[COMPLETED]
I won't be another straight man's secret.
It's hard to plan the perfect wedding for your best friend when you can't keep your eyes off the groom's cousin. Sky's perfect -- except for one thing: he's as straight as the last man who broke...
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The venue was almost fully decorated.
I'd been paired up with Trent as a decoration buddy of sorts, and we'd been working to finish filling up the back wall. We were taking turns going up the ladder, hanging ribbons of citrus and lilac against the wall's frame.
I couldn't help but be amused by Clarissa's choice. I'd advised her to go with lilac, but it seemed like she'd decided on going with both. And even though the colors seemed to clash at first, the more I looked at the wall, the more the color scheme made sense.
"Nice work, boys," Clarissa said as she walked up to the wall. "Baby, did you already give Matt the mason jars? He said he needed to string them up by tonight."
"Yes, babe. I already took care of it," Trent answered, climbing up the ladder's steps.
"Thank you," Clarissa replied, her voice as sweet as ever.
And that's when I decided to make my move. I'd noticed Raven had gone missing from the room a few hours ago, but for all I knew, he was outside talking with vendors. But, since I didn't want to ask Clarissa about his whereabouts, at least not with Trent within earshot, I needed to have this conversation with her privately.
"Hey, where's Raven?" I asked, shifting closer to her as Trent climbed higher on the ladder. "I've been looking all over for him."
"Why?" She didn't even look up at me as she spoke, staring at a deck of notecards in her hand. I couldn't make out what the cards said, but I was sure they had something to do with the wedding. I also noted that the font on each card was rather small, which meant that there had to be a lot of notes.
No wonder Raven spent so much time at the office.
"Because I wanted to talk to him about... the seating?" I struggled to come up with a good lie on the spot and was hoping that a mediocre one would do the trick.
"I don't know. I think he just went home," she answered, still not looking up at me. "Maybe he had a headache or something." She then lifted her head and finally made eye contact. "But if you had any questions about seating, you can just look through the notecards."
"No, thanks." I shook my head. "I'm good with sitting wherever."
"Then why were you trying to talk to Raven about the seating?"
"I... don't know?"
"You're up to something," she said, narrowing her eyes in my direction. "And you better thank your lucky stars that I'm way too busy with this wedding to go into full P.I. mode, or else I'd have you figured out in five seconds flat."
"I'm sure you would, Clarissa. I'm sure you would." It was the last thing I said before I walked out of the wedding hall, heading toward my car in the parking lot.
* * *
I tried calling Raven, again and again, on my drive over to his apartment.
