Chapter 29: Luke

As soon as I checked on my parents this morning, they informed me they were going on another cruise, and I didn’t need to worry about them. Mom invited me to join them. Lord knows I needed a break, but with the lawsuit, it wasn't an option at the moment.

“Damn, you need another one?” Corey asked as I sat at the bar nearly slumped over, feeling as if my world was coming to an end.

“Yep, been such a shit day.”

I didn’t hesitate on filling him in on everything, including my fake relationship with April. He swore to secrecy, “Sounds like it.” Ed clapped my shoulder. Damn, I should’ve been paying more attention.

“I have some good news, I would like to share with you gentlemen.” Corey poured out three shots.

“Yep, I managed to get off a little early.” Ed plopped down beside me. “Now, I need to have whatever he’s having and hear this good news. I could do with some cheering up.”

Corey had a cheeky smile on his face, his blue eyes lit up as he ran his hand through his dark hair and said, “I’m getting married.”

I nearly choked on my drink as the words left his mouth and both Ed and I said in unison, “Why?”

He frowned holding up his shot to the bartender who sauntered over.

She approached us nervously as she said, “Corey proposed to me last night and I said yes.”

“I didn’t even know you were dating?” Though a few times I’d caught them smiling and flirting with each other.

Ed knocked back his shot and said, “Dating? Don’t you mean—”

“Congratulations.” I stopped him from saying what was on my mind, fucking. “Congratulations to you both.”

It took every strength in my body to say those fake words. Corey was one of our oldest friends and I could tell by his cheeky smile earlier he was happy, but I’d just assumed he’d had a good night with his latest conquest. I didn’t realize he’d been with the same girl for more than one night, he’d never been like or even hinted about settling down.

“I’m too old to keep playing the field. It’s time I settled down.”

I nodded my head, and so did Ed. There was an awkward silence between us all, Ed’s reaction was shit and it surprised me about him being so rude and not even congratulating the happy couple. Corey’s fiancée was young, I mean she made April seem like an old woman in comparison and she was only twenty-five, his fiancée must have been at least twenty-one.

“Can I have another shot seeing as we’re not celebrating?” Ed asked, breaking the silence.

I shot him a look, thinking it was a shitty thing to say, but she didn’t pick up on it. I didn’t even know her name because I hated to admit Ed was right. Corey had always told us to never bother knowing their names because they would never be around long enough. We’d done that, and he was getting married to this perky young girl and I didn't even know her name.

Then again, it didn’t matter, I would find out eventually and I wasn’t the one getting married to her.

She blushed. “Sure.”

But I could tell Ed wasn’t really celebrating, he was on a mission to get drunk. We were a sorry bunch of guys. We had money, careers and we weren’t happy. Well, two of us weren’t happy. The other one was over the moon as he kissed his bride-to-be. Then she bounced with her breasts on full display to get Ed another drink. I could tell why Corey wanted to marry her, he wanted to play with them all night long, but I wondered how long it would be before he got bored of playing and wanted to play with someone else’s tits.