Slightly Married. Wendy Markham

because when you’re engaged, you realize that you will never ever kiss anyone else ever again. Not just kiss, but…fool around with.

      I mean, you’ll fool around with your fiancé, of course—and you will go on fooling around with him after he becomes your husband…

      (Unless you listen to Latisha, and I’ve chosen not to. The next time she starts in about the postmarital lack of sparks, I’m going to stick my fingers in my ears and sing “Love and Marriage” at the top of my lungs.)

      Anyway, being an engaged woman, you can’t help but wonder about what you might be missing from here on in.

      I can’t help but wonder that, anyway.

      But just about Buckley. No one else.

      Probably because Buckley is the last person I kissed before Jack, and because it never went any further with him than that, physically. Emotionally, yes. He’s the only other guy I’ve ever felt really connected to, unless you count Will (which I don’t because that was all an illusion on my part—make that a delusion) or Raphael (which I don’t, because I guess I kind of think of him as a girlfriend).

      So I guess I kind of think of Buckley as the One Who Slipped Away.

      And something tells me he kind of thinks of me that way, too…even though he’s never said it. I mean, he and Sonja have been engaged since last fall.

      I still remember exactly how and where he broke the news to me.

      Not that it had to be broken, like bad news. Because it wasn’t. I mean, isn’t everyone happy to learn that a good friend is getting married?

      It’s just that I was a little surprised, that’s all. Buckley and Sonja had already broken up because she had given him an ultimatum and he didn’t want to get married. Then he changed his mind.

      And I guess I’ll always wonder whether…

      Nah. Never mind. Forget I said anything about that, or about there being a lingering shred of anything other than friendship between us. Really, the only reason I’m so determined to tell Buckley my news in person is because he’ll be thrilled for me.

      For us.

      Maybe I should have included Jack today. But he was having lunch with a print rep anyway.

      Then there’s Sonja, who is a production editor at some publishing house. She happens to work just a few blocks away and is usually free for lunch. Hmm, maybe I should have asked her to come, too.

      Then again, if Buckley wanted her to be here, he’d have asked her himself, right? I mean, it’s not like he knows we’re having lunch together for a specific reason today. I just e-mailed him this morning to set it up. We do that all the time. Still…

      Mental note: Set up celebratory dinner that includes both Jack and Sonja.

      We were right here at Sushi Lucy’s when Buckley told me he’d realized that if he didn’t step up to the plate, he was going to lose Sonja. He said it in those words. Then he said he had gotten engaged to her the night before, in the middle of watching the World Series.

      At the time, I’ll admit, I was a little taken aback. Maybe even a little upset. Not jealous, definitely. Just…I don’t know. Maybe wistful.

      But that was ages ago, and I’m sure that it will be no big deal to tell him Jack and I are getting married in October. (Did I mention that I found out—still, without giving my name—that Shorewood is definitely available that third Saturday in October? No? Well, I haven’t mentioned it to Jack yet, either, but I plan to, so we can book it ASAP.)

      The second I spot Buckley’s familiar long-legged stride heading toward the restaurant door, my stomach does an uneasy little somersault for no reason whatsoever.

      After all, it’s just Buckley. Familiar, solid Buckley. He’s got on his worn brown leather jacket with a scarf tied around his neck and manages to look effortlessly fashionable, as usual.

      Oh, and it really is effortless. That’s one of the things I liked about him when I met him. He’s just a regular, casual, good-looking guy. He—like Jack—doesn’t have a metro-sexual bone in his body. Unlike Will.

      I met Buckley right around the time that Will was leaving me for summer stock, never to return…to me, anyway. Will came back to New York with Esme, his new girlfriend, in tow, after I spent the summer reinventing myself so that he would find me more desirable. Yes, I know that sounds pathetic.

      And it was.

      But who, at one point or another, hasn’t had her pathetic moments where some guy is concerned?

      In the end, my reinvention was also a reawakening. Or maybe just a long-overdue awakening. For the first time, I was able to see who I am and to see Will for who he really is. More importantly, for who he isn’t.

      But it took awhile for that to happen. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in him when I met Buckley, who knows what might have happened between us? By the time I came to my senses, Buckley was involved with Sonja. When they broke up, I was involved with Jack.

      So pretty much, Buckley and I have never been simultaneously romantically available.

      But I’ve got this terminal case of wondering what if.

      What if I’d met Buckley after I fell out of infatuation with Will?

      What if I’d been on time meeting him the night he met Sonja, who started chatting with him in some bar while he was waiting for me?

      What if, when I found myself in Buckley’s arms the December after Will dumped me—and right after I met Jack—I hadn’t decided that I was kissing Buckley by default, and we were meant to be platonic?

      Who knows what might have happened?

      We probably would have hooked up, the relationship would have run its course because it wasn’t meant to be, and we would have gone our separate ways.

      Or maybe we would have hooked up and stayed together. Who knows?

      I don’t like to think about it, and I usually don’t let myself.

      So why now?

      Mental note: JACK. Remember Jack? Do not forget about Jack. Your fiancé.

      I take a fortifying look at my engagement ring, then find myself swept into Buckley’s familiar, platonic embrace. His face is cold against mine.

      “Hey!” he says, smelling like cold air and Big Red. “Sorry I’m late. You could have sat down.”

      “I didn’t want to sit alone. You know I hate that.”

      “I know you do.”

      Jack knows, too, that I’m self-conscious about being alone in a restaurant even if someone is meeting me. It’s one of my little quirks.

      Jack knows pretty much everything there is to know about me, just as Buckley does. And I know pretty much everything there is to know about Buckley, too.

      Except, of course, for the intimate stuff.

      Of course.

      Anyway…

      We sit down and tell the waiter we’re going to order right away. I have to because I’ve got to get back to work. Adrian has been treating me differently ever since he caught me showing off my new engagement ring to Brenda and Carol the other day. I can’t help but sense an undercurrent of disdain whenever I have contact with him.

      And I’ve had a lot of it because we’re working on the new presentation.

      “Hungry?” Buckley asks as we open our menus.

      “Starved.”

      “Me, too. Want to share an app?”

      We do that a lot, me and Buckley—especially when we go out for Japanese. We’ll order a maki appetizer to split, and eat it with chopsticks off a platter between us.

      We’ve