If you haven’t read The Boyfriends Tie the Knot, the following scene won’t really do much for you. If you have read TBTTK, and if you wondered what the hell Jeremy did after Maria told him to go home so she could party with her friends…allow me to enlighten you. Kind of

This isn’t edited or anything. My kid fell asleep and I don’t know, this scene suddenly existed in my head. So I wrote it down. And here I am, sharing it with you.

From The Boyfriends Tie the Knot:

“Oh man, I fucking forgot about Jer.” Will slumped. This so sucked. He’d gotten a voicemail from Ads that was all cackling in glee, no actual words. Jerk.

The minutes leading up to Adam calling Will’s phone and leaving a message.

Adam picked up the phone too fast, before he saw that it was Jer, not Will. Shit.

“Heya, Jer, what’s—”

“What the fuck is going on with Will?”

The text he’d gotten—from Moll, not Will—read: Jeremy’s here with his girlfriend, who is a friend of Hugh’s (or Lucy’s?). W okay, may need a virtual head-slap later.

But Will didn’t need a head-slap, he needed to be teased and mocked. That’s what Adam was good for, and he did his job well.

Jer, though. Jer was a different case.

“Huh? You tell me, I’m not even in the same time zone.”

“You’re—of course you’re in the same time zone—”

“So what the fuck’s wrong with Will, anyway?”

Ha. Jer was so easy. He growled something into the phone, which shifted away from his mouth, then came back.

“Dammit, Ads, don’t fuck with me. I just—I just saw—Will—and what the fuck is he doing with that girl?”

“Yeah, you’re gonna have to start using more nouns or something, Jer, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He glanced at Beccs, who’d paused “The Colbert Report” when he answered, and took a breath, like maybe that’s what he should do.

Yeah, okay. Adam took a breath, then settled back against her, so she could wrap an arm around him.

“I’m supposed to be at a fucking gay bar right now, with Maria, at the bachelor party for this friend of hers. So we’re standing outside and out of fucking nowhere, Will walks up, with that girlfriend who burned him so bad he didn’t eat for three weeks, only then—then—I don’t even know. Then it was like the girlfriend walked away, and it was just Will and this guy, and he was—he was all—when the hell did Will go gay, Ads? And why the fuck didn’t anyone tell me?”

“So who are you pissed at? Will or Molly or Hugh or what?”

“You! I’m fucking pissed at you! Why do you know all these people and I don’t? Dammit.”

Adam steadied himself against the weight of Beccs’s arm on his chest. “Will’s known Hugh for years. You’ve been to his house, stupid. Will’s friend Hugh, the friend he spent the night with, after Aunt Jeanie’s rosary? We picked him up the next day.”

“Wait that—that’s this guy? Wait, he spent the—did he—was that a fucking booty call—”

“Jesus, Jer, listen to yourself for a minute. Will was fucking wrecked. He went over to a friend’s house.”

“A friend I just saw put his arm around Will like they were fucking dating, Ads. You saying I made that shit up? Because when I said he was straight, he said he wasn’t.”

Finally. “Jakey’s gay, and you don’t have a problem with him.”

“Jake’s not my brother.”

“Oh, yeah, do you even hear yourself? So if you were Carey, you’d throw a fucking temper tantrum? No, Jer. Fuck you. He’s Will. He’s the same as he’s always been.” Adam pushed up, toes curling, trying very hard not to be angry because that’s definitely not what Will needed him to be right now, and Will fucked up was always when the old rainbow connection was strongest. “Actually, no, Will’s better than he’s ever been, Jer. You want to know why Will’s okay right now? It’s because of Hugh fuckin’ Reynolds.” And I’d tell him that, too, if he didn’t scare the shit out of me.

“Ads—dammit. I’m not—I don’t—”

Jer had always been left out. Not that they intended it, but he was older, and closer to the cousins, and also, he wasn’t them. He wasn’t one half of a whole, and Will was always saying he didn’t think there was anything real spectacular about being a twin, but Adam? Adam felt that thread between them like it was a thing he could hold in his hand.

Jer hadn’t been part of them, and this was one of those moments when Adam wished there was some way to let him in, to let him see, but there wasn’t.

“If he’s gay, that’s fine, but that isn’t really what that looked like, Ads. I mean, if he told me that, then okay. But this is—I don’t know what this is, but that’s not what it looks like.”

“Okay. What did it look like, then?”

“Well, that Hugh guy is the one getting married, so there’s that. Even if Will was gay, and was with that guy, then he’d be, I don’t fucking know, whatever a mistress is, when it’s a dude.”

You have no idea.

“But then he’s also with that girl, so I don’t know what that means. But if he was just good friends with this guy, he’d’ve said he was straight, and also, the guy put his fucking arm around Will. You got a lot of friends you put your arm around, Ads? Because I seriously do not.”

A cool, rational voice in Adam’s head wanted to say, “You should be so lucky to have people who love you as much as Hugh and Truman love Will.” He managed to bite that thought off.

“Will is Will. I think he and Moll are maybe getting back together, but don’t quote me on it.” He paused, weighing his words. “I could tell you about he and Hugh and Truman, but trust me, you don’t want to know. They’re his friends, Jer. Everything else isn’t your business. But he’s no one’s mistress. Will would never do that.”

Jer made a noise. Wait for it. A popped can top. Ha. Jer and Will were so fucking alike. They just didn’t really know it.

“So they—they all know about each other? That’s—I don’t fucking know what that is.”

“It’s Will’s life. And Jer? He was pretty badly fucked in the head before he met Hugh. He didn’t talk to you about it, or me, or any of the cousins. He couldn’t. But he could talk to Hugh, and every fucking time I thank God, I thank him for that, Jer. Every time.”

“Jesus. Fine. Fine, Ads. I just—you could have told me. Some of this. Any of it. I was surprised, that’s all.”

“Yeah, no, I can tell by how well you took a friend of Will’s touching his shoulder that you’re a totally upright guy and he should be completely open with you about it.”

“Shut the fuck up, Ads.”

“Anyway, nothing’s up with Will. But he planned the wedding, and he loves the people getting married, and Moll didn’t drop him, Jer, so leave her alone.”

“They, uh, said you’re coming up?”

“Tomorrow.”

“So if I didn’t just happen to be going to this thing, you guys wouldn’t have even called? I mean, Jesus, Ads. You’re my brothers.”

I’m sorry, Jer. We should have been triplets, or singles. I’m sorry.

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m glad you’ll be there. It’ll be good to see you.”

Jer exhaled into the mic pick-up. “Yeah. Yeah, well, you too. Fine. I’m gonna have a couple of beers and watch TV. What a fucked up night.”

“Okay. Bye, Jer.”

“See ya, Ads.”

He slumped back into Beccs and tossed his phone to the bed. “Oh, fuck me. That sucked.”

“Yeah. But how weird is it that your brother is dating a guest at Hugh’s wedding? That’s a pretty big coincidence, isn’t it?”

Adam shrugged and pretended he wasn’t inhaling the scent of her through her clothes. This whole wedding thing made him think more about their relationship than he was really comfortable with. Like how much he liked the way she smelled.

“It’s not a coincidence?”

“Well, you know the Bay Area. It’s a small world. And we have a big family. Anyway.”

“Want to go back to Colbert?”

“In a minute. I gotta leave a message for Will.” He straightened again, made funny faces, strange noises.

“Uh huh,” Beccs said, looking unimpressed.

“Getting into character.” He speed dialed Will’s phone and waited for it to ring through to voice mail. Then he laughed, loudly, stupidly, for as long as he could keep his breath, and disconnected.

“So that was your message of fraternal support?” She tugged him in for a kiss. “You’re a good brother, Adam.”

He swallowed. “Yeah, well, you know. Gotta do what you gotta do. You can turn Colbert back on.”

“Okay.”

And she did, but not before she looked at him for just a moment too long, like she was doing math in her head or something, adding up a ledger of his good points and bad points.

Was that what relationships were? Two people who kept running totals of pros and cons and stayed together until the cons list got too long? No, right?

Adam settled back in and cleared his mind, just in case Will needed him.