Maybe
There is a moment when Jamie looks at Mina and thinks maybe. Her hair is almost golden in the summer sun, and he likes the way she laughs. But then he turns six, and suddenly realises that Mina is a girl and girls are icky.
Twenty years later, they're still best friends. He, Mako and Mina go out for dinner in some new chic restaurant down-town (the girls read about it in the paper, and he's too tired to insist on going to the pub), and halfway through the second course, Makoto gives Mina a shrewd look and says: "Nice ring you got there."
James (no longer Jamie, thank you very much) cranes his head over the table, and indeed, there is a ring on Minako's slender finger. When is there ever not, he thinks, and returns his attention to the plate of soup in front of him. Minako says nothing, he continues eating, and Makoto grins. It's only by the time they order dessert that James has enough. "What is it with you two tonight?"
Makoto takes a sip of her white wine, and rearranges her face until it's smooth and gives nothing away. Up until then, she looked like the cat that got the canary. On a silver plate. "I'm just admiring Mina's diamond ring."
James – who knows where this is heading – puts up his hands in a placating gesture. "Do you want me to tell Noah to get you one, too?" Mako grins. "No, thanks. I'm good." Mina giggles, and sounds girly. Frowning, James orders another Long Island Ice Tea, and wine for the girls. There's something he's not seeing, the bigger picture, and he hates it when that happens. He looks at his best friend, and she's grinning and chewing her bottom lip. Back in kindergarten, that meant that she had done something that would make him angry, but that she really enjoyed, like using pink marker to colour his He-Man action figure's hair. The other shoe drops, and two identical angry red spots appear high on his cheeks.
"The fucker asked you to marry him, didn't he?"
Mako tsks, Mina nods, and James gets up and leaves.
She calls him two days later. He doesn't pick up the phone. So she reverts to her old tricks, waits until it's Saturday evening and he's watching the sports report on the news, and arrives just in time to slip in with the pizza he ordered. The delivery guy snickers and sneaks a glance at her behind as she weasels her way past himself, the pizza, James, and through the open door. James doesn't tip, and slams the door in the delivery guy's face.
"You have to do better than that," she says and plonks down on his couch. Her hair isn't tied back, and he knows that after she leaves, the whole couch while be covered in long blonde strands. It's like having a cat, he thinks, and flips the pizza box open, effectively hiding her from view.
"James."
There is a whine in her voice, and he tosses the box on the coffee table in front of the couch. He knows that she won't let him watch sports now.
"You're my best friend," she cajoles, and reaches for his hand. He feels like he's six years old again, and pulls it back. The kindness disappears out of her eyes, and he can feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Uh oh. She's small, but boy, she's vicious. Always has been.
"You get to not like him, and you get to not be happy about the wedding, but at least have the commonplace decency to tell me why." Stone in her voice. He rolls his eyes (priding him on what a brave man he is at the same time) and starts. No anaesthesia.
"He doesn't make you laugh."
She fires back without pause. "Only when you're around because the two of you are so engaged in your giant pissing contest that cracking jokes is more or less impossible."
James pulls the pillow out from under her and finally sits down beside her, the conquered pillow on his stomach. She got him that atrocious thing years ago. It's an impossible shade of green, and three seconds after unwrapping it, he had looked at her and asked her whatever she got him a puke pillow for. Unfortunately, it's really comfy, so he never threw it away. She makes an attempt to steal the pillow back, but the swats at her hands until she gives up. Their eyes meet, two almost identical shades of blue.
"You like stupid TV shows, he doesn't."
"How would you know what he likes to watch on the telly?"
Undeterred, James continues. "And you love going to the cinema, and all he ever waxes on about is the opera. And you famously called opera 'the safe haven for fat people with high voices' once. Don't deny it because I can call in witnesses." They laugh together, and both remember the class trip he's referring to. Their music teacher almost had a coronary when Mina made her opinions known to both the class and the opera's manger who had come in to talk to them about the beauty of music. After a while, she collects herself again and props her feet on the coffee table, right next to his pizza. "I can go to the cinema with you. And I can sleep in the opera." James uses his own feet to kick hers off the table.
"You hate his parents. And they abhor you, which means not liking you is in his genes, and that means you'll get divorced at some point, and if you have children, then they won't like you either, so how about you just sit this one out, okay?"
Her face sobers up then, all traces of humour and anger gone. Damn, that wasn't his intention. He hates it when she goes quiet like this. Experience has taught him that she's seconds from crying. Her big blue eyes are already quivering, and that's just no good.
"I'm pretty sure his penis is bigger then mine!" he bursts out, and blushes. A second later, he has regained his footing, and she is smiling again. Thank God. "And mine is fucking huge already, so I'm worried about you getting...hurt," he finishes and tries to keep the image of his naked best friend firmly out of his mind. It doesn't exactly help that they used to go skinny dipping in the lake near his parents' cottage every summer.
"I can take care of myself."
"You do realise that sounds dirty in this context, right?"
She grins. "Everything sounds dirty to you." James nods. The woman has a point.
They continue the conversation a few weeks later when she's trying on yet another 30.000₤ wedding dress that looks like a deformed lump of whipped cream.
"Tell me again why I'm here, suffering through this, when he's the one you're getting married to?"
"Because he can't see me in the dress, it's bad luck," she answers impatiently and tries to turn on the small stool she's standing so that she can see the back of the dress.
"If you're interested in a honest opinion: yes, it does make your bum look big."
Mina balls her hands into fists and looks for something she can throw at his head. But everything in her immediate vicinity costs more than her car, so she settles on glaring at him. "Talking about honest opinions..."
He knows what she's after, decides to be helpful and puts his blackberry back in his pockets. "He's a banker."
"So are you."
"Accidentally," James says, and runs a hand through his curls. He always wanted to be a clown, but the circus smells. Finance was the next best thing.
She looks in the mirror. "Does this dress make my bum look big?"
"Woman, do you ever listen to me?"
"Sometimes," and annoyingly, that's the truth. He weighs his next words with his care, and hopes that she won't descend on him in the wrath of all the world's scorned brides. She already looks the part, what with her unhappy expression and the unfortunate dress. "His idea of a proposal is putting the box on the kitchen counter without opening it, and saying 'I've been thinking about this for a while, so should you,' only to go on a business trip to Shanghai before you even had the chance to say no. Or yes."
"It wasn't as unromantic as you make it sound."
"Yes, it was."
"And how would propose to a girl? Down on your knees, rose petals on the floor and Bon Jovi in the background?"
"My name isn't Noah, thank you very much." She laughs then, and he grins. The next dress makes her look like a ghost, he says as much and she throws her purse at him.
"If he cheats on you, I can't punch him in the face because he's my boss and he'd fire me in an instant." James shoves his hands into his pockets, and adds (not unimpressed): "Smooth bastard."
Mina stops playing with her hair. "That's a good point."
He remembers introducing them to each other, accidentally, on his firm's Christmas party two years ago. He and Rei had just broken up (again), and he wasn't going to go to the party alone and have her gloat all over his misery. So he'd asked Mina, who just moved back to the city, bought his friend the sluttiest and most expensive dress he could find (he could still imagine her cooing 'oooooh, Cavalli'). For once Rei's commitment and daddy issues worked to his advantage, she'd never met his best friend because she only ever wanted to fuck and leave him anyway. Ten minutes into the party, Carter had his eyes on her. Twenty minutes later, Mina was nowhere to be seen and Rei sported a very happy expression. Then again, the evening had ended with him and Rei going at it like teenagers in the cloakroom, so the memory wasn't all bad.
He just returned from a three day business trip with Carter of all people, and no, they really don't get along. James – social by nature – even offered to buy a round of drinks in the hotel bar, but Carter had given him a long look and a semi-polite apology (pledging early mornings and some other crap) and gone up to his room. Tosser.
Standing in his messy flat, he notices the small bottle of nail polish on the kitchen counter, and knows that Mina was here during his absence. He walks around his flat, and finds more pieces of evidence: a bundle of wet blond hair in the shower drain, a romance novel on his night-stand, his favourite West Ham jersey in a ball on the floor (smelling of vanilla deodorant of all things), and of course, a completely empty fridge. Her number is on speed dial.
"You could have at least bought new food," he spits into the phone.
"I'm kind of busy now, let me call you back later."
"Come and bring me food, I'm hungry." It's then that he hears a man's laugh in the background, and presses his eyes shut. "Tell me you didn't pick up the phone during welcome home sex with my boss."
She laughs, and the line goes dead.
It's one of those glorious lazy Sundays, and James is the happiest person in the world. There is a storm outside, and his bed is warm. Rain is hitting the roof, the window, the world, but not him, oh no, not him. He isn't hungry, he doesn't have to take a leak, he can just sleep to his heart's content, occasionally waking up, smiling, and diving back into sweet slumber.
"James."
He so regrets giving her a key. He decides to ignore her, and snuggles deeper into his blankets.
"James."
She doesn't say his name a third time, which is good, he thinks. Then the bed dips, and something cold and wet slides under his warm, perfect blankets.
"Am I making a mistake?"
"Fuck off," he mumbles and tries to push her off the bed. She saves herself by holding onto his arms, and after a minute or two of wrestling, he falls asleep and she gives up.
"You're going to be best man," she announces over coffee a week later, and her eyes are twinkling. He takes his sunglasses off and unceremoniously shoves them on her face. It's a glorious autumn day, cool air and warm sunshine. "I don't think so."
The corners of her mouth fall downwards, but he can't see her big blue wobbly eyes, so he's good.
Five minutes until it's the weekend, James thinks with glee, and starts to get ready to leave. A knock at the office door interrupts him, and when he looks up, his eyes meet Carter's. Well, fuck.
Mina's flat is even messier than his own. There are clothes everywhere, and he makes a note to give her a laundry basket for Christmas. Only that she and Carter will already be married by then and probably live in his house. Jason is sure that Carter already owns (and uses) a laundry basket. There goes his idea for the perfect present, he thinks, and is pissed off.
Mina is in the bathroom, singing along to some music he can barely make out over the sound of the shower. So James does what good manners and being hungry dictate: he raids her fridge and begins to make dinner.
"Kiss the girl, lalala, sing with me, come on, my oh my, come on and kiss the girl!" He pauses over the onions.
"You're not singing along to Disney," he hollers in the direction of the bathroom, and resumes cutting. He holds his breath because Mina once told him that it would keep his eyes from watering (not that it has ever worked). She appears in her kitchen a few minutes later, dressed in garish pink Hello Kitty pyjamas even though it's only seven in the evening. He eyes her, and smiles. "You're such a girl."
Her face doesn't change, she doesn't come up to greet him, and she doesn't say a word. So he has to do the talking, but that's something James has always been okay with. He likes to talk.
"I had an interesting visit in my office just before leaving today," he says and puts a pan on the stove. It's an old pan, and everything you make sticks in it, but she doesn't have another one. Ha, he thinks, Christmas present found. "It was Carter." Mina inches closer, and crosses her arms in front of her chest. There may be a question in her eyes, but James doesn't really look. Instead, he simply continues, voice even. "So apparently, I'll be your best man." She shuffles her feet (he notices that she wears the most garish orange nail polish, and shakes his head), and closes the distance between them. There's a hug, and then she smiles. "Did he scare you?"
James laughs. "Hell, yeah."
The wedding is huge. Mina's family is loud and happy, Carter's family looks like a set of matching statues in floral dresses and three piece suits. James notes with surprise that he's the only one from the office. Huh. He didn't expect that. He also didn't expect Noah to be Carter's best man, and throws his mate a dirty look. He mouths traitor, and Noah's boisterous laugh echoes through the church. On the bench next to Mina's parents, Mako almost has a heart attack and throws her husband a look so dark that he blushes and looks at his feet for the rest of the service. Carter looks just like his family, tall and proud and haughty, but James can see that he's folding and unfolding his hands behind his back every other second.
Then the priest appears, the organ starts playing, and Mina walks down the aisle. James thinks she looks like Barbie, but also sort of pretty. Carter stops fidgeting, and for the first time in their acquaintance, looks like an actual human being.
Hours later, bride and groom dance together for the first time, and he can see Carter whisper something in Mina's ear, and she laughs, and James looks at them, smiles and thinks: maybe.
The End