The Raven's Nightingale

#2 'til Death Do Us Part

"Hey, thanks again for coming with me, I know that it was short notice," I called out to Mac as he approached where my vehicle was stationed in the harbor's parking lot. It was warm enough out that I was able to wear a t-shirt with my jeans. But being out by the water made it just chilly enough that I shivered as a strong breeze blew through the lot, blowing the orange and red leaves that dusted the gravel across the ground. I have no idea why my cousin wanted to have a wedding out on a boat in late October; the weather usually gets pretty bad around this time out on the water.

"No problem James. Are you having problems with Lidia?" Mac asked as he raised an eyebrow at me. I noticed that he was staring down at my left hand where there was a tan line from where my wedding band used to be. I had almost never taken it off except when I went out on the water because I didn't want to chance losing it. I was a bit startled that he had noticed that my ring was missing from such a distance. I rubbed my finger absently with my thumb. I guess he had figured out that today was a different reason for me not to have my ring on me.

"Something like that," I muttered as I pushed myself off of my car. I didn't want to talk about the whole thing that was going on with divorce papers and custody papers.

"She did it again?" Mac asked as he stopped a couple of feet away from me. For a second I wasn't sure what he was referring to until he made a gesture that made it very obvious as to what he was trying to say. But I was confused as to what he meant by again. I had thought that she had only cheated on me once.

"What do you...?" But Mac cut me off mid-sentence. "You can tell by the way that she acts that she's done it at the very least 1 or 2 other times before."

"You think that she's slept around on me more than this one time?" I asked Mac, trying not to sound like I was accusing him, but I was pretty sure that it came out that way just the same.

"What do you think?" Mac asked me as he turned and started towards the direction of the harbor and docks. I groaned in aggravation but followed right behind him.

"Sometimes I wonder why we are friends," I muttered staring hard at Mac's back.

"You're not going to have any luck trying to drill holes in my back with your eyes James. I'd go for something a bit sharper like a harpoon or an ice pick," Mac chuckled without glancing back to look at me. Sometimes, his ability to know people, namely me, is just plain scary. I sighed and walked so that I was standing right next to him.

"You're annoying; you know that right?" I asked him staring straight ahead, but all I got was a chuckle in response.

"And you know that you are the only person I let call me that, right?" Mac murmured under his breath so quietly that I almost missed it. I was a bit taken aback by what he said. I wasn't sure how I should take it, but it did make me kind of happy to hear that so I just let it go without saying anything.

We reached the gates of the harbor that led out to the rickety wooden docks. Some of the boards would bend under your weight if you were a bigger guy, like Mac. For the first time in a very long time, he looked nervous as he walked on the creaking boards that slowly sank under his weight. I chuckled and walked forward towards the central part of the marina where my cousin had said that the boat would be. Knowing my cousin I wasn't expecting much, but his wife-to-be, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. Though my cousin never had a bad word to say about his fiancé, she seemed to have this habit of liking things that neither of them could afford. I wouldn't be too surprised if it were a 50-foot yacht that the wedding would be held on. Although the more glamorous lifestyle could be because of her accelerated form of brain cancer, it could be that she wanted to experience the best of things before she died.