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Taking a breath, I force a smile on my face and pretend to be tugged onto the makeshift dance floor by the youngest Moore sibling.
* * *
Thomas
‘I can’t believe you’re going to have a black eye at my wedding.’
My brother, laying on his back on the hotel suite’s sofa, laughs while scrolling on his phone. He’s been laughing on and off since we left my suite for his.
I school my expression under my newly made ice pack, which is more about trying not to aggravate my grossly swollen eye than maintaining indifference. ‘I’m so glad you’re amused.’
‘Sarcasm, T-money?’ He smirks at me. ‘I thought that was beneath you?’
If looks could kill, I’d be wearing my custom-tailored tuxedo to his funeral tomorrow and not his wedding.
From the adjacent love seat, I stare longingly at the bar where my dark amber Pappy Van Winkle, a twenty-year old sipping Scotch, that I had brought with me sits, feeling like a starving man denied entrance at a buffet.
‘Alice said no drinking.’ He doesn’t look up from his phone.
My one good eye narrows on him. ‘Since when do you listen to an employee over your brother?’
The look he throws me rivaling even my best sneer. ‘Since when are you such a dick about calling my friends employees when they’re here as guests at my wedding?’
The barb hits. ‘Hmmm.’
I drum my fingers on the arm of the love seat wondering how to explain that my repeatedly calling Alice an employee is more for me than any sense of archaic class distinction some might have. Out of everyone, I’m the one who needs the reminder. I was called ‘my father’s son’ too often growing up not be acutely aware of how my actions are constantly compared to our lecherous paternal figure.
‘Damn it.’ Chase scowls at the phone screen, held up over his head.
‘What?’
‘George just posted a picture of Mike licking whip cream off a Blow Job shot.’ He closes his eyes and sighs. ‘The plane ride here was bad enough. I don’t need Mikey having stomach distress during the wedding ceremony tomorrow too.’
Apparently his cat, on top of being an everyday unattractive nuisance, is a nervous traveler. Aka a veritable stink bomb. When Chase retold his coach flight experience it was the only time I felt a flicker of happiness over having to reschedule our flight after the TSA inquisition.
‘Why is the cat still in my room, anyway? Wasn’t the whole purpose of moving the party to my room to keep Mike here, away from sex toy temptation?’
His phone screen tapping turns aggressive. ‘What was I supposed to do when he hid under your bed when the hotel staff unloaded the food? If we’d stayed any longer we would’ve risked blowing our cover.’
Condensation drips onto my dark green sweater. ‘You shouldn’t have brought him there to begin with.’
Chase spares me a narrowed look before shrugging. ‘He gets separation anxiety. He’s fine at home, but God knows what he’d do to the hotel room if I’d left him there alone.’
I’ve never been one for modern day colloquialisms, but the phrase ‘I can’t even’ comes to mind.
More condensation droplets fall and the ice shifts under my palm, pain ricocheting around my orbital bone. After getting a look at my eye in the mirror earlier, I’d hoped that if I kept icing it, the swelling would go down. That doesn’t seem to be the case.
Which means besides appearing uncouth for my brother’s wedding, my ability to use my vintage Leica camera will be greatly hindered if I can’t squint my left eye to make sure the aperture is in focus. I fight a shudder thinking and quickly dismissing having make do with my phone’s camera.
My eye flicks to the whiskey bottle again. Seeing what the Leica’s aspherical lens could do with the high-contrast environment of Las Vegas’ neon-lit nights was going to be the one bright spot about this trip. You know, besides my brother’s matrimonial happiness. I was going to take the free day I added to everyone’s schedule after the wedding to treat myself to an all-day photo shoot while the rest of the wedding party did whatever ill-gotten things they wanted.
‘Holy shit.’ Chase levers into a seated position, eyes on his screen. ‘Liz is there.’
At the mention of our sister who’s been MIA for months following the aftermath of our father’s legal and family downfall, I lower my ice pack. ‘What do you mean, “there”?’
Chase stands, leaning over to show me a picture of Liz, Alice, and Leslie with their arms wrapped around each other. The caption reads, ‘All bridesmaids in attendance’.
My eyes linger too long on Alice, wondering why her smile doesn’t seem to meet her eyes.
