Wet (33 page)

“Yeah, very cool. I looked it up the other day. It was built in the twenties as a social and philanthropic club. The architectural style is impressive.”

“And I’m finally free to enjoy it with you,” she says.

“So what were you girls doing all that time?”

“Oh you know girls, we like to make a big production of these things. We fawned over her make-up and hair, and helped her get dressed. We may have had some champagne.”

I smile at her. “You seem a little buzzed.”

“It was Cristal.”

“Fancy.”

She steps closer to me and pulls at my lapels. “So are you going to dance with me later?”

“I’ll dance with you now.” Grasping her hand, I lift it up and guide her so that she slowly twirls full circle.

“Ooo,” she gasps as I pull her back into my arms.

“Where did you learn that?”

“Ma. She told us that all young men should know how to dance. She taught Patrick, too.”

She presses her hand to her cheek. “That’s so sweet.”

“She intended to raise fine gentlemen.”

“Well I think she succeeded.”

While being serenaded by the faint melody from the ballroom next door, I take Elle for several spins around the room. We move smoothly together like we were meant to be in each other’s arms and dance. I don’t say anything as I look at her, but something about being here with her to watch two people get married makes me want to tell her everything. I want her to understand how she’s turned my life right-side up, and how I’ve never been happier than when I’m with her.

Maybe tonight she’ll agree to more with me and we could finally start writing our own dramatic romance novel. Our prologue would be part comedy, part tragedy, crossed-wires, friends to lovers, and everything in-between. I’m sure the main part of the book will be full of steamy erotica and obsessive devotion. Finally, I’ll make sure we finish our novel our way, with a happily ever after.

When the music fades we wander back into the smaller room that is set up for the ceremony with large overflowing flower arrangements and ornate candelabras. This shindig is fancy as all hell. People are starting to take their seats so we do the same. When the minister, groom, and best man file in I get a firm elbow in the side.

Elle didn’t need to alert me. She should’ve figured out by now that meeting her ex was near the top of my list for reasons to come to this wedding. I’m disappointed as I study him and realize there isn’t a whole hell of a lot to make fun of with the man I’ve been calling an idiot. He’s good looking and has that confident air.
What an asshole for being more impressive than I’d been counting on.

I mean come on, universe, give me something to work with here: ears that stick out, acne scars, a soft jawline, or at the very least he could be bowlegged. But no. I’ve got nothing but Mr. Tall, Dark, and
look at me, I’m handsome.

I glance over at Elle as she watches him with narrow eyes while pretending not to. When his gaze starts to scan the seated guests she turns toward me and takes my hand.

“That’s him, right?” I whisper.

She nods. It bothers me that she looks nervous. Where’s the pissed off Elle who never said anything nice about the guy?

I give her a smile and squeeze her hand. “You okay?”

She shrugs. “This is really awkward for me. I may be drinking a lot later.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Can you imagine if you hadn’t come with me? I’d be a wreck.”

My eyes grow wide. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

The ceremony is okay if you don’t mind a bride that looks more like a Vegas showgirl. Her dress has so much sparkly shit on it that she’s blinding as she wades through the rose petals littering the aisle. I’m half expecting her to slip and land on her ass, but her dad is holding onto her tight. I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing.

Meanwhile I’m willing to bet money that the bride’s tits are going to make an appearance. The sparkly dress probably weighs so much with all that fancy crap on it that it can’t help but droop down bit by bit with each step until the girls are almost clear to break free.

Good thing Ma isn’t here as she went off at my cousin’s weddings about her sagging dress. I overheard her drilling into my sister that there’s a reason for straps on bras. Have wedding dress designers lost sight of that?

Meanwhile the groom looks scared out of his mind. Well I would too between my bride’s tits about to flash our entire posse, and being bedazzled by her damn dress. This is no way to start a marriage.

Like church services, I pretty much tune out the vows. Instead I watch Elle as she listens. The way she reacts to everything is fascinating, her expression shifting one moment to the next from sad to happy, and inspired to confused. I guess girls really pay attention to this stuff.

After the kiss, which goes on so long there are cat-calls and whistles, the happy couple leaves the room and we file out behind them for cocktails and hor d’oeuvres on the patio. I’ve just stuffed an oversized meatball in my mouth when Dashing Daniel, the ex, and his poor replacement for Elle, step up to us. I decide to refer to him from now on as DD. His woman looks like she’d rather be at the bar getting a lemon to suck on.

“Elle,” DD says with a fake smile.

Elle lifts her hand and gives him a little feeble wave. “Hi, Daniel.”

I can’t help but be irritated.
Come on, Elle! For fucks sake,
y
ou can do better than that.

“I’d like you to meet Veronica.” The woman with the tight smile nods her head and gives Elle the once over. All I can think of is that she reminds me of the Veronica in the Archie Comics that my sister used to read.

“Nice to meet you,” Elle says with a false sincerity. I suspect that she’d secretly like to push the sour-faced bitch who just hooked her arm through DD’s into the fountain right behind them.

Dashing Daniel holds out his hand to shake mine. “And you are?”

“Paul McNeill, Elle’s boyfriend.” I shake his hand firmly—really firmly.

I don’t even need to turn to Elle, I can feel the delight come off her in waves. She loops her arm through mine. “Paul’s a landscape architect,” she states proudly.

Yup.
Sprinkler man has left the building for good.

DD pulls a card out of his tuxedo pocket and hands it to me. “Excellent. I do property development and I have a project coming up that may interest you.”

Veronica nods her head and her helmet hair nods with it. “Sycamore Falls?” she asks. DD nods briskly.

What an ass. Who brings business cards to a wedding?
I take the card, smile and nod too. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

Just when I’m at a loss what to say next, another douchebag guy interrupts us to tell DD that there’s someone he wants him to meet. They excuse themselves and move across the courtyard.

Elle let’s out a deep breath and pulls her arm out of mine. “Thank you,” she says.

“For what?”

“All of it. Saying you’re my boyfriend. Being gorgeous and classy. Not saying what I know you wanted to.”

“Yeah, and what’s that?”

“I’m guessing that the word
idiot
would be involved.”

I grin at her. “You know me so well.”

I notice she’s chewing on her thumbnail.

“So do you think she’s pretty?” she asks in a soft voice.

“Veronica?”

She nods. For some reason Elle looks a little insecure.

“She’s all right I guess, if you like the pinched face look.”

Elle lets out such a loud guffaw that some wine splashes out of her glass. Luckily I dodge the wave of cabernet.

Pleased to see her enjoy my response, I share my other reference for her ex’s girlfriend. “You know, when I was young and got bored I used to read my sister’s Archie Comics, about that group of kids in high school. I thought Veronica was an uptight bitch. I’d pretty much say the same about this Veronica.”

“Archie Comics! I read those,” Elle exclaims.

“Betty was the one I liked. She was a cutie and kind of sexy. Fourteen-year- old me imagined pulling on her pigtails while I screwed her.”

“Naughty boy,” Elle says finishing off the wine she didn’t spill. “I bet Betty gave good head too.”

When I laugh it’s my turn to spill my wine, but alas my glass is empty. “Damn, Elle, you and your filthy mouth! And meanwhile Veronica was hanging with that rich gay dude . . . was it Reggie? Well honestly, he reminds me of a teenage version of your ex.”

“Me too! And not just in looks! Truthfully I’d screw Archie, or even Jughead before I’d do Reggie, knowing what I know now.”

I tip my head at her. “You’d do Jughead? The dude that wore a crown?”

She giggles. “On second thought, maybe not.”

A waiter comes by, and after taking our glasses he gives us fresh ones. I raise my glass to her. “Here’s to more laughs and spills tonight.”

She lifts hers. “Here, here.”

“I’ve got to say, I thought it was tacky when your ex gave me his business card. Is he always like that?”

“Always working? I bet you thought I was exaggerating. Well, I promise you, I wasn’t.”

“Wow. That sucks.”

She nods. “It does. I did’t care how much money he was making. I mean I work hard, but I want to have fun, too. Otherwise what’s the point?”

“Exactly.”

“You know that’s how I ended up with the house. He got it cheap because it needed a ton of repairs. He lied to the old lady who sold it to him and said he’d move his “family” in when all along he planned to tear it down and build a McMansion. When the neighbors found out about it they fought him hard with the city council.”

“Good for them,” I say. “Those kind of developers are despicable.”

“Yeah . . . and he doesn’t know that I gave them ammunition to fight him. I love that house and I hated what he did to that sweet old lady. Eventually he gave up fighting them and let me have the house in the divorce instead of a bigger chunk of his money.”

“So you won and the neighborhood won, too.”

She nods. “And the best part is the neighbors all love me for it.”

“You’re a clever woman, Ms. Elle Jacoby.”

She stands up straighter and her smile lights up the courtyard. “Thank you.”

Elle looks off to the far side of the gathering, apparently making sure her ex isn’t close by. “So Stella’s fiancé, I mean husband, told her that Daniel and Veronica met at work.”

“Really? DD and Pinchy?”

She blinks at me rapidly. “Excuse me?”

“Those are my new nicknames for them.”

I love watching her laugh as I explain the references. This time it takes her almost a minute to recover.

She presses her hand over her stomach after she’s caught her breath. “Pinchy evidently is a mortgage broker.”

I nod. “She looks like one.”

She steps close to me and kisses me on the cheek while squeezing my shoulder. “I can’t believe you! I was dreading tonight and I’m having the best time.”

“I told you I loved weddings. The material to work with is endless.”

So whomever is paying for this shindig is loaded. Dinner is big portions of steak and lobster. I pity the pale-faced vegetarian girl sitting across from me with her tragic steaming plate of vegetables. This is probably the best wedding food I’ve ever had. The wine is also flowing freely so we’re feeling no pain.

Elle was nervous about giving her speech but she does a super job, telling cute, single-girl stories from her and Stella’s party years that segue to her being overjoyed that Stella has found her prince. She looks relieved when she sits back down at our table.

I lean in close to her. “You did great!”

She glances over at me with big eyes. “You really think so? You aren’t just saying that?” she whispers.

“I swear. And may I also say that you are by far the prettiest girl here.”

She turns to look at me and studies me silently with her lips pressed together and her eyebrows scrunched.
Why is she suddenly so serious?

“What?” I ask.

“I don’t know. You’re different tonight. What’s up?”

That damn girl-radar.
She’s onto me. I stumble to recover. I don’t want to give up my game just yet.

“Nothing’s up. I’m just having fun. This is a great wedding!” I give her a goofy grin, and after watching me for another long second she takes a sip of wine and settles back in her chair.

Pinchy comes over to our table to say something to the woman sitting directly across from us. The woman nods and Pinchy heads back to the wedding party’s table.

“I wonder if she’s really smart,” Elle says with a pensive look on her face.

“Why do you care?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Oh, I don’t really, but Daniel always made me feel like I didn’t work hard and that I wasn’t smart enough.”

“You?” I ask, not hiding my disbelief at the dickwad’s gall.

She drinks more wine and I’m worried we’re about to head down emo road. When she isn’t looking I move her glass over behind mine.

“He also thought something was wrong with me because I liked sex so much.”

“Well, I think something was wrong with him because he didn’t,” I reply.

“He implied once it was low class.”

“Chalk up number forty-seven on the idiot tally.”

“The final straw was that he kept putting off having kids even though he understood how much I wanted them. He knew about my insecurities from my childhood, and told me he didn’t think I could handle a baby.”

My fingers curl into fists and I feel my pulse pounding in my forehead.

She looks over at me with an alarmed expression. “What, Paul?”

“You need to stop, okay? Because right now I’m amped up enough to beat the shit out of him and then he won’t be Dashing Daniel anymore unless he has deep pockets for plastic surgery.”

She gasps and shakes her head.

Resting my hands on her shoulders, I rub my thumbs over her soft skin. “Please change the subject, okay?”

She blinks rapidly and then her eyes dart around nervously before she leans into me. “I’ve got it. Did you hear what outrageous thing the Bruins did to the Tommy Trojan sculpture yesterday?”

I grin and gesture for her to bring it on.