The Best Man novel Chapter 1

"Are you okay?" I asked, looking at Tristan, my best friend, also my secret crush.

"Yeah..." he gave a nervous laugh before he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

I took a deep breath. Today I must confess my love for him.

"There's something I need to tell you...", we both said simultaneously, and we locked eyes before laughing.

"You go first", I smiled. "Wassup?"

"There's really no easy way to say this to you but-", before he could continue, the cheerleader in our school, Mellisa appeared from behind him and leaned to kiss him fully on the lips.

What?

They both withdrew from the kiss, smiling at each other as she took the seat besides him and entwined their hands together.

Tristan cleared his throat before opening his mouth to rip my heart out of my rib cage. "Mel and I are a couple"

"I..."

With a tremendous pain in my heart, I opened my eyes.

What the fv*k. I was dreaming of Tristan. Not only that, but the scene in my dream was the same scene of my failed confession five years before.

I mean, It's been a while since we've seen each other.

I tried to put down my feeling to him since he was with Melisa

Moreover, now I have Greg, my boyfriend.

Thought of this, I opened my phone checking his message.

Greg: Good Morning babe, have a great day. I love you xoxo.

I've been in a few relationships these past few years but mine with Greg proved to be different from the others, I was sure that he was the one.

Greg proved himself different from the other guys I've dated, and I actually saw a life with him. He was smart, caring, sweet and a gentleman. He was even the first guy I took home to meet my parents. I've already met his and our relationship was promising.

All the above however happened before he made partner at his firm. He was always busy, hardly had time for me. I literally had to beg him to even see me. When we made amends for us to spend time together, it would feel forced and his mind will seem to be miles away. I just knew we needed to talk.

.......as soon as I find the courage to bring the issue up because me being a coward was surely a weakness.

I replied to his text before burying myself underneath the sheets again. I was so tired, my body felt heavy and still had a piercing headache. After the 10 more minutes I promised myself to get up had passed, I finally dragged myself out of bed and prepared to go to work.

Staying in bed 10 minutes led to my lateness. When I came out of the manager's office, Anna immediately approached me.

"We're still on for lunch this afternoon, right?" she asked as she fixed her eyes on me.

I was about to nod when I suddenly remembered that I had a lunch date with Tristan this afternoon.

"You forgot didn't you?", she dared the honest truth out of me, but I would never dig up my own grave for her to push me into every time it's her turn to stand me up.

"Of course not", I gave a nervous smile while avoiding eye contact with her. She hummed in response.

The rest of today was just horrible, a freaking nightmare. I'm surprised I didn't have a mental breakdown.

It was so hectic, I even skipped lunch because I didn't have the time because I had back to back meetings all day, one meeting after the other.

After finishing this and getting home, I wanted right now was a long bubble bath and my bed, to curl myself into a ball and sleep.

A video call notification from Tristan popped up my laptop and I quickly accepted it. I frowned when I saw Mellisa's face instead of his.

"Liv!", she screamed excitedly, and I forced a smile. She and I weren't like the best of friends or anything. We just got along for Tristan's sake. She was his girlfriend, and so she and I had to find some common ground.

"Mellisa, hi", I couldn't even fake the enthusiasm of talking to her because I was simply in the mood of anything hectic at this point and time of my day

"You won't believe what happened last night", she giggled before Tristan appeared on screen behind her, grinning ear to ear.

"Why?", I became nervous because I knew that whenever they had something to announce, it was never good news, for me unless they've broken up.

They had the most rocky relationship ever. They had broken up a few times because their relationship was that toxic, but then, just when everyone is convinced that they were out of each other's lives, they would kiss and make up again, making it hard to keep track of their relationship sometimes.

At one point that I actually believed that maybe they were really destined to be together. Tristan never really got deep into the nature of relationship and I respected that.

"Are you sitting down?", it seemed as she was almost mocking me because I'm sure she obviously could see me swirling my chair side to side.

"What's going on?", I laughed nervously, the suspense was literally killing me.

"Tristan and I are getting married"