Whose Best Man?

Chapter One: Coming and Going

Hey, Wattpad! This is my first story in quite some time, and I'm excited to finally be writing it and sharing it with you all! I would love your feedback, especially now that I'm getting back in the swing of things. Thanks for checking it out, and I hope you enjoy!

As a side note, this story will be written from the perspectives of two characters, and the POV will alternate with each post. In addition, each chapter will also feature a flashback. Sometimes it will be just a paragraph or two, sometimes it may take up over half of the chapter.

(The attached photo is of Luke Grady.)

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Austin, Texas. 2008.

(Grady)

I am what certain people more conservative than I am might call a man slut. I'm young, I'm in the prime of my life (or so dozens of movies and TV shows have told me), and I like to have fun. So I sleep around a little bit. Sue me.

While I may be a little bit morally misguided by most standards, I do have a couple of rules that I follow religiously:

1) I don't sleep with my friends' exes, and

2) I don't sleep with my coworkers.

But don't get the wrong impression. I don't disrespect women; I just think opening yourself up to romance can only lead to one thing: heartbreak. Couples either break up, or someone dies. That's it. The end of the love story never ends with, "I do," but it can end with, "I don't." My point is, I don't want to waste my time maintaining one relationship when I can be much happier meeting new people and just having fun. I couldn't tell you the last time I hung out with the same person more than two days in a row and didn't want to pull my hair out. I can't imagine living with someone else, let alone sharing a bed with them.

Me? I'm happy with it being just me and my French bulldog, Charlie. She gives lots of kisses and is never upset to see me come home. Maybe I did find true love, after all.

"You love me, right, Charlie girl?" I ask while I slip on her harness. She barks twice, in her usual cheerful, high-pitched tone. "That's what I thought."

We head out for our daily walk, and the city is just beginning to make the first subtle changes from summer to autumn. A few leaves have fallen, the temperature has dipped, though only slightly, and at least one of the coffee shops I frequent has started selling pumpkin spice lattes.

These changes also signal one other thing around here: football season. Though I am more of a baseball man myself, I do enjoy the extra cash football season brings with it in my line of work. Bartending is almost always good money in a college town this size, but with Austin's nightlife scene kicking into high gear now that all the students are back in town, I'm in for a good few months.

We walk around the neighborhood for about 20 minutes before we stumble upon a pet-friendly bookstore not far from 6th Street. It doesn't take much convincing to get Charlie to follow me inside. She is truly a people-puppy at heart, and the air conditioning certainly doesn't hurt.

I silently browse the non-fiction titles with Charlie on my arm tucked into my chest when I first see her. She is quite possibly the most attractive woman I've ever laid my eyes on. My first thought is that she can't be real, but that fades away quickly when she notices my staring and asks me if I know where the cookbooks are. Her voice is perky, but not at all annoying. She watches me, bemused, while I try to think of any words to answer her question. Just one single word.

"No," I eventually manage, "I'm willing to, uhh, help you look, if you want me to."

She's standing right next to me at this point, and I'm not even sure that I'm breathing.