Laney grinned and shrugged her sweater back onto her shoulders, but not before I caught a glimpse of the flame-colored feathers stenciled in a blocky tribal style along her scapulae.
“She’s a live one,” Mr. Clean said, lifting a brow at me as he began to bus empty beer glasses from the bar. Laney did a raise-the-roof move in victory. “Don’t let her fly away from you, now.”
“No chance of that even if I wanted her to,” I joked hoarsely. “All the planes are grounded.”
“Jealous much?” Laney asked me, as he moved on.
“Of what? Tattooed beefcake bar backs?” I nursed my drink and ignored her smug look. “As if.” Good one, Noah. What are you, ten? “Please, no dancing on the bar, or doing anything else on your ‘bridal bucket list.’” I air-quoted. “Not on my watch, okay?”
“Then stop watching me,” she dared, her eyes flicking flames as fiery as those I had glimpsed across her bare skin just moments before. We stared each other down in silence, with the bulky blue bridal dress bag sitting on the stool between us like some useless referee. Fine. If this was a test of wills, I could go all evening.
It was almost imperceptible, but I caught the twitch of one brow under that thick fringe of bangs, sending smoldering warmth through the pit of my belly. What would it take to break her? Stop. Engaged. Remember?
I wasn’t sure if my thoughts were trying to send smoke signals to remind me, or her.
There was a rustling of vinyl as the garment bag slid lazily off the side of the stool, and the spell was broken as we both reached down in a Hail Mary attempt to save it from puddling onto the questionable bar carpet below.
“Brides don’t need bucket lists,” Laney muttered under her breath, trying to wrestle the unwieldy bag into submission. “People who throw around that term, and the ‘YOLO’ crap”—now it was her turn to air-quote—“and ‘gotta go live my dash, dude’ . . . they don’t have a fucking—”
Laney’s cell phone bleated for attention on the bar, interrupting her tirade. “Yay, my mother.” Sarcasm dripped from her lips as she dipped to pick up the call.
“Yes, Mom. I’m alive. And I have clean underwear . . . yes, three pairs. Four, if you count my black lace thong.”
I almost dropped what was left of my drink. Good God, this girl was going to be the death of me.
That probably wasn’t for your benefit, you loser. She’s just trying to rile her mother up.
I snuck a glance at Laney, whose eyes rolled up under her messy fringe of bangs.
“Well, put your Big Girl panties on and just deal with it! I’ll be there tomorrow, I promise. Can you give Danny the phone? Thank you.”
What was with all the panty talk? I wondered if it was wedding-day jitters, or did all girls talk to their mothers like that?
“Hey, Danny.” I heard Laney sigh as she twisted on her stool for privacy. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Was it possible to feel out of place, out of line, and out of sorts, all at the same time? What was I doing in some hotel bar, fighting with some girl I barely knew over what she did with her body? The phrase I’m a lover, not a fighter stupidly popped into my head, reddening the tips of my ears and igniting embers that had been damped down and trampled on over time.
I righted the dress myself, pushing it firmly back in its place. I was tired of considering brides and their many lists, bucket or otherwise. Sloane certainly had a number of things she felt compelled to accomplish before life as a single woman ended. Living alone, that lasted about two weeks. Learning to cook stopped after three lessons with a Michelin-starred chef. “Good luck with that,” were his last words to me before he threw down his apron. I wasn’t worried about it; I could fend for both of us with what cooking skills my mother had taught me, were all of Manhattan’s five-stars to suddenly close.
Many of the items on Sloane’s “to do before I say I do” list began with M and ended with E and carried price tags so high, most people couldn’t hope to cross them off in their entire lifetime. I didn’t concern myself with the majority of them . . . but the prewedding surgeries concerned me.
“Think of it as an upgraded version of me. The Sloane 2013 reinvention! I can’t wait to go shopping for my new body!” she’d crowed, poring over the bridalplasty brochures.
“But you’re beautiful as you are,” I had insisted.
“It’s my body at the end of the day,” she’d huffed after I questioned the need for the mini brow lift, cheek injections, and inner thigh liposuction. “And it’s liposculpturing, not suction. I want to feel perfect on our wedding day.”
I turned my attention to the muted television over the bar, trying not to eavesdrop as Laney chattered animatedly to Danny, whoever he was. If Danny was her fiancé, he was probably worried about her. Chewing on a whiskey-laced cube of ice, I contemplated whether it would even occur to Sloane to track my flight status, even under normal circumstances.
Our circumstances hadn’t been normal in a long time.
Laney sipped her drink through the tiny stirrer like it was a straw, her cheeks sucked in exaggeratedly. Her jade eyes widened with the effort. She reminded me of a mime—a cute mime—as she listened, enraptured, to whatever this guy was saying to her on the other end. Actually enjoying listening to the person you were going to marry; that was novel.
Okay. So maybe I was a little jealous.
“Oh, my God, Dan! Shut up!” She was giggling. “Yeah, you would! I know, sweetie. Aw, I love you, too.” Her lips were off the stirrer-straw and she was grinning, hanging on to her tiny flip phone with two hands now.
God, that smile! It rendered me snow-blind. I kept staring long after she clicked her phone shut, not even registering that she had hung up.
“Dude.” She shot me a wary glance, lips in a reserved line. “What?”
I shook my head, but it didn’t exactly bring me back to my senses. “What would Danny think of you stripping down for total strangers?” I blurted out.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you that eavesdropping is rude? Besides, they just wanted to see my tats. Get over it. It’s not like they asked me to join them in a threesome.”
“Your body, your life.” I shrugged. “My mother taught me to help out strangers in need, so . . . you’re welcome,” I said sarcastically. She had shoes on her feet, a roof over her head, and a drink in her hand, all courtesy of me. Couldn’t she at least pretend to be civil?
“Oh, am I supposed to get down on my knees and thank you? If you’re looking for some alcohol-infused camaraderie or sleazy movie-fantasy hookup out of this, you are sadly barking up the wrong tree.” She waggled her circa 2008 phone in her hand. “I’ve got people on the line. And they know where I am. So why don’t you call someone who cares?”
Was what lurked behind that sweet glitter of her smile nothing more than a dry and tasteless experience, just like cake after goddamn wedding cake Sloane and I had endlessly sampled? Each had been just as generic as the rest when you cut past the smooth surface: just another cookie-cutter element in the generic moments making up what was touted as the happiest day of your life.
If she was just another sucker buying that, hook, line, and sinker, she had no advances to worry about coming from me.
“Christ, are you always this caustic?” I snarled.
“Caustic?” She hurled the dress bag over her arm and glared at me. “Is that a word from your thesaurus app? Better test that one. Because if it’s supposed to help you pick up the ladies, it’s malfunctioning.”
It didn’t matter that she was feisty and cute and moderately interesting. I saw her Bride-to-Be banner as a chastity belt with jaws of steel and barbed wire. Been there, done that, and currently paying nine dollars a goddamn flower for it. “Suffice it to say you are safe with me,” I managed. “Not interested. Believe me.”
Two Sides to Every Coin
I stormed; he trailed to the eleva
tor. Not interested. Believe me. Noah’s retort echoed in my ears down the empty hall. He had spit out the words with such irritation, as if they had been sawdust in his throat. Yeah, thanks. I am that repulsive. Good to know. The tiny pep talk Dani had just given me had almost bolstered my confidence to flirt with him. But that look he had given me—as if I were some bug in his computer code that he was determined to straighten out or something. It had immediately put me on the defensive. Could this situation get any more weird and humiliating?
“Come on,” he said, attempting to reason with me. “We need to make the best of the situation—”
“Well, all I can picture is the worst of this situation! How do I know you’re not an ax murderer?” I blurted out as the elevator door swept open. It was one thing to suffer through sushi with this egomaniac. But a hotel room?
“I went through the same security checkpoints as you,” he said, holding out his hands. “Did you see me stop at the ax murderer store on my way from the airport to the hotel?”
“Wiseass.”
He followed me into the elevator.
“You could drown me with your cologne as I sleep,” I added.
“Who’s to say you won’t smother me with that dress of yours?” he quipped back, giving my mother’s bridal dress bag a disgusted look.
I bit my tongue and hammered the button for our floor, while he kept his eyes on the lighted number panel. With my luck, we’d get trapped between levels and our only way out would be climbing down the shaft using the train of the dress as a makeshift rope ladder.
“Look, what do you need to hear to make you feel better about this?” he asked, trailing me down the corridor. “You know my name. How about my birth date? How about my Social?”
“How about you shut up and let me open the damn door?” I hissed, but he ignored me.
Every time I stabbed the key card into the slot in an attempt to open the door, he gave me a new fact.
“I’m an only child.”
Stab.
“I’ve lived in three different countries and nine different states. My favorite ice cream is rum raisin.”
Stab-stab. The little light winked its red eye at me again. Denied.
“I’m allergic to feather boas.”
“Well, then,” I said through clenched teeth. Stab! “You’d make a horrible drag queen.”
“May I?” He plucked the card from my hand and, with one smooth swipe, got the green light.
So he had a steady hand. And was a quick study on grammar. So what?
“I enjoy rock climbing and stand-up paddleboarding,” he supplied.
“Are you saving some of this for your online dating profile?”
Once we were in the room, he tossed his carry-on onto the luggage rack. I had clearly tested his attempt at pleasant-guy patience.
“You can check my bag,” he offered flatly, throwing it open. I peeked in. It was neat as a pin, everything rolled and folded, including three pairs of boxer briefs.
I wondered if his mother had taught him the Golden Three emergency rule, too.
“So. Any questions?” he demanded. “Comments?”
You’re behind a closed and locked door with him now, Laney. And you’ve seen his underwear. I could just hear my mother now. Giving the eulogy at my funeral and explaining to all my mourners that I had failed to listen to her time and again on the hazards of stranger danger. You’ve made your bed, poor Laney.
I could think of nothing more to say on the matter.
Other than “That’s disgusting.”
Noah raised a brow at me. “What is?”
“Rum raisin ice cream.”
I carefully laid the garment bag on the bed and turned to find him standing behind me, a mound of extra bedding from the closet in his arms. If he was going to smother me, he sure wasn’t wasting any time.
He pushed past me. “You take the bed. I’ll take the tub.”
I watched as he spread a large down comforter in the oversized heart-shaped Jacuzzi that sat regally (well, as regally as a gaudy heart-shaped tub could) upon a tiled platform near the windows. He added the decorative pillows from the bed for cushioning before laying a blanket over the top. It looked like a large fluffy nest by the time he was through.
“You look like you’ve done this before.”
“Done what, slept in a bathtub?” Noah gave a grim smile. “My roommate in college snored. I guess this will be good practice for Vegas when I see him.”
While he knelt by the Jacuzzi, preening and poking at his nest, I took in the rest of our accommodations. Besides the gargantuan king-sized platform bed, there really was no other sleeping alternative. Two wingback chairs flanked the decorative fireplace, but they would be more uncomfortable to sleep on than the seats at the airport.
Sleep.
As in, actual resting. Was I really expected to get any sleep with this—this stranger—this “I know I’m handsome so I’m allowed to be incredibly obnoxious” stranger—three feet away from me? I didn’t even have my requisite can of Mace in my pocketbook. Stupid TSA, with their prohibited items lists and three-ounce rules.
There was one thing I had in my bag that could possibly prevent any sticky situations. I sprinted over to the bed and pulled it out of my bag in an “I’ve got the conch!” Lord of the Flies move.
Duck Tape. I gave the end of the roll a fierce tug, and it emitted a loud pfffffffft as I stretched a length of it.
Noah sat up rod-straight. “What was that?”
“Duck Tape.” I thrust my hands up in the air to show him.
“You mean duct tape. For sealing ducts. Not duck. Ducks quack. They don’t go pfffffft.”
What a smart-ass. I held up the label, which clearly said my brand of duct tape was Duck Tape. It was also fuchsia-and-black zebra print, and fabulous.
“All right. So the names are interchangeable,” he allowed. “Still. What are you planning to do with it?”
Gee, I don’t know. Gag you?
I bent and, beginning at the wall next to the bedside table, stretched it all the way to the opposite wall, pushing it down to the Berber carpet as I went. I tried not to think that he might be checking out my butt as I waddled along.
“Come nighttime,” I dictated, “we don’t cross this line to each other’s side.” I had seen it on an old episode of The Brady Bunch.
“You may want to rethink your boundaries. My side has the bathroom.”
Huh. It hadn’t ended so well for the Brady boys, either, come to think of it.
Noah tossed his suit jacket onto one of the wingbacks, kicked off his shoes, and hopped into test the nest. He looked so cozy and insulated.
“Well, that’s hardly fair. I say we flip for it.”
He cracked an eye. “I gave you the bed, and you’re giving me a hard time?” I crossed my arms. Noah sighed and dug into his trouser pockets for a coin. “Heads or tails?”
“Heads,” I called as he flipped the coin from his reclining position. It bounced off my Bozo shoe, rolled over near the bed, and landed in his favor. “Phooey.” I picked up the coin with a frown.
“What’s your problem?”
“I . . . I really wanted to try the nest,” I admitted.
Noah slowly pushed himself up and out. “It’s all yours,” he said slowly. “Go nuts.”
I was sure he thought I was nuts, but I didn’t care. Smiling, I untied his Chuck Taylors, pulled them off, and plopped myself in. “Nice.” I looked up at him. “Well built.”
“Eight hours of nice?”
“Maybe.” I curled on my side. “Maybe not.”
“I’ll take it, Miss Bichonné,” he mocked. “You can have the big white fluffy bed. I’ll bet it matches your dress.”
I stuck my tongue out at him as he began to set up his base station at the desk, firing up his laptop a
nd unwinding his power cord. I knew he couldn’t see me but it felt good to do it. For spite, I stayed in the nest. Had I been alone, I could have stripped and soaked all the snow and cold away with a bubbly Jacuzzi and a minibar drink. And maybe called down to room service and ordered up a tattooed Lance from the bar. Having a fake fiancé was really cramping my style.
I reached an arm length away to my carry-on bag and pulled out my Love and Rockets book once again. At least I had good reading to escape into.
“You might want to put down your comic book and start looking for another flight,” Noah advised.
“It’s a graphic novel,” I informed him. “About Hispanic gang warfare, 1980s California, punk rock, women wrestlers, and the subtle battle to stay true to oneself.”
He swiveled in the desk chair to face me, staring down that regal Roman nose of his. “The airline’s website is a total clusterfuck, but I’ve DMed them on Twitter and I’m searching across multiple travel platforms right now. If you give me your criteria, I’ll prepopulate in another browser window and set alerts.”
A ball of panic began to rise in my chest. I imagined it like a storm cloud scribble across a blank page, animating as it grew. Loneliness overwhelmed me. I missed home. How could I get to Hawaii if I couldn’t even breach the chasm from the Jacuzzi to the desk chair? This guy and I were speaking very different languages.
“I thought the airlines would just rebook us,” I squeaked.
“Force majeure, baby.” Noah leaned back and huffed air over his bottom lip with such force, his hair ruffled. “Act of God.”
“You mean that bitch Mother Nature?”
“Yeah, her, too. The airlines are scrambling just like us.” He rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white button-down and got to work.
I mumbled my itinerary, holding my book closer to my face so he wouldn’t see my lower lip tremble. I wished Mother Nature would stop acting like a spoiled brat, the kind of kid who packs up her toys and leaves in a huff if the play date isn’t going her way.
Dictatorship of the Dress (9780698168305) Page 8