"What, do you think I'm made of money?" My best man, Bryan, asks. I met him when I was backpacking through Borneo, and he moved to Boston last year to work at a non-profit. "We're not taking you to Vegas, man."
"Strip club!" One of my groomsmen, Joe, shouts, and inwardly I groan. When you're being let into bars and strip clubs when you're a teenager, the thrill kind of wears off by the time you're an adult.
I never thought I'd say this, but seeing tits gets old after a while, especially since I've been spoiled by Kate's.
"We have something better than tits," Bryan says.
"Nothing is better than tits," Joe yells, his drunken voice loud in the limo.
"Shit, Joe, ever heard of volume control?" Scott elbows him. "I'm going fucking deaf in one ear and I can still hear you."
"What's better than tits?" I'm almost afraid to ask.
"Shots!" Joe yells.
Bryan reaches into the cooler in the limo and pulls out two bottles. "Edward Fortyhands is better than shots," he says, laughing.
Before I can protest, the bottles are duct-taped to my hands and they're chanting "drink, drink, drink."
I take a drag on one of the bottles and nearly gag. "God, how do people drink this shit?"
"I don't know, buddy," Ken says. "But you're going to drink up before we get to Boston. Those forties aren't going to drink themselves."
"We're going to Boston to watch strippers?" I ask, warily.
"No, man. Your father-in-law got us courtside Celtics tickets," Bryan says.
"Courtside!" Joe echoes loudly, pumping his fist in the air. "Fuck, yeah!"
"Seriously?" I ask, downing more of the malt liquor from the bottle attached to one of my hands. Courtside Celtics seats. The Senator is really trying hard to step up.
Those tickets are definitely a point in his favor.
"Drink up, buddy!"
So I do, even though the alcohol is probably the most foul shit I've ever tasted. I'm warm and everything is slightly fuzzy by the time we get to Boston, because I’ve finished drinking both bottles.
I pull out my cell phone to drunkenly text Kate.
R u wrng panties?
A few minutes later, she texts back.
LOL. Are you wasted?
I type my response. I mean to type yes, but it comes out "yras" since Joe grabs the cell phone from me.
"Are you texting your wife at your own bachelor party?" he shouts.
I reach for the phone. "Shut up, asshole. She's pregnant."
"Whipped, so whipped," someone says, imitating the sound of a whip cracking. "You can't keep your cell on you at your bachelor party. It's the rules."
"Seriously," one of the others says. "Confiscate the phone."
I protest, but the phone disappears, until I get a chance to slap Joe and take it back.
So I'm whipped. So what?
Kate is pregnant. What if there was an emergency?
My buzz wears off by the end of the first quarter of the game, and I text Kate again, but she doesn't respond. She's probably too busy stuffing dollar bills down the G-string of a stripper, most likely a female one, if Libby and Bailey have anything to say about it.
I look at my friends in their jerseys, drunkenly waiving green foam fingers in the air and hollering loudly ("Come on, ref, don't you have eyes?" "Kill the referee!"). We're definitely the most obnoxious group of fans, which is saying something because there are some total crazies here tonight.
I don't even notice who's near me, until a girl walks over and sits down, leaning forward to talk to me and placing her manicured pink nails slides on my thigh.
"Caulter Sterling," she says.
I turn to look at her, vaguely recognizing her but not recalling her name. We used to date in Malibu, before I was shipped off to Brighton. Well, dated isn't exactly the word for it. We never did much outside of the bedroom.
She looks the same as she did back then, except that everything has been augmented – bigger boobs, bigger lips, and bigger hair. She has that L.A. plastic surgery look going on, and it's definitely not a turn on.
"Your hand is on my leg," I say.
She laughs and leans forward, sliding it down further. "Debra Atwood," she says. "Tell me you don't remember my name."
I shrug, taking her hand and placing it back on her lap. "No offense."
"After all of the things we used to do together, Caulter?" she asks, pouting her lower lip. "I hope you at least remember that."
God, I hate that pouting bullshit.
I don't answer, looking back out at the game in progress. Debra was always clingy, even though we were never a couple. When I left for Brighton, I got love notes and packages in the mail from her for months until she got the fucking hint that I wasn't interested.