A Spotlight Summer (Jack Gilinsky)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Jack POV

Three years later

"The rehearsal dinner is tomorrow and there's still so much that has to be done," Johnson complained. My best friend was pacing his living room while his fingers tangled in his hair. Over the course of the planning process, I learned to just stay quiet and only offer suggestions when specifically asked for my opinion. Somehow, every time I tried to inject my thoughts, I would be met with burning glares from the future groom.

"I asked her to marry me!" Johnson blurted out.

I almost spit the drink I had been sipping on. "You what?!"

Johnson shook his head, clearly still in disbelief himself. "I have no idea. I mean, I didn't plan it, but we were just sitting there and it felt so undeniably right. You know, like one of those moments where everything in the universe aligns and there is only one clear path. And dude, I was staring at her and thinking about our relationship and it felt so damn good to hear her say 'yes.'"

Before I had the chance to even speak Johnson asked, "You'll be my best man, right?"

I sat up in my chair and eyed him. "Don't you think you two are a little young?"

Johnson's face looked like the time when we were younger and I accidentally revealed that the Santa Claus at our family's Christmas party was just a man dressed up in a costume.

"I think that we're in love with each other. And it's what we both want," Johnson explained. When I still wasn't convinced, Johnson stood from his chair. "I didn't come here asking for your approval, Jack. I came here so I could ask my best friend to stand next to me while the women I love walks down the aisle."

I quickly reached my hand out and latched onto Johnson's arm so I could stop him from walking away. "Of course I'll be your best man."

Panic beamed in Johnson's eyes before he spoke again. "Shit! Jack, you have to head over to the bar. Tristian said he would bartend the reception for us, but he still hasn't given me his final confirmation. Will you please go there and make sure he knows all the details of the ceremony and then the party afterwards?"

I took one look at Johnson's pleading eyes and realized I couldn't say no even if I wanted to. "Yeah man, no problem." I rose from the pristine couch and made my way out of the house and to my Range Rover parked across the street. Johnson's wedding planner had offered to hire him a bartender, but Johnson didn't feel right not including the man who gave us a hideaway for most of our teenage lives. The wedding would be even more perfect with Tristian serving us-now, legal-drinks.

The windy spring air caused me to reach over and shrug my leather jacket on over my t-shirt. It looked like if Omaha continued cooperating, the weather for the wedding was going to be perfect.

I stepped into the building and was disappointed not to see Tristian, but another man working the bar. I walked further in and decided to wait until the man I needed to see showed back up. Johnson would have my head if I came back with the task unfinished.

I was about to take a bar stool when I noticed a lone figure by the pool tables in the back. A curtain of brown hair. A body I had memorized years ago. A voice that bombarded my thoughts for over a year back when I was eighteen.

"Jack," Kelsey croaked. "Hi."

When she turned to face me, I noticed that she looked more different than I originally thought-more grown-up, more refined. Her hair was shorter than it had once been, her makeup was new, and she carried herself with more confidence than before.