You Can Let It Go [ZARRY]

Epilogue Part Two

Harry:

Rehearsal dinner was also at the Pavilion; a long table with a white cloth was set for twenty-nine people: the Malik family, my assistant Sylvia—who I’d promoted to Vice
President of Marketing immediately upon taking over as CEO—Cesar, Ramona, Marjory, Odette from the Valley Village group home, and their plus-ones.

Taylor had a date for the wedding but had said he wasn’t quite rehearsal dinner material. Yet.

“He has potential,” she’d told me on the phone a few weeks before. “At least with him I get to have sexual relations.”

“I don’t recall you being at a lack for sexual relations when we were together.”

“True, honey. They just weren’t with you.”

Since breaking off our “engagement,” our friendship had grown into something real and honest, and she took to calling me her gay best friend.

I hoped this guy she was bringing tomorrow was good for her, or I’d have to kick his ass.

As gay best friends do.

The elegant room was buzzing with our guests, and Zayn extricated himself from his sister Doniya, Perrie and Taylor —the three women having become inseparable over the course of twenty minutes.

He sidled up to me and handed me a glass of sparkling water.

“Okay, spill it,” I said. “Is that her?”

We both looked to where Marcel stood beside a young woman with her light brown hair in a braid and piercing blue eyes. Both of them smiled shyly.

Marcel stole glances at her now and then, but the woman made stronger eye contact
with him and the rest of the group.

“Yep, that’s Carly. She moved into the home about six weeks ago,” Zayn said. “They were friends right away, talking about Dickens, Chaucer. . . They’ve been thick as thieves ever since.”

“Thick as thieves?” I said, fixing him a stern look. “Why haven’t I met her yet?”

“Maybe because Marcy is afraid you’re going to scare her off with that glower of yours.”

I fixed my face. “Shit, I don’t want that. But if he gets attached and she hurts him. . .”

Zayn smiled. “That’s the chance we all take, Haz. Marcy’s a grown man. He can take care of himself. . . He just needs a little bit of guidance.”

He took a pull from his water. “Hell,
don’t we all?”

I marveled at Zayn. Marcel had come as far as he had because he felt safe with Zayn there to help him.

He might’ve gotten to this point—standing more or less comfortably in a room full of people, holding hands with a girl—but it
would’ve taken a hell of a lot longer.

“Introduce me. I’ll put the glower away.”

We went to where Marcel and Carly were talking in low voices.

“Ah, Harry,” Marcel said, straightening and clearing his throat nervously.

“I’d like you to meet Carly. Carly is my girlfriend of approximately three weeks. And those have been the happiest three weeks of my life, given how she fills every minute with her beauty and wit and companionship.”

I stared while Zayn hid a smile in my shoulder.

“And Carly, this is one of the men of the hour, my brother, Harry. You know Zayn, of course. This great event that we are now attending had its roots in the night Harry declared for all the world, including major media publications like Vanity Fair, that he was in love with Zayn. Really made for quite a memorable evening.”