by Shen, L. J.
HHH: Should’ve said that before I printed out our wedding invitations. Wear a dress.
“We found it!” Persy shrieked, waving one of the gowns by its hanger.
I looked up, my cheeks so hot, I was sure I looked like I was going to explode.
“Whoa.” Emmabelle dropped a heap of clothes to the floor, her eyes zoning in on my face. “Why do you look like you just got invited to your own funeral, Sailor?”
“Because…” I tore another, final piece of dead skin from the corner of my thumb with my teeth. “I think I just did.”
Belle and Persy were one squeal away from leaving me completely deaf when I told them they were coming to the fundraiser with Hunter and me. When the day arrived, they swung by my place a few hours before the event, looking like modern goddesses. Persy was clad in a romantic white gown, while Belle rocked a leopard mini dress. They shoved me into my own gown—an antique pink off-shoulder dress with a sweetheart plunge. The striking floral appliques at the front miraculously highlighted my nonexistent curves, and Persy put my hair up into a messy-yet-sexy chignon, with bits of flyaways framing my face. Emmabelle applied my makeup, and we found out nude colors and a thick layer of eyeliner worked best for my pale complexion and red hair. By the time Hunter woke up and shoved his Adonis form into a suit, I looked the best I ever had.
It was funny how Hunter believed he was dumb, and I believed I was unattractive—and that these opposite sources of insecurity made us enemies. I despised him for his looks, and he thought I was an unattractive bore.
He strode out of his room, cuffing his cufflinks with a frown, his black velvet bowtie still undone. The minute he spotted the three of us in the living room, Emmabelle leaning over me to apply lip gloss while we took advantage of the natural stream of sun pouring from the glassed wall, he halted.
“Holy shitballs.” He whistled low.
All three of us raised our heads to look at him. Persy gasped at his imperial beauty. I could tell Belle was undressing him, one article at a time, with dilated pupils.
“Told you they were gorgeous.” I cleared my throat.
“You’re the one I’m looking at, Carrot Top.” He stared at me, making everything else around us melt into a fuzzy background. His gaze radiated heat that could perish me. At that moment, I wished it would. “No offense, girls.”
“None taken.” Emmabelle grinned conspiratorially.
“I was talking to Sailor’s tits.”
That earned him a wild laugh from both my friends.
Momentarily losing the ability to produce words, I turned my head back to Belle. Our eyes met, and hers were twinkling with mischief and delight.
“Disney movie,” she mouthed, standing to her full height. “Make the prince fall in love. Seize the castle. Become his queen.”
She’d officially lost her mind.
“You ready?” Hunter asked, tying his bowtie with one hand as he walked to the kitchen and poured himself some coffee. I forgot he’d had the upbringing of a duke and knew how to do all sorts of things that weren’t un-sexy, like tying a necktie with one hand.
“Yes!” Persy and Belle shrieked.
“CT?” He glanced at me from under his lashes. He was back in his element after being MIA all week.
“When will you stop calling me that?”
“Hmm, that would be never.”
I let my friends shake hands with my roommate while I regulated my heart rate and drank two glasses of water, immediately regretting the decision. Peeing in this dress seemed more difficult than securing a spot in the Olympics.
The ride to the Roosevelt Hotel was full of chatter. Belle and Persy asked Hunter questions about living in California. Not only did he answer, he also seemed to take genuine interest in their studies and lives. By the time the limo slid to a stop in front of the hotel, the only person who wasn’t having a ball was me.
The driver opened the door for us, and we all poured out. A slightly hysterical event coordinator in an all-black outfit met us at the lobby, introducing herself to my friends as Penny.
“I’m just going to borrow you for a second so we can get your tickets and put your names down for the grand prize. Thank you for supporting the School is Cool Foundation!”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Penny my friends had donated zero dollars for the cause, and felt panic climbing up my throat as I watched the blonde twosome galloping to the far corner of the lobby along with her.
Hunter stood beside me, hands in pockets, his eyes on them.
“You weren’t exaggerating. They are hot.”
“Drop dead.”
“Don’t tempt me after the week I’ve had.”
“How did you manage to pay for the tickets?” I wet my lips, knowing it was bad form to ask someone to drop 10k on your friends. But it was for charity. And ten thousand dollars was nothing to a guy like Gerald Fitzpatrick.
“Told Da I owed my local drug dealer money from way back.”
I choked on my own saliva. “Do you?”
He tore his eyes from my friends and frowned at me. “Fuck’s the matter with you? I don’t have a drug dealer. Or a drug problem. I just needed to get this shit done. Da will never pass up an opportunity to think badly of me. If he could find this imaginary dealer and convince him to lace my cocaine with anthrax, E. coli, and cyanide, he would.”
“Can’t blame him,” I piped. But actually, I could. Hunter wasn’t all that bad. He definitely wasn’t malicious.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”
“Do what?”
“Hate me with such a passion. Your wrath gives me a semi, and I still have a kiss I can collect whenever I wish to.”
Aaaaand he’s back to being a scumbag.
“Not whenever you wish to. People can’t see us making out.” I wiped my sweaty hands on my dress, taking in the fancy lobby. The marble flooring was rose gold, the curtains pale pink, and the furniture a sleek champagne.
It wasn’t that I had no sexual experience. I’d actually had a boyfriend through junior and senior year. Beau was a fellow archer. We attended the same high school and archery club. We never went to any parties, and I wouldn’t really speak to him at school. He had his own crew and never sought me out, either. But we’d practice together many afternoons. Sometimes we went to his place afterwards, watched a movie, made out, and later, when we got older, had sex. But we never labeled it, gave each other presents, or celebrated Valentine’s Day.
Even our breakup wasn’t an emotional one. One day he told me he’d received a scholarship to a Canadian college with a competitive archery program, and he’d accepted it. I was genuinely happy for him, which I thought was the point of liking someone. But when I broke the good news to Mom, and said how awesome it was for Beau to move to Canada, she stared at me like I’d just escaped a mental facility and forced me into eating ice cream and watching Blue Valentine with her.
“Making out now? That escalated quickly. Is it the suit?” Hunter’s eyes drifted back to Persy and Belle.
I wondered how much he’d give to replace me with one of them. A lot, probably. That made me want to throw up.
“The fact that we haven’t spoken in almost a week helped.” I rummaged in the black velvet purse I’d borrowed from Emmabelle, looking for nothing in particular and pretending to be busy.
“That kiss better be worth ten grand.” He tsked.
“No kiss is worth that much.” I scoffed, clicking the purse shut. He turned to look at me, cool and collected.
“Obviously you’ve never been kissed by a Fitzpatrick.”
“Have you?” I challenged, cocking a brow. “Was it your brother or sister? I’m hoping your brother. I love me some male-on-male action.”
He threw his head back and laughed so wildly, the echo of his voice bounced off the walls. A herd of people walked toward us. I recognized them on sight: the Fitzpatricks.
His dad was tall and heavy, his mother light-featured. His older brother looked like a wicked
ly handsome villain, and his sister, in contrast, a perfectly demure Snow White. Unlike her two brothers, Aisling’s hair wasn’t fair. It was raven black, but that only highlighted her sparkling bluebell eyes. They were all impeccably dressed, and save for Aisling, all looked to be in different levels of a sour mood.
I stiffened at the sight of them approaching us. I considered turning around and fleeing. Hunter must’ve sensed that, because out of nowhere, his hand found the small of my back. It barely fluttered around the area, but still supported me, somehow.
“Deep breath,” he whispered, his voice calm. “Remember, they’re just people. They breathe. They eat. They fart—loudly, sometimes—and to answer your question, yes, Cillian and I French kiss all the time, and he uses an excessive amount of tongue.”
Now it was my turn to stifle a giggle.
When Hunter’s family stopped in front of us, Hunter made a round of introductions, even though we’d already met.
“Sailor, this is my father, Gerald.” He motioned to his dad.
I shook his firm, dry hand. “Pleasure to meet you again.” I tried to muster a genuine smile.
“Jury’s still out on whether I can say the same about you,” his father grumbled, winning a warning elbow from his wife. “How has my son been thus far? Better than he was at work, I hope.”
“Impeccably behaved,” I shot back, as the pressure from Hunter’s hand on my back grew. It was the truth. He was on the straight and narrow in the rare times I’d seen him.
“Nice to see you again.” Jane clasped my hand in both of hers, smiling tiredly. She always looked sad. “Thank you so much for doing this.”
“Mom,” Hunter groaned.
I laughed. “It is entirely my pleasure, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.”
When Cillian clasped his callused hand around mine, I looked up and my heart missed a beat. His beauty was as cruel as his expression. I didn’t remember ever seeing someone so brutally indifferent, my own father included. For all his sociopathic tendencies, Troy Brennan adored my mom, Sam, and me. Cillian Fitzpatrick looked like nothing could get to him, tanks and bombs included.
“Miss Brennan, what have you gotten yourself into?” he sneered, baring his perfect teeth.
I gathered he had very little faith in this arrangement. Refraining from kicking his balls in public, and feeling the reassuring pressure of Hunter’s palm, I grinned. “Are you asking or insinuating something?”
He chuckled, like I was an adorable toddler repeating a bad word. “She answers. Nice touch. You’re already exhibiting more personality than my brother has shown in his entire nineteen years.”
“She has more personality than you can find in all your European-heiress flings combined,” Hunter countered. “And being a dick doesn’t count for personality. It’s a muscle. So technically, you’re a meathead.”
“Hunter! Cillian!” Their mother gasped, but there was no real force or authority in her voice.
My mom used to chase Sam and me down the park when we misbehaved, and we still had a step in the penthouse we couldn’t look at because it reminded us of the lengthy timeouts we’d spent on it as a naughty spot. She loved us endlessly, but when she chided, we listened. I noticed that Gerald watched this exchange with a suppressed smile, like he was enjoying the turn of events.
The last person I was introduced to was Aisling, whom I kind of remembered anyway. She seemed like the only nice person in their clan when I was a kid.
“Hi.” I thrust my hand in her direction. “I’m Sailor.”
“I know.” She blushed, looking down and taking my hand. “You’re friends with the Penrose sisters, right?”
“Right!” I could feel my eyes lighting up. “They’re here with me, actually. Do you know them?”
I knew Aisling was a year younger than me, seventeen. She went to a private school outside the city. Word around Boston was that the Fitzpatrick couple had really wanted a girl after Cillian, and when Hunter was born, his mother tried to conceive as soon as she could to get her precious daughter.
Aisling bowed her head shyly. “Kind of. I know the three of you helped shovel snow from the entrances of that senior housing complex last winter and saved someone’s life. It was all over the local news. I thought it was really cool.” She turned completely scarlet.
I could feel Hunter’s gaze darting to me in surprise.
“You did that?” he asked.
“Some people give back to the community, ceann beag, believe it or not,” said Gerald.
The men in Hunter’s family were really starting to grate on my nerves.
“You can hang out with us, if you want,” I offered to Aisling, who took the opportunity to look me in the eye for the first time. She touched her cheek.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to butt into your evening…”
“Nonsense!” I all but pulled her by the hand. “Trust me, everything is more bearable with the right people around.” My eyes darted pointedly between Cillian and her father.
I was sure everyone at the Roosevelt Hotel could hear our giggles as the two of us ran to my friends, arm in arm, escaping the men of the Fitzpatrick family, and poor Jane, whose eyes I could feel on our backs.
“Traitor,” I heard Hunter mumbling behind me, and I laughed sadly, knowing he was going to betray me as well.
With a prettier, more suitable girl.
The event started out smoothly enough.
Belle, Persy, Aisling, and I took our plates and ate in the corner of the room, talking animatedly. First, about Laura Hartfield, a girl who used to go to school with Persy, Belle, and me and was at the event. She was twenty-one and currently draped on the arm of a fifty-something, overweight businessman, a diamond the size of my fist twinkling from her finger.
“Now, Kanye ain’t saying she a gold-digger.” Belle’s cat-like eyes followed their movements through slits of disapproval. “But she ain’t messing with no broke.”
“She could love him,” I pointed out.
Persy and I were always the two to calm the gossip monster down when Belle spoke her mind about other people. The only filters Belle was familiar with were Instagram-related, even if most times she was dead-on.
“How convenient of her to fall in love with a middle-aged gazillionaire who has no hair, but possesses teeth the size of bricks, four chins, and is rumored to have given his ex-wife three estates and a hundred mill in a divorce settlement,” Emmabelle chirped.
All three of us turned our heads to glare at her in alarm.
“C’mon.” Belle laughed, shaking her head. “The only way she’s getting off these days is with Vinnie the Vibrator.”
“That’s sad. I’d never marry someone for money,” Aisling mused, taking small bites from her mini quiche.
“That’s because you have too much of it,” Persy blurted, blushing immediately under her makeup.
Emmabelle shook her head. “No. I’ll never marry for money, either, and I work weekend shifts at Forever 21 and rummage our neighbors’ recycling cans for empty bottles to make an extra buck.”
“Me either, never.” Persy smoothed her dress over her thighs.
All eyes darted to me. I continued picking at my sautéed broccoli meticulously, wishing for a better food choice. For a 5k meal, they sure didn’t bring their A-game in the kitchen. Despite my scrawniness, I cared about food.
Finally, Belle poked me in the ribs. “Well?”
“What?” I frowned.
“If you haven’t noticed, there’s a spontaneous pact going on over here among the four of us: never be like the Laura Hartfields of the world; only be with guys for love, and make sure we all keep our promise. Are you in, or are you out?”
The prospect of being with anyone, let alone for something materialistic, seemed as likely as living on Mars.
“Yeah.” I threw a broccoli into my mouth, chewing without tasting it. “Of course. I’d never be with someone for anything other than love.”
“Let’s shake on it, then.” Persy reached her h
and to the center of the table. We all placed our hands on hers. It was super awkward, but in a funny kind of way.
“To being awesome,” Persy exclaimed.
“And real,” Aisling added quietly.
“And never settling for an asshole to get a pair of Louboutins you can get at the butcher shop.” Belle laughed throatily.
Aisling peered between us with confusion at the last statement. When our mirth died, they shot me an expectant look, waiting for me to throw my two cents into the pact.
I thought about something I wanted—one thing I wished for my true love to have.
“To being with someone who loves you just the way you are, and vice versa.”
We squeezed our hands together. It felt like the end of something.
It felt like a new beginning, too.
After the pact, Aisling confessed that she had very few friends at her all-girls school, and she was happy to graduate after this year and move somewhere new.
Belle made an executive decision to invite her to our weekly Friday-night hangouts, an invitation both Persy and I were happy to extend.
Whenever I glanced at the Fitzpatricks’ table, it was jam-packed with visitors coming to congratulate and shake Gerald’s and Cillian’s hands. Aisling said it was about a new refinery they’d opened in Maine. She added that it had been giving her father a headache and not going as planned.
Hunter was perpetually ignored. He picked at his food and checked his phone. Whenever his mother tried to talk to him, he either pretended not to hear her or offered her a one-word answer. I tried to keep my guilt to a minimum level and avoided texting him. Here was a guy who’d said he wanted to bed me just because I was the only woman around he could get his hands on, and I still felt bad for him.
I excused myself to go to the restroom. It took me ten minutes to push all my skirts up my waist before I peed. As I rearranged the heaps of fabric around me, I heard voices outside my cubicle.
“…came with Troy and Sparrow Brennan’s daughter. Sally? Stephanie? Something with an S.” One woman clucked her tongue.
“Sailor. Her brother is hot, though.” Another laughed.