Friday Night
“I’m really not up for this,” Baron Weaver told his fourth older brother as they waited in the largest suite of the two adjoining rooms that were reserved for tonight’s entertainment.
“You’re my best man, Professor. You have to be here,” Count replied, calling the twenty-nine-year-old by his nickname.
Extremely smart and studious, Baron earned that nickname early in life. That same childhood name turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy because that’s exactly what he became in adulthood.
“Besides, I need you here to help keep Duke in line, remember?” Count continued, referring to their oldest brother of all.
Duke was in mid-life crisis mode these days. Thus he was prone to cheat on his wife Sasha just to feel young again. He’d already been unfaithful once this year.
Duke was almost uninvited when Sasha learned there would be strippers at today’s bachelor’s party. Yet when Baron and Count promised to watch out for him, she reluctantly agreed to allow Duke to attend.
Though the youngest out of the five Weaver brothers, Count and Baron were the most responsible, levelheaded and sensible. Their other older brothers, Marquess and Earl, were no help since they were just as likely to be unfaithful to their wives. Which is why one of them was currently going through a nasty divorce and the other only had a marriage of convenience for appearances sakes.
“You’re right. I’ll stay…for Sasha’s sake,” Baron consented, pushing pass his own disappointing love life, which included being dumped three weeks before his own wedding.
Megan Griswold, Baron’s social-climbing fiancée, found someone with a larger net worth and a higher social status than him back in May. She left him high and dry with a Dear John text message.
A text message!
Megan hadn’t even taken the time to craft a handwritten letter. Nor had she lingered over the word count. All Baron received was a simple text message that consisted of six measly words: ‘Found someone new. Sorry. Toodles! Megan’.
How heartless and callus is that?!
What happened to the girl who’d had a crush on him since she was seventeen? The same girl who’d followed Baron around like a lovesick puppy for eight years until he finally surrendered to her pursuits and saw her as a serious love interest.
Now Baron wished he had followed his first instincts and never dated Megan at all. For one thing, her valley girl mannerisms had repelled him from the start, despite her great beauty. She’d reeked of airhead and blonde bimbo. So much so that he’d been concerned about her ability to hold an intelligent conversation.
Baron would later learn that Megan was quite capable of holding her own in a conversation, though she only knew trivial things about any given subject. Never any in-depth information.
Secondly, Megan had been entirely too shallow for his tastes. Most of her thoughts were about herself…or him since he was her heart’s desire. Beyond that it was as if nothing or no one else in the world mattered.
Having been raised to be mindful of the people around him and their needs, Baron had found that type of shallowness highly irritating. But then when Megan started to do volunteer work with senior citizens, his irritation had lessened. She suddenly became considerably more tolerable. However, that irritation always returned in full force whenever she wanted to receive accolades for her volunteerism, which was often.
Thirdly, Megan had always been too quick to grow tired of things once she acquired them. The fact that she had dresses in her closet that had only been worn once should have told Baron that she would eventually tire of him also after he finally gave into her.
Megan’s refusal to give her barely worn dresses away to charity unless there was an audience was a red flag to the depth of her shallowness and revealed how insincere her benevolence truly was. Her refusal to finish her college degree, despite the fact that all she had to do was study harder and re-take her exit exams, indicated that she would abandon ship if things got too rocky. Especially if she saw no benefit to staying on board.
Megan had never seen any real benefit to having a higher education for herself. She’d only wanted to be a wife. His wife.
Even though Baron knew all those things about Megan, he still consented to date her anyway. He did so for two seemingly happy years. He even consented to marry her, thinking that they could stretch their happiness out over a lifetime. They’d certainly been compatible enough in the bedroom.
I was a first-class fool for ever getting involved with her, Baron now realized, wishing he could rewind time. If so, he would have made sure to spend the last two years of his life doing something more constructive with his time besides being in love with a shallow, disloyal woman.
Ready to push all thoughts of Megan aside for now, Baron mentally prepared himself to pretend to be happy for one brother while babysitting another. Truthfully, he’d much rather be home grading papers like the studious professor that he was. But since he’d just had a long summer break from teaching there weren’t currently any papers to grade.
Bummer.
No worries though. Baron would be back in the classroom soon enough with papers up to his neck to grade since he was such a big homework giver.
© 2009 by Mi’Chelle Dodson/Suprina Frazier
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