Lost Angeles

by Mantchev, Lisa

  Hair like sunshine, mouth like a UV bullet.

  Well, if there’s anything that Taylor chick taught the world, it’s that break-ups make great fodder for lyrics. “In Your Light” will hit the charts because of the wedding, and whatever I write next will take over the bestseller reign, because if there’s anything the music-buying public loves more than a love song, it’s the angsty, heartbroken, morning-after shit.

  Which is not going to be a problem.

  I can’t help but replay the entire thing in my head as Noah mutters something about thousands of retweets and tries to change the notification settings on his iPhone. With only a few small things to be thankful for right now, I’m glad I didn’t get all pleading and needy. I didn’t tell her that I loved her or that I meant every word of the vows we’d exchanged. Until death do us part has a different meaning for me than it does for her.

  Or it does this morning, anyway. I’m not sure that in the moment that Lore was giving it all that much thought.

  “Come on, dude, we’re here.” Noah bails out of the car and into the shadowed corridor built especially for vampire access. The interior is dimly lit, the booths are private, and the wait staff fades into the shadows so well that shit keeps showing up like magic. In short order, Noah is digging into gluten-free vegan waffles. I have an armful of warm-and-willing, and all that’s left for me to do is sink my fangs into something new to wash the taste of something old out of my mouth.

  Except I don’t want to. It’s too personal. Too much. A bag is one thing, but putting my fangs into this girl would be the same as having sex with her, which I don’t want right now, either. And suddenly, I get it. All those months I spent telling Reille that these anonymous girls were just food, that it was nothing personal, that it didn’t matter.

  It did matter.

  I was just using it as a convenient excuse, as one more reason to distance myself from a woman who fucked so right but felt all wrong. It was one more thing driving the wedge between us.

  And I’m not even sorry.

  But I will be, if I start off my honeymoon sucking blood from a big-breasted broad in an upscale Vegas restaurant. The girl’s squirming around, trying to get me hard, trying to rev me up, but I just want to dump her in a heap on the floor and head back to the car.

  To the hotel.

  To the suite.

  To Lore.

  I can’t, though. Can’t go back there and grovel. Can’t ask for all the things I need that I didn’t need before she made me need them. This is where I see her resemblance to Cas, clear as day. The cold. The determination. The willingness to tear everything down to nothing, all because she’s afraid of this.

  Of me.

  “Get out of here,” I tell the Daily Special, slapping her on the ass when she hesitates. “Changed my mind. Squeeze it into a cup for me so I’m not cheating on the little woman.”

  She opens her mouth to protest, but Noah glances up from his breakfast, fork and knife in hand, and puts in a quiet “just go” that convinces her. A cup of warm red appears at the table a few minutes later. I drink it, but don’t taste it. Ditto on the refill.

  “Let me guess,” Noah says, leaning back against the leather and finally taking his sunglasses off. “Lore’s having buyer’s remorse this morning.”

  “Liquid Courage only takes you so far, right?” I let my head fall back until I’m staring at the upholstered ceiling. “So who is she, man? The one who sent you running scared?”

  He pauses with a mouthful of not-waffle puffing out his cheek. “No one.” Then he swallows and amends that to, “No one you know, I mean.”

  “I know everyone there is to know.”

  Noah snorts at that. “Not this one, you don’t.”

  “You’re slumming it with a C-list celebrity?” It would be mind-boggling, if I actually gave a crap.

  Scowling, Noah grabs a butter dish and slathers whipped gold all over his breakfast like saturated fat’s back in style. “These things taste like shit. Also, if you keep asking me questions, I am going to pay you back in full for the busted nose.”

  “Whatever.” I’m only half-listening as I get my phone out. The glare is like sticking a steak knife into my eye sockets, but Steve gets the first text.

  #

  Clear all the clothes out of the suite and replace everything with new couture for the event tonight. Make everything white.

  #

  I follow that up with messages to the PR people back at Apocalypse, telling them to roll out the official press statement to all the media outlets. I want phrases like “madly in love” and “soulmates” and “already planning on adopting a baby from China” splashed on every news station on the planet.

  One of everything.

  I fall back on that motto, hard. Every text I tap out punishes her for punishing me. Punishes myself for falling for her. Reminds me of everything I don’t deserve and never should have tried to take. Here I am, flailing at the world again, because when all else fails—

  Go big, then go home.

  “Hey, Carmichael, did you know that you can rent an LED-lit glass carriage for special events?” It’s reserved before I can think twice about what a twat I am going to look like.

  “Nice,” he says with a snort. “And I thought it couldn’t get any tackier than a stripper bus.”

  That gives me pause. “Damn it.”

  “Seriously, no, Xaine. You cannot take your new wife to an industry party in a stripper bus.”

  “Well, I can’t now. I already paid for the pumpkin coach and footmen. And extra for the horses to be white.”

  Another text, this time to the event coordinator, asking for the red carpet canopy to be decorated like a goddamn Disney movie. I want the entire cast of Cirque du Soleil out there, dressed like singing mice or whatever. We need to celebrate the Wedding That Never Was, fairy princess-style. Champagne and caviar and black tie and a billion dollars’ worth of pink diamonds.

  “In Your Light” is going to be our first dance, and our last.

  “I need a tux,” I announce abruptly, sliding out of the booth and heading for the door. I have enough food in me now that everything makes sense. Everything’s come into focus, crystal-clear and sharp as hell at the edges. Every second I have left with Lore, I’m going to cram in something ridiculous and embarrassing and impossible. A lifetime’s worth of memories bookended by our wedding and that annulment that she wants.

  Then, when she takes her pink luggage and bounces, I’ll know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’ll remember tonight for the rest of her stupid, human life.

  Reality will be the pale imitation of all this.

  And maybe someday she’ll realize she wanted to live in Technicolor.

  “Come on, asshole,” I bark at Noah, “you’re best man until the fat lady sings, or something.”

  I don’t know what’s going back in the suite, and frankly, I don’t care. By the time I’m kitted out in a velvet tux the likes of which no one has ever laid eyes on—and probably shouldn’t ever again—I’ve used up all my goodwill and patience on the never-ending stream of texts, emails, and phone calls I’ve had to field. For the most part, everyone’s done their jobs. The event coordinators here went into hyperdrive with florists and light crews and rental companies. The PR people back in LA pulled the pictures from the photoshoot at the Palisades house and whipped those out like greased lightning. The shots hit the ’net like bullets.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Scrolling through them, I feel every impact. Sure, there are the super-posed ones, but someone managed to find two or three stolen moments, glimpses under the masks when we were looking at each other, smiling as I kept her from falling. I keep going back to them, the way her hand was plastered against my chest, the way she laughed with her entire body, the mischievous twinkle in her eyes. For a finale, there’s a somber snap, when the photographer caught me nuzzling the side of her neck. Lore’s eyes are closed in that one, her body curved into mine like it belongs there
.

  Not sure if it helps, really, the knowledge it wasn’t only bullshit and booze that got us here.

  The town car dumps Noah and me back at the hotel right as the sun disappears behind the Luxor. There’s a crowd gathered outside, and Cinderella’s coach is parked at the curb, lit up a retina-scorching blue-white. I amble that direction with my hands in my pockets, letting the photographers in the press area get their rocks off.

  They’re waiting. We’re all waiting, and a few minutes later, I wonder if I’m going to be left standing here… waiting… alone. Wondering if Lore’s upstairs locked in the bathroom or, better yet, if she hopped on a plane back to Los Angeles. There might be a note telling me to go fuck myself sitting right on the conference room table, for all I know.

  “There she is!” the shouted exclamation catches my attention. “Lourdes! Mrs. Capello! Over here!”

  Suddenly, there’s about fifty of the bastards. They know better than to mess with me, but Lore is a different story. She’s new, she’s shy, and she’s certainly not had the occasion to punch a paparazzo in the zoom lens.

  “Hey!” I yell into the crowd swarming around her. I missed the moment she stepped into the twilight, and right now all I can see is the fleeting peep of gold hair in the mêlée. “Back it the fuck up!”

  Like I’m Moses, the sea of bodies parts, peeling back with last-second flashes and a few more daring shouts to call Lore’s attention to their cameras. I’m ready to grab the last asshole by the scruff and toss him across the street, but he finally clears the damn runway and lets me get my first glimpse of—

  My wife.

  Lore steps past the photogs with a shy smile, tucking a lock of hair that doesn’t need tucking because it’s pinned in a thousand different places with tiny sparkling gems. It’s up tonight, pulled off to the side in one of those crazy, sloppy knots that somehow looks like a million dollars. Her makeup is subtle, pink, and pretty. She looks young, too young for me, and more fresh-faced than when I first laid eyes on her at Scion.

  I rake her over from head to toe, a slow perusal that I’m in no hurry to finish. I don’t know what Steve sent her, but I know what she picked, and I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever seen anyone rock a white dress quite the way Lore does. The pristine fabric hugs her torso, one sparkling, diamond-studded strap arching over her shoulder and giving the whole thing an asymmetrical Grecian flair. A starburst of gems north of her hip gathers up the full skirt, exposing every single glorious inch of one of those forever-long legs. The icing on the cake is the way the whole thing moves when Lore walks, runway style, like she’s been teetering on perfect pink heels since birth.

  Look at me.

  Pausing, she stops to strike a pose for a group of photographers. She smiles, graciously speaking into a microphone that someone holds out to her.

  Look at me…

  Her eyes flicker sideways, caught by the glow of the carriage-and-four, and she actually does a small double-take. And I can lip-read from where I’m standing—

  “You have got to be shitting me.”

  Well, I wasn’t expecting enthusiasm, was I? I’ve dragged her along, strapped in and hollering from the get-go, so why would she hold her hands up in the air and revel in the coaster ride now that she’s made it abundantly obvious that she wants off at the next stop?

  So I take a page out of Cas’s book. Out of her book. I go stone cold again, switching over to some other version of me who’s just in it for the laughs. For shit and giggles. Certainly not for keeps. Strolling up, I flash the fangs at the closest camera and say, “Try to keep up, babe. Limos are so last year.”

  Speechless, her eyes roam over the fairy tale rig. Unfortunately, the photographers are standing there with big ol’ National Enquirer hard-ons for the snap of the century: Xaine Capello planting one on the new little missus. Lore’s tensed up, probably because on some level she’s come to the same conclusion.

  In case she missed it, one of the assholes yells, “Give him a kiss, Lore, and watch out… he bites!”

  Guffaws of laughter erupt from the crowd, and I stand there waiting, like a proper bridegroom at the end of the aisle. Lore’s got too much pride to run, and I can practically see her gird her loins as she turns and presses a precise three-count chaste peck on my lips.

  When I offer a hand, she does accept it, and the feel of her skin sliding over mine causes everything to ache more than it did a few seconds ago. I close my eyes, trying to hold onto the pieces of the mirror even as they’re shattering. Even as they’re slicing right through me.

  “Xaine?” When I open my eyes, she’s giving me a look, that look, the one that asks me in every possible way whether or not I’m okay. She might not want to do more than fuck me, but at least I can take comfort in the knowledge that she’s got as much empathy for me as she does everyone else.

  I’m not giving her one thing more, though. No explanations. No smiles that let either one of us off the hook. “Come on, princess, time to take a ride.”

  This is the part where I second-guess my decision-making process, because a limo would have had us there in less than two minutes. Instead, we’re stuck in a horse-drawn carriage with a motorcycle escort to deal with the traffic and the fans. Sitting ducks if anyone wanted to take a shot at us. The photographers cluster as close as security will permit, so I drape the obligatory arm around her shoulder, let it fall casually down to her waist, careful not to hold her closer than I have to. The second we pull away from the curb, I ease away from her.

  “No worries,” I say. “Couple hours more and you get to cut bait.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” she says, frowning at the space between us. “I’m not trying to run away, Xaine, but together and married are two completely different things. I mean, if you don’t want me around anymore, then I’ll go, but I’m not trying to ‘cut bait’ as fast as you seem to think.”

  Lore doesn’t even break her indoor voice on the words, but they snap with electricity nonetheless. She’s still pissed, that much is obvious, and when I don’t make any move to close the distance between our thighs, she averts her face, folding her arms over her chest and staring out the window.

  I tilt my head to the side until I hear my neck pop. “You’re either in or you’re out, babe. I don’t do shit halfway, and I don’t drag people along by the hair. You want to half-ass your way through life, be my guest, but it’s not going to happen in my house or in my bed or on my dick.”

  Her jaw clenches so tight I wonder if she’s going to break a tooth. “You. Didn’t. Ask.” The last word lashes out at me like a whip-crack. “And don’t you dare tell me I agreed to everything because I don’t remember most of it. Your distinct advantage in last night’s little game, Xaine, means you’re more than a little bit culpable.”

  “That’s a big fucking word.” I crinkle up my forehead up like English isn’t one of many languages I speak fluently. “To be honest, I was pretty shitfaced. Did we even consummate the marriage?”

  “If we did, it was about as memorable as the rest of the night,” she says. “Which is to say, not very.”

  I stare up at the neon-lit dome of the carriage, making thoughtful noises. “I remember fucking someone. Might have been you. Might have been Noah. He’s built like a girl.”

  “Well, that’s special.” Lore’s smile is brittle. “Did you ask him before you fucked him? Or are we looking at criminal charges on top of civil paperwork?”

  “Naw. Pretty sure if I’d fucked him, that would have ended up on YouTube, too.” I stretch out, like I’m enjoying this hugely instead of wishing my brain would tell my mouth to shut the fuck up. “Cheer up, cupcake. Next time you get married, you’ll remember every bit of it. Someone’s backyard, with a big dumb bohunk and a tiny ring tied to the stupid-hairy dog the two of you walk together. Or maybe in the church you went to as a kid, with all those people back home who warned you and warned you and warned you what would happen if you moved to a place like LA. Then you’ll squirt out a few k
ids, and all of you will sit on the porch in your rocking chairs, drinking lemonade and reminiscing about That Time You Married An Asshole.”

  The worst part is that I can picture every bit of it, and I know that’s better for her than anything I have to offer.

  Our pumpkin coach pulls up to the curb. The red carpet got traded for white. There are rose petals everywhere. It’s lit up like the Magic Kingdom down that aisle, and I pause only long enough to add, “Whoever he is, Lore, he’s seeing all this on television right now. I guarantee it.”

  Hauling myself out of the carriage, I don’t wait to see if any of that hits home, and I don’t bother giving her a hand down. Instead, I saunter along the carpet with my hands jammed in my pockets, lyrics already spinning out in my head.

  “Happily Never After.”

  Song writes itself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Lore

  Xaine’s parting shot stops me, ripping the quips and the anger and the smartassed everything right out of my mouth. My body goes still, my mind goes slack, my lips stick together slightly as they part, the lipstick still tacky although the stylists swore it’d last all night. Hand to god, I can feel my heart and my guts and every single piece of me shred like the glittery confetti Xaine’s stirring up on that stupid, white carpet.

  He doesn’t even stick around for the fallout, instead taking himself and his self-righteous indignation from this Twilight Zone version of our lives, stomping down that runway like he owns it.

  I don’t know how to make it make sense.

  I don’t know how to make him understand that I don’t want this because he doesn’t want this.

  Oh sure, he thinks he does, because he looks at me and sees Elizabeth. But what happens when he’s spent enough time with me that the illusion wears off? What about tomorrow? Ten years from now? Twenty? Forty? When my ass and my tits and my face start to sag? When I’m no longer young and pretty and the perfect piece of talented arm candy? What happens when there’s nothing left of me but the memories of the girl I once was? There’s no pound, no shelter, no rescue society for washed-up ex-singers who tried to hold onto immortal rock stars.