by Shaye Marlow
In one of the strangest turn-arounds I’d ever witnessed, his disgusted expression morphed back to delight. He gazed at me fondly. “I have another sister,” he whispered. Then he frowned. “Hey, does this mean a threesome is completely out of the question?”
“Rory, I’m not having sex with you, so you can just get that thought right out of your head.”
“So you won’t be cooking, or cleaning, or dealing out sexual favors?”
“Not to you.”
Rory sighed. “Good thing Lane and I have a little thing going on the side, then.”
“Lane… neighbor, Lane?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking smug. “And let me tell you, she is an animal in the sack.”
I shoved his arm. “I don’t want to hear this.”
“Family for Zack?” a voice called, making me shoot to my feet. In the double doors to the ER stood the same ginger who’d taken us back last time. He met my gaze. “You can come on back,” he said.
A few feet down the hall, I became aware of Rory’s peculiar expression. I narrowed my eyes at him, and then it came to me: “You were distracting me.” I was no longer a sobbing mess, and hadn’t been beating myself up the whole time I sat in the ER waiting. Instead, I’d been alternately shocked and disgusted by my lover’s brother. He’d been doing it on purpose. “So, you’re not boning Lane,” I concluded.
“Nah. But if I was, I imagine she’d have the tightest, snuggest little…”
I ran down the hall to catch up with the ginger, chased by Rory’s TMI.
“Here you are,” the ginger said.
I ran in and threw myself across Zack’s chest. Rory threw himself across what was left of it, and we both hugged him tight. I looked up into Zack’s beautiful blue eyes, and what I was feeling could no longer be contained. “I love you,” I said, hearing Rory echo the sentiment.
I elbowed him, but wasn’t too aggressive about it. It seemed like Zack and Rory might be a package deal. Though Rory wouldn’t be getting any ‘favors’, no matter how much he begged.
Zack’s smile bloomed.
“Will you marry me?” I asked. Next to me, Rory held his breath.
“Yes,” Zack said, though his voice was a little slurred. Had I just proposed to a drugged man? “Yes, I’ll marry you.” I had. Oh well, he wasn’t getting out of it.
I squeezed him, being careful of his arm, and pressed against my side, Rory squeezed him, too. I glanced over at him. “You’re an idiot.”
Rory grinned. “Welcome to the family.”
I spent the remainder of the evening in the hospital with Zack, following him from the ER up to a room. By eleven that night, Rory had whined enough that I called Gary, who used the last of the dying light to ferry us back to Zack and Rory’s place. Mine, too, I realized as I brought Puck inside. Technically, since I’d signed on the line with Zack, and also… it was beginning to feel like home.
The next day, Gary flew Rory and I back in. Puck, much to his displeasure, got left behind.
We made a couple stops on the way to the hospital, so that when Rory ran into Zack’s room ahead of me, his arms were loaded with boxes and bags. “Dude,” he said, “you’ll never guess what we bought you.”
“None of those boxes are big enough for a stripper in a cake,” Zack observed. He may’ve been in a hospital bed, but his hot gaze was giving me all sorts of ideas. Among them, that I might give his stripper pole a whirl sometime.
Rory rolled his eyes. “We got you clothes, you fool, so you can quit stealing mine. And a fridge.”
Zack frowned. “But none of those boxes are big enough for a—”
“Suzy’s hauling it out today,” Rory said, waving him off. “I called in a favor from your new best buddy. Ed,” he clarified at Zack’s clueless look. “And you, my friend, are brilliant, negotiating that deal. Way to take one for the team.”
Calmly, I crossed to him, and administered the toe of my boot.
“Hey!” Rory said, then to Zack, “Wait till you see these shirts. They had all these comic-themed T-shirts—”
“Ooo,” Zack said, looking eagerly at the bags.
“—but we got you the whole Disney Princess collection, instead. And an even uglier Christmas sweater, ’cuz Frances said yours got cut off, and…”
Zack looked at me while Rory continued to enthuse. “You were onboard with this?” he asked.
I approached. “Well, it seemed to make him happy. And I’ve gotten pretty used to you wearing weird stuff, so…” I stood for a moment, fidgeting as I gazed down at him. Then, slowly, feeling inexplicably shy, I reached out and took his hand.
He squeezed mine.
“How’s your arm?” I asked, my throat tightening at the sight of his bandage. Luckily, besides some scrapes and bruises, that’d been the only damage Morty’d caused. Rory’d been even luckier, with a couple shallow punctures treated with Band-Aids and an antibiotic shot.
“Well, I can move my hand,” he said. “The doctors and nurses were all pretty excited this morning about how pink my fingers were. They said they’ll reassess in a couple days, after the swelling goes down a bit, but they think I’ll have complete function.
“I was watching them change my bandage, and you remember that Jessica tattoo on my arm? Your bear chewed it right off.”
I blinked.
“Sure, there’s a bit of ink left,” Zack said, “but it’s totally unreadable.”
“Who was she?”
“A girl on my hockey team.”
“A girl…?”
“Yeah. High school. Her parents threw a hissy fit about girls not being allowed, and they let her on. She was our goalie, absolutely crazy.” His eyes looked inward, his face softening with the memory.
I tried to tug my hand away. He didn’t let me.
“We had a good two weeks,” he mused. “Then she told me she was a lesbian.”
“Wait, wait,” I said, shaking my head, unsure where to even start. “Only two weeks? And also, you say those two weeks were good, but it sounds like you drove her into the—”
“—pussy of another woman,” Rory finished.
“No, no,” Zack said. “What happened was, I was so fucking amazing, I ruined her for any other penis.”
Rory glanced at me. “And, this is what he tells himself.”
“Also,” I said, “high school? You got a woman’s name—a girl’s name—tattooed on your arm in high school?”
“I was sixteen,” Zack said, nodding.
“Your parents let you— What tattoo artist would—”
“Yup,” Zack said. “Mom signed, and she bribed the guy with weed.”
I stared at him. “Your family is insane.”
“Says the daughter of the man who tried to skin me,” Zack said, glancing past me to Rory. “Hey. What else did you bring me? Just clothes?”
“No, no. We got donuts, and paints, and Frances insisted on this red teddy bear,” Rory said, throwing it at Zack.
Zack winced as he tried to lift both hands to catch it, then winced again when he failed and the stuffed animal hit him in the face. The teddy bear tumbled down his torso to land face-first in his crotch.
“I see it’s a very… affectionate bear,” Zack observed.
I gave in and laughed.
Smiling at me, Zack scooted over in bed, then patted the spot next to him. I climbed in, leaning back as Rory handed the box of donuts across.
“So,” Zack said, opening the box. “Gary brought you back out?”
“Yup. And he retrieved both Derrick’s and your plane yesterday. Dropped yours off at a place on Merrill field, where a guy I know is gonna fix it up good as new.”
Zack slanted his eyes at me. “A guy you slept with?”
“So what if it was? He’s a damn good airplane mechanic, and that’s what matters, right?”
Zack stuffed a donut in his mouth and chewed grumpily.
I sighed. “No, I haven’t slept with him. And I won’t,” I said, putting my hand over hi
s. “I won’t sleep with anybody but you, so long as you’re mine, and I’m yours.”
His pinky hooked around mine. “Swear?”
This was it, right here, right now. My vows. “Yes,” I answered. “I do.”
“In other news,” Rory the Ever-Insensitive prompted.
“In other news,” I said, “Ed and Suzy are getting married today, while everyone that flew out for the ceremony is still around. They’re probably saying their vows right now, actually,” I said, glancing at the clock.
“We’re not around,” Zack pointed out.
“Yeah. They probably didn’t want any drama this time.”
Zack grumbled and inhaled another donut. He seemed to favor the jelly-filled.
“Your parents opted to stay for the wedding,” I added. “Gary told them it was just your arm, I guess, and they said they’d be in to visit you tomorrow. Just how many times have you been in the hospital?” I asked, still amazed at how blasé his parents had been about the whole thing.
Zack counted on his fingers. “Twelve, maybe?”
“Holy shit.”
He gazed at his bandaged arm for a moment. “What about your bear? Morty, was it? Is he okay? I… stabbed him a few times.”
“I haven’t seen him,” I admitted. “But you did have a really small knife.”
Across the room, Rory sniggered.
“I didn’t see much blood,” I added. Not the bear’s blood, anyway.
“Fish and Game came and interviewed me, seemed like they might try and hunt him down.”
“He’ll be all right,” I said, touched that Zack seemed to care. “People have been trying to kill him for years.”
Rory came over and sat cross-legged on the end of the bed. “How did you wind up with a pet bear?” he asked, looking for all the world like a big kid at story time.
“Well, we found him in the outhouse. Kinda like you,” I said, nudging Zack with my shoulder, “except he was under the toilet seat, actually in the hole. He’d dug his way in from the back. He was a young bear at the time, not exactly a cub, but not an adult. He was discovered pretty quick, as you can imagine. My dad wanted to shoot him, then haul him out, but I poo-pooed that idea. I dug the hole wider, lassoed him, and dragged him out myself.”
“And?” Rory said.
“He ran off. But he was in the outhouse pit again the next day. He was hungry,” I explained. “Desperately hungry. He was all knobbly bones under a shaggy, shit-stained pelt… The next time I dug him out, I tossed him a cut of moose, which he ate, and then he ran off. Anyway, he kept coming back, and I kept feeding him—completely illegal, I know, but the poor guy was starving—and it was a slow process, but he got used to me, and then he began to like me, and then he began to listen to me.”
“Wish Ernie would listen to me,” Rory muttered.
“I only wish I could’ve kept Morty from hurting you,” I said, squeezing Zack’s hand.
Zack shrugged. “Shit happens. Donut?”
I accepted a cinnamon-sprinkled twist, then looked to Rory. “How did that happen, anyway? How did you come to be running away from Morty, in a marsh, without a gun?”
Rory turned red. “Well, I was drunk…”
Chapter Thirty
FRANCES
One Week Later
My face hurt from smiling. “This isn’t really my scene,” I said, arm locked in Zack’s.
“Me, neither. That’s why we kept it small.” He guided me forward another step.
“Small?” I snorted, glancing around. “Everyone’s here.” A moment and another step later, “I can’t believe you thought I wanted this.”
“If you don’t, now’s the time to call it off.” He said it casually, but his arm had tensed.
“No, no. I meant the ceremony.”
“I thought all women wanted a big wedding,” he said. Another step.
“Not me. I feel exposed, like someone’s gonna shoot me in the back.”
He shot me a telling look, like he was thinking, Well, Frances, if you’d quit stealing their shit… or cheating at cards… or starting fights… but, bless him, he didn’t say it.
“Why are we walking so slow, anyway?” I groused.
“Isn’t this the way we’re supposed to do it?”
“I don’t care what we’re ‘supposed’ to do. Let’s get up there, get this done, then get some ribs.”
Zack shot me an approving grin, I picked up my skirts, and we ran up the rose-petal-strewn path. Harv finished off the wedding march with a rock ’n roll flair to match our pace. Ed, waiting for us on the steps of the gazebo, did not look surprised. We turned to each other at the base of the steps, and Zack grasped my hands.
“Dearly beloved,” Ed intoned, reading from a gold-embossed little book. “We are gathered here today to witness the union of Zackary Adderack and Frances Sauvage.” He continued, droning about the sanctity of marriage and whatever else. Naturally, I tuned him out.
“I love that outfit,” I said, lips quirking as my gaze traveled over Zack’s red shirt, which gaped to reveal his collarbones and a good portion of his studly chest. The billowy material draped from his arms, covering the pink skin of his healing forearm. His waist was belted with a golden sash, and beneath that were snug black pants stretching into tall, shiny black boots.
It was the swashbuckling outfit his mother’d gotten him, and I’d loved it from the moment I saw it. She’d actually given him the blue and Rory the red, but since the red matched my dress better…
“I almost jizzed in my pants, seeing you in that red dress again,” Zack said, raking his gaze down me.
Ed cleared his throat, giving us a warning look.
I grinned. “I hear it shows off my legs particularly well.”
Zack squeezed my hands. “It shows off all of you well, but then, a burlap sack would do the same. You’re gorgeous, Frances, you have to know that.”
Rory, wearing blue, leaned in from behind his brother. “Not only that, but you must have some mad bed-skills, as well. Zack’s dated gorgeous girls before, but never decided to marry them.”
“Rory,” Ed said in his warning voice.
“Actually, I know you’ve got some mad skills,” Rory added, edging forward till he stood at Zack’s elbow. “I heard Zack screaming last night… No, screaming’s not the right word. Yelling in sweetest agony? Hmm, I must’ve read that in a book somewhere.” Rory grinned at me.
We’d been getting along a little better lately. Zack said that was because we were so much alike, but Zack also sometimes referred to himself as his brother’s ‘handler’, so I tried not to think too deeply about his meaning.
“Rory,” Ed said. “This isn’t Utah.”
“Eh?”
Zack nudged him with an elbow.
“Please step back, so we can get this over with,” Ed said.
“My thoughts exactly,” I said, breathing deeply of eau de barbecue.
“Right. So, we’re just going to skip to the end, then.”
“Wait!” Dotty hollered from behind me, where she stood as my maid of honor. “The rings.”
We glanced down the aisle to see Suzy herding Puck toward us, a little pillow tied to his back. He minced sideways, giving the people around him the shifty eye before launching into a hop-caper-buck routine that earned him a collective ‘awwwww’.
As soon as he cleared the crowd, he darted to the left, prompting Suzy to yell, “Catch him!”
The goat charged straight at Rory, who scooped him off the ground, bringing Suzy up short. Unlike when I’d lifted him, Puck settled right down in Rory’s arms, looking for all the world like a satisfied cat. Rory handed the rings to a stunned Suzy.
“Zack, do you take this woman to be your awfully wedded strife—” Ed stopped, frowning at his little book.
Rory burst out laughing.
Zack, unfazed, smiled into my eyes. “I do.”
“I’m not done yet,” Ed said. “To haze and to cuckold—seriously, Rory?”
&nbs
p; Rory howled with laughter.
I glanced up at Ed and lifted a brow. “What, you weren’t expecting funny business?”
“I… It wasn’t a scroll. Usually if he’s involved, it’s a scroll.”
I lifted a shoulder, then returned my gaze to Zack. In the spirit of things, Dotty and Harv had supplied Zack with a fully-functioning blunderbuss, and a cutlass, both of which dangled from his belt. I fucking loved this man.
“And you, Frances. Do you—”
“I do.”
“Not done yet. Take this man—”
“Yep.”
“—to be your lawfully—”
I dragged Zack to me, unable to wait a moment longer to give him the happiest kiss of my life.
“For fuck’s sake,” said Ed.
Zack wrapped his arms around me, and with a growl, dipped me backward to murmurs of appreciation from the ladies.
Ed sighed, and I heard the snap of his little book shutting. Didn’t see it, though, because Zack and I were still engaged in some major PDA. “Then, by the power vested in me as the godfather—Guidefather, dammit—I now pronounce you man and wife. You may stop kissing the bride.”
If anything, Zack dipped me lower. God, he had a remarkable tongue.
“We’re gonna have grandbabies!” Zack’s mom squealed from the front row.
Zack finally let me up. I smiled up at him, flushed and excited, and so freaking… happy. I hadn’t known it’d feel like this. I’d been willing to go through the motions, and then BAM! The enormity of it hit me. I was getting married, for reals this time. To a gorgeous man, a man who had demonstrated he’d do anything for me. Or to me, or under me… I barely stopped myself from groaning, just looking up into his eyes.
Suzy handed us the rings, and I began to slide Zack’s gold band onto his finger.
“I object!” someone yelled over the applause.
Immediately, Zack’s shoulders stiffened up. “Please tell me there’s not another husband.”
“You’re too late!” Ed yelled back, looking over the assembly toward the dock.
The crowd parted to admit a blond man, graceful even in a set of black sweats, and a pretty auburn-haired woman.