so I could measure up and one of them dropped on the floor and broke open. Something fell out.”

Tabitha’s eyes are wide. “It’s a blow-up doll, isn’t it? Asher’s got a blow-up doll.”

She wins a bat on the arm from Kennedy. “It won’t be a blow-up doll.” She pauses and then asks, “Right?”

I give a grim nod. “Right.”

“A blow-up doll would be so weird, and Asher’s not weird. He’s a player, with far too much female attention, but he’s not weird,” Lottie surmises.

“You see here’s the thing. He might be a player now, but he was—” I pause, wrestling with this new information I’ve learned about our friend. The Asher I thought I knew is no more, replaced with this married guy who hasn’t been straight about his past with any of us.

“What?”

“Tell us!”

“You can’t just stop mid-sentence like that!”

I take a deep breath and blurt out, “I found out Asher’s married. Or was married. I’m not sure. All I know is there was a wedding.”

Lottie and Tabitha recoil from me in shock, their eyes the size of Christmas baubles, their mouths forming perfect ‘o’s.

“Are you serious?” Lottie asks.

“He’s married? As in, like, to a woman?” Tabitha asks.

“He’s not gay, babe,” Lottie says.

“Yes, and yes,” I reply with a grim nod. “Not to the gay part. We all know he’s totally straight. And I don’t know what to make of it. I mean, this is Asher. We all know him to be this fun, easy-going, single—emphasis on the single—guy, right? He’s not married. At least, I didn’t think he was until I found the album.”

Lottie shakes her head, her lips pulled into a thin line. “Wow. Just wow.”

“You think you know a person,” Tabitha says.

I hang my head. “I feel bad telling you girls, but it’s been eating me up.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Lottie says. “I would have done the same. This is big news. None of us knew about some wife, and he might be closest with you, Zee, but we’re all friends with him. None of knew about this.”

Tabitha nods. “That’s true.”

“I knew,” Kennedy says quietly, and we all turn to gawp at her in astonishment.

I pull my brows together. “You did? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I figured it was his story to tell, not mine.”

I push my hair behind my ears. “Well, that makes me feel terrible for telling you.”

“How did you know?” Tabitha asks.

She shrugs. “He’s from San Diego and so am I. It’s not a huge place. You hear things.”

“How long have you known?” Lottie asks.

“I heard about it when I was home and caught up with some friends over the holidays. One of them knows his wife.”

“His wife,” Lottie echoes, and we all stand still and dwell on that fact for a while.

“My friend told me that Asher had left San Diego to come here for a fresh start after his marriage fell apart.”

“So, he’s divorced?” I ask.

Kennedy lifts her shoulder. “I think so, but I don’t know for sure.”

I blink a few times as I process this new information. “Oh, my gosh. He was married and it fell apart.”

“It’s been two years. I bet he’s divorced. It would make sense if he was,” Tabitha states with confidence.

“Tabitha’s right. It does make sense he’d be divorced, particularly if she broke his heart and he moved on,” Kennedy says.

She broke his heart.The idea makes me feel odd. Unsettled.

Protective.

Lottie voices what we’re all thinking when she says, “Things must have been pretty bad for him to leave the country.”

“Or it could have been a coincidence,” Tabitha offers. “He might have been offered a job just as things got bad with his wife, so he decided to take it. It might not be as dramatic as we think.”

Tabitha is counting off on her fingers and comes to a sudden stop. She looks up at Kennedy. “Hold on a second. Let’s back up the bus here for a minute, Kennedy. You’re telling us that you’ve known about this for over six months?” she guffaws. “Why didn’t you tell us?” She turns to Lottie and me. “That’s the sort of thing friends tell friends, right?”

“It’s because I figured he would tell us if he wanted us to know. But now that you’ve discovered his secret, Zee, we all know.”

I give a grim nod. “And we can’t un-know it.”

“Exactly.”

I think of the smiling, happy faces in the picture window of that wedding album, and my heart squeezes for my friend. “Poor Asher.”

“Yeah, poor Asher,” Tabitha echoes as the others nod their agreement.

We stand together, lost in thought, when Lottie punctures the silence. “That explains so much.”

I crinkle my brow. “What do you mean?”

She holds up a finger. “Number one, he’s a super fun guy. Number two,” she says as she raises another finger, “he’s never serious about girls. And number three, he’s run away from a woman who hurt him. It all fits.”

“Where are you going with this exactly?” I ask.

“Can’t you see? He’s avoiding getting close to anyone because he’s been hurt by this wife of his.”

“Makes sense,” Kennedy says.

We look up as a group of men walk into the room, talking and laughing loudly about cutting open patients on the operating table.

“Let’s go to the pub and finish this conversation there. After this whole weird operating theatre thing, I need a glass of wine,” Kennedy suggests.

“Not to mention the whole Asher-is-married thing,” Tabitha adds as she and Kennedy walk down the stairs towards the exit.

I place my hand on Lottie’s arm. “Sorry, babe. I don’t think this place quite hit the mark today.”

“That’s okay. I’ll find something lighter for next month. How about the London Dungeon?”

“Where they used to torture people? Lottie, I think you need to reassess what you think of as ‘light.’”

“Yeah, okay.”

Together, we walk down the steps, past the old operating table and skeleton, and out of the room. Downstairs, the four of us head out onto the street in search of a pub. As luck would have it, we find one only a street away, and we each get a cold drink before sitting outside under an umbrella.

“I feel weird about it,” Lottie says. “Like, we know Asher because he’s Asher.”

“Exactly,” I say.

“But now he’s not the Asher we thought he was. Is he?” Tabitha says.

“He’s the same, but different.” I scrunch up my nose. “Does that make sense?”

“Oh, totally.” Lottie nods in agreement. “Do you know what happened between Asher and his wife, Kennedy?”

“What my friend Kyla said is that his wife did the dirty on him.”

Collectively, we suck in air at the shock.

“That’s horrible,” Lottie says.

“Poor Asher,” Tabitha says.

“No wonder he ran away,” I add.

We sit in silence for some time as we each digest the information.

“That does it,” Lottie says as she bangs her hand on the table, startling us all. “We need to help him.”

“How?”

“We need to find him a new wife.”

I chortle. “Where? Online?”

Lottie rolls her eyes. “Not that kind of wife. We need to find him a woman he can fall in love with, a woman worthy of our amazing friend. Someone who’s not going to hurt him like that dreadful wife of his.”

“She’d have to be someone super special,” Kennedy warns.

“I think it’s a great idea in principle,” I begin, “but I don’t think he wants to find someone. I mean look at his dating record. He’s hardly a stable relationship kind of guy, is he? How many girls has he dated since we’ve known him?”

“It’s only because he’s been hurt,” Lottie says.

Kennedy nods her head. “Lottie’s probably right. The guy’s had a rough time.”

“Which is why we should stay out of it altogether. He clearly doesn’t want another wife,” Tabitha says with authority. “Otherwise, why would he have agreed to be Zara’s back-up guy?”

My friends turn to look at me.

“What?” I say.

Lottie narrows her eyes at me. “Interesting.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Kennedy replies.

I flick my gaze between them. “What’s interesting?”

“Are you sure there’s been no kissy kissy between you guys?” Lottie asks.

This again? Awesome.

I lay my hands palm-down on the table. “Asher’s been hurt and now he’s sowing his wild oats. He might have agreed to be my safety net in the distant future, but there’s no way that I’m one of those oats for him.”

Tabitha giggles. “Now I’ve got an image of two oats kissing each other. It’s weirdly hot.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’re one of his oats,” Lottie says.

Whatever. I know we’re just friends. And I know he’s withholding a big secret from me.

“I think we need to pretend we don’t know about this and act normal around him,” I begin. “He ran away because something horrible happened with his wife, and we need to give him the space to deal with that. After all, he hasn’t told any of us about it.”

“Zara’s right,” Tabitha agrees.

“I still want to find him a new wife,” Lottie says as she shoots me a meaningful look.

“Stop!” I say with a laugh.

We spend the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun, putting the world’s wrongs to rights. By the time we head home my mind is made up. I’m not going to talk with Asher about what I know. Instead, I’m going to ignore it and get back to our old, fun-loving, easy friendship.

Even if my heartstrings have been well and truly yanked on by what I now know. He’s still just Asher, and we’re still just fun-time friends. And that’s the way it’s going to stay.