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I shrugged my shoulders. “It was alright.”
If her hair wasn’t already gunmetal gray, dealing with me would have turned those strands the color of ash. “I am in no mood. Are you proud of yourself? Hm? You two have held up the ceremony. We are officially behind schedule.”
“Sounds like we’ll have to save the lecture for another time, then.” I maneuvered past her, smiling to myself because I’d been in tense business dealings enough times to know what it felt like when someone was throwing darts at your back with their eyes. Darts dipped in the kind of poison that resulted in a slow, agonizing death. If tech giants with actual clout couldn’t do me in, I had no worries about a wedding planner, no matter how prolific she was.
I reached the staging area, and Jessie’s right hand woman sighed with relief when her squirrely eyes landed on me. Her jet black hair defied the rules of gravity. The beehive even perked a few inches, then turned to stone as she waved at me wildly.
“Mr. Cox!” She beckoned for me to get in place. “Thank GOD! Now we can start the processional.”
From the ripple of heads that turned my way, male gazes giving me a high five and female ones running the gamut from envy to disgust, I figured Scarlet had either sent out a group text that we’d just banged or her fake moans had drifted up from downstairs.
Confirming the obvious, Scarlet stepped into view, still fixing her dress, her cheeks still flushed and wild from our romp. She licked her lips when her dizzy blue eyes met mine, biting the bottom one suggestively.
My gut twisted as I kicked myself for not waiting until after the reception, because the sooner I could forget about my lack in judgment and fifteen minutes I’d never get back, the better.
I pivoted to the front with military-like precision, offering her my arm and nothing more. She snuggled up close like we were the prom king and queen, about to step up to some tacky flower arrangement and pedestal, grinning for our yearbook photo.
“Maybe we could go for round two after the reception.”
“Maybe,” I lied, keeping my eyes on the wooden double doors.
The music pulled us down the aisle. I was the best man and while I thought Scott was making a colossal mistake, I scrubbed my face of everything but support. It helped that I’d been nursing my flask since this morning. I needed more than booze to get through the ceremony without objecting, though. I needed whatever he was drinking, which I was sure was liquid denial.
Scott and I had become instant friends at a computer programming mixer our freshman year of college. While the other Silicon Valley bound dudes, unaccustomed to dealing with cute girls in real time, practically jumped out of their skin at a mere smile, me and Scott picked up the slack. We did the approaching, dancing and flirting and making a reputation that followed us until graduation.
From the nerds, to the jocks, to the frat guys, our dorm became the place to be if you were looking for a good time. Hangovers and hook ups and keggers became a thing of legend. ‘Dating’ was a bad word. ‘Commitment’? Sacrilegious.
And then he had to go and fall for the bossy class president who convinced him that maybe he was interested in that white picket fence nonsense after all, despite the fact that we knew better.
He’d spent his childhood raised by nannies, shuttled between parents who used him like a chess piece in their eternal war. I’d been lucky enough to grow up in a two parent household, filled with daily arguments over everything from what was for breakfast to who Jason loved the most. They stayed together for me, a dumb decision they shared when they announced they were getting a divorce...at my high school graduation party.
Love was for idiots. For those who weren’t smart or savvy enough to know the odds of success were not in your favor. I was a lot of things—an idiot was not one of them. Though I was starting to wonder if I wasn’t a little foolish for agreeing to attend when Scott’s soon-to-be wife started in on her sappy vows.
“Scottie,” Denise grinned, flashing every bleached white tooth in her mouth. Smiling like she’d won the lottery (which considering as my partner in Cox Technologies Scott’s net worth was nearly toe to toe with mine, she had). “I know we’ve had bumps in the road-”
My eyes flew to my friend and I saw Scott’s jaw twitch. It took everything in me not to clear my throat or shout ‘Amen!’. Was she talking about the time that she threw a vase at his head after a trip to Vegas? When I slept with a trio of Cirque de Soleil body contortionists while he conked out, being faithful to his crazy, possessive girlfriend? His fidelity didn’t matter because the fact that any women had been present at all had been cause for a meltdown.
Or maybe she was referring to a recent bump? The bump that her wedding gown was strategically hiding? Like she’d hid the fact from Scott that she’d stopped taking her birth control?
“-but I knew you were the one.” She artfully sniffled and the sound rippled across the crowd behind us. I cast a disgusted look at the lot of them. No way they were buying this high school production of ‘Future Ex Wife Gets Her First Marriage Out Of The Way’ bullshit, right? But a couple of them were fanning their eyes. Didn’t want to ruin their makeup.
Then my eyes hit a wall. It was like I was looking into a mirror. Taking on a similar look of wariness at all the lovey dovey crap that was suffocating the room. Hallmark inspired tear gas that everyone else was oblivious to, except for us. We were choking on it.
The woman’s evergreen eyes were tinged with incredulity.
But not just any woman.
Her.
The woman whose name I’d forgot.
Her lips fell open and her eyes turned to hardened jewels as she mouthed something under her breath and pointedly turned her gaze to other things.
Still pissed at me, gorgeous?
I was suddenly tuned into her, and her alone. The only woman in the room who wasn’t teary eyed, thinking of a cutesy hashtag for later. The only woman who wasn’t eating up this crap with a spoon, envisioning her very own fairytale wedding.
Well, Scarlet wasn’t interested in fairytales much either. The vibes that were coming off her told me she was in XXX territory, her lust so palpable that every other groomsmen looked up to the task if I wasn’t.
