by Alina Jacobs
Ivy had made it cozy, though. Weddings in the City was considered one of the trendiest wedding companies in Manhattan, as Camilla had liked to tell everyone. And Ivy had decorated the space. There were café lights that let off a warm glow, a few plants that were clinging to life, and vintage record covers decorating a wall. The bedspread was soft and white. A fabric-covered bulletin board held pictures of smiling brides, calligraphy wedding invitations, and a fancy three-story penthouse with a huge clock window. On the photos, Ivy had written #Goals in fancy gold script.
I leaned back against the mound of pillows with Fergus curled into the crook of my arm. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to leave, but after dealing with not just the terrible wedding day but also the months leading up to it, during which Camilla would screech and throw things at me, it was nice to be in Ivy’s soft and comfortable apartment.
Though she did not have HBO Go.
“There’s YouTube and Netflix,” she said, coming back and sitting on the edge of the bed. I scooted over so she had more room.
She didn’t budge.
“You can’t possibly be comfortable.”
“You’re taking up the entire bed! My bed, the bed that I bought.”
“Guess she’s sleeping in the kitchen,” I told Fergus.
Ivy huffed then lay down next to me. Her arm accidentally brushed my bare chest, and an electric thrill passed through me.
Yeah, it’s definitely been too long since I’ve been laid.
I glanced at Ivy. She had her arms crossed tightly against her chest and was stiff as a board.
She’s probably not going to humor any funny business.
Ivy judged me as I scrolled through YouTube videos on the screen.
“Of course you would want to watch that!” she scoffed when I selected one.
“What’s wrong with a Call of Duty gameplay?” I asked incredulously.
“It’s just so predictable.”
“Oh, and I’m sure you’re not. Let’s check your watch history.”
“No!” she shrieked as I navigated to the tab.
I laughed as she wrestled with me. “Ooh, too bad someone’s arms are just too short,” I teased, holding the mouse out of reach. “Let’s see what we have here.”
“That’s my personal browsing history!” Ivy yelled. She had an arm around my neck and was lying half on top of me.
“So many Henry Cavill videos. My word, Ivy! And an embarrassing amount of Chris Evans videos too.”
“Gimme that mouse!”
“Henry Cavill and Chris Evans together at the same time! Scandalous, Ivy. What would the neighbors think?”
“You weren’t allowed to look at those!” she snapped, half climbing up me to try and grab the mouse.
Her soft breast pressed against my chin, the nipple hard under the soft fabric. I suddenly wondered what she would do if I took it into my mouth then turned us over…
Fergus yowled at her, and Ivy scuttled back, releasing me. Whatever moment might have happened was cut short as Fergus jumped into my arms.
Cockblocked by a cat.
I petted the big Maine Coon.
“He was just trying to protect you from me, his actual owner, who scrimps and saves to buy him only the fancy cat food,” Ivy said.
“Poor Fergus,” I cooed, stroking his soft fur. “Let’s watch a cat video. That will cheer you up, big guy!”
“Fergus doesn’t like seeing other cats,” Ivy said.
“I’m starting to feel very honored that Fergus likes me so much.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Ivy said, disgusted. “He also gets this happy about eating out of the trash can.”
I fell asleep to pet treat baking videos and woke up early the next morning to Ivy shrieking.
“Fergus, you coughed up a hairball on me!”
I looked down blearily. There was a grey, wet lump on Ivy’s side of the bed.
“He just needed to get that out,” I said, lying back down and snuggling the cat next to me. “Maybe we can get Ivy to make us some coffee and clean up that hairball.”
Ivy yanked the covers off me.
“Get out,” she snapped.
“But it’s so cozy.” I yawned.
She threw my suit on top of me. Fergus yowled in frustration.
“What the hell?” I protested.
Ivy bared her teeth.
“You can’t come into my house, eat my lasagna, leave your clothes all over the place, co-opt my cat, and then tell me to clean up after you and make you coffee!”
“I’m the victim here,” I reminded her.
“Are you? Because all I see is a spoiled man-child. And you know what?” she continued. “You and Camilla should have gotten married. She’s a sociopathic bridezilla, and you’re an entitled billionaire. You two are a match made in hell. I can’t believe I ever felt sorry for you.”
“Yeah, and I can’t believe I came here expecting sympathy from you!” I spat, swinging my long legs off the bed to stand in front of her. “All you do is sit in your sad little apartment and plan weddings. It’s no wonder you don’t have a boyfriend. No man in his right mind wants to be saddled with an uptight shrew.”
“After having to suffer with you, I’m glad I’m single!” Ivy yelled then picked up a shoe and threw it at me.
I dodged it, and Ivy cursed as it hit the white wall, leaving a black scuff.
“Get dressed and get out of my house.”
“Doing the walk of shame, eh?” a garbage man shouted at me as I walked down the empty streets in the pale morning light.
I nodded in greeting then kept walking. I felt bad about yelling at Ivy. It wasn’t right. In fact, it was the type of shit Camilla would always do: throw my worst insecurities at me. I wished I had kept my mouth shut. Then I could have continued to stay at her place. Now where would I go? I couldn’t go back to the condo I had shared with Camilla.
I did, of course, still have my penthouse bachelor pad. Camilla had wanted me to get rid of it. I had lied and told her I was in the process of selling, but in reality, I had never contacted a realtor. Maybe it was my subconscious telling me something wasn’t right with Camilla.
Before I could go to my penthouse, I needed to stop by my sister’s condo for the spare set of keys I kept there.
“Oh my god, Evan!” Mika exclaimed when she opened the door. She wrapped me in a hug.
“You only just saw me yesterday, sis,” I said, hugging her back.
“I thought something terrible had happened to you!” she cried. Then she punched me. “Where were you? We’ve been up all night looking for you. I thought—” She clamped her mouth shut.
“You thought that I had thrown myself off a bridge because I was so heartbroken over Camilla?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Mika looked up at me.
I patted my little sister on the head. “Just go ahead and say it.”
“I’m so glad you’re not dead,” Mika told me.
“No, the other thing.”
She punched me again.
“Ow!”
“I told you so! I told you Camilla was a lying, scummy bitch.”
“You did,” I said, rubbing my arm.
“Where were you, anyway?” Mika hissed as I followed her back into her open living room and kitchen. “I had to spend the entire night with our family.”
“Evan!” my stepmother said, hobbling over to me. She was still in her wedding outfit and looked like she was on her third bottle of the wine that Camilla had imported from Italy with a custom label of our faces and everything.
“Yesterday was an endurance test. Honestly, how could the wedding planner have let that happen?” my stepmother asked dramatically.
“Excuse me,” I interjected, stepping back from my stepmother. “Ivy had nothing to do with this. She is the furthest person to have anything to do with this. Camilla cheated on me with two men, one of whom is my own father and your ex-husband.”
My stepmother rolled her eyes. “Men li
ke him cheat. You would have cheated on Camilla eventually too. It’s part of our world.”
“I would not,” I growled. “I honor my promises. I can’t believe you’re so blasé about this.”
My stepmother patted me on the shoulder. “Your father is who he is.”
“He’s a dick.”
“You’re his son,” she said. “Besides, I’m sure you were off somewhere cooling off.” She smirked at me.
I screwed up my mouth. “I was trying to clear my thoughts,” I growled.
“And now that they’re gathered, surely you can go through with marrying Camilla.”
“Excuse me? No, I will not be marrying her. In fact, she needs to vacate my condo.”
“You’re so dramatic,” Imogen, my half sister, said. She was at Mika’s kitchen island, flipping through images of flower arrangements for her own upcoming wedding.
“You tell Camilla next time you see her,” I told her. “She needs to get out.”
“Tell her yourself.”
“I’m never going to talk to her again. Or Dad for that matter.”
“You’ll see him at my wedding.”
Mika and I looked at her askance.
“You can’t be serious,” Mika said.
Imogen turned on her, snapping, “It’s my wedding, it’s my big day, and I want my father to walk me down the aisle. If you can’t handle it, then you don’t have to be in my wedding party!”
“Now Imogen,” her mother soothed, “you have already removed too many bridesmaids.”
“I didn’t remove them, they abandoned me!” Imogen shrieked.
A headache started; I was getting flashbacks of Camilla.
“They weren’t being supportive. I can’t have a bridesmaid who isn’t supportive of me,” Imogen continued.
“You’re hyperventilating,” Mika said, handing her a brown paper sack.
Imogen slapped her hand away. “I can’t have a smaller wedding party than Serena’s,” Imogen said then started crying.
I looked around for the exit. But before I could escape, Imogen grabbed my sleeve. “You have to be in the wedding party,” she said, hiccupping.
“I’ll be one of Teddy’s groomsmen, sure.”
“No,” Imogen said, shaking her head. “You have to be my man of honor.”
“Uh—”
“She fired her maid of honor,” Mika said to me under her breath.
“I didn’t fire Kaitlyn, she quit!” Imogen yelled. “She got pregnant, and she cannot be a maid of honor if she’s pregnant, because she’s going to take all the focus off me, and it’s supposed to be my special day. She could have waited to get pregnant; a real friend would have.”
“Why can’t Mika be the maid of honor?” I suggested.
Imogen glared at Mika. “She’s the matron of honor. She’s too overweight to be the maid of honor.”
Jesus.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, backing away.
Thought about it, and no. No way in hell. I’m done with weddings.
“I just need the key to my penthouse,” I told Mika.
I followed her into her home office, and she handed me my keyring, wallet, and phone. “Courtesy of Sebastian,” she told me. I checked my phone. There were a hundred missed calls and two hundred text messages. I deleted them all.
“Can you please be the man of honor?” Mika begged. “You don’t know what it’s like. Imogen is awful.”
“Then quit; you don’t have to participate,” I told her.
Mika stared down at the floor dejectedly. “I sort of feel like I have to.”
I knew what she meant. When our mother had died, our stepmother had looked after us. She could have let our father send us to boarding school in Austria, but instead she had insisted that we remain in the USA.
“If you won’t do it for her, just please do it for me?”
5
Ivy
I scowled at the spot on the bed where Evan had been.
“I am done with billionaires and entitled men in general. There will never be another man in my house,” I declared.
Fergus made a hacking noise. I didn’t have time to grab him before he coughed up another hairball.
“Argh, I should have sent you off with Evan,” I told the traitorous cat, “especially since you seemed to like him so much.”
Fergus hissed at me and hid under the bed.
I made his breakfast then shimmied to the balcony. There was about an hour every day when I got any direct sunlight in my condo. I moved the few plants that were still clinging to life into the light, sipped my tea, and looked at my inspiration board.
It had changed over the years. First I had wanted to be a princess and live in a palace. I now live in the furthest possible thing from a castle. Then I had wanted a successful business, but given that I couldn’t even make clients pay me, that dream was slowly dying. My latest dream that was soon to be broken was owning an insane penthouse at the top of the Brookview Hotel, one of the Greyson Hotel Group’s projects. It was in a former factory building that was capped by a clock tower that had been converted into a condo. The faces of the clocks on the four sides of the tower were big round windows that let in a ton of natural daylight.
“I don’t know why I’m torturing myself,” I told Fergus as I looked at the listing online. The penthouse was still for sale; it hadn’t been bought yet. A part of me felt like maybe I could be given a surprise inheritance or win the lottery, then I would march over there and buy the penthouse.
I needed to face the reality of my situation though. I was never going to live in that clock tower. Hell, I was never even going to set foot in it. And if I was being honest, I probably wasn’t going to be living in my current tiny abode very soon either if I couldn’t find a way to pay off the two mortgages on the property.
Camilla’s family will pay, right? Surely they will.
I would wait a few days, as was polite, then gently ask to settle the invoice. That was good business. Then I would be done with that wedding. I wouldn’t have to see Camilla anymore, and I certainly would never have to see Evan ever again.
“So is the half naked man still in your condo?” Amy asked when I set down my bag of wedding-planning supplies on the café table. Weddings in the City did not yet have an office. One of the reasons I dreamed about that clock tower penthouse was because we’d have a ton of space to work on the main floor with a huge reclaimed wood table to sprawl around.
I had started Weddings in the City as a collaborative so that brides could have a one-stop shop for a beautiful, high-class wedding. Yours truly was the wedding planner. Amy, short and bubbly, created beautiful, locally grown flower arrangements. Sophie baked delicious wedding cakes decorated with her signature sculpted sugar flowers. Elsie cooked the tastiest catering ever. Brea designed and sewed one-of-a-kind, ethereal wedding dresses, and Grace was the wedding photographer extraordinaire.
You’d think with this many awesome ladies, we’d be more put together, but here we were running our business out of a coffee shop in between complaining about how expensive Manhattan was, how terrible New York City men were, and how entitled the brides could be.
Grace scooted her chair over to me.
“Did you seduce naked hot dude with your feminine wiles? Is Evan so infatuated with you that he is now going to pay for a Weddings in the City office?”
“No and no,” I scoffed. “I kicked him out.”
“Did you at least make him pay for the wedding?” Elsie asked in irritation.
“Bride’s family pays,” Sophie said.
“And bride’s family needed to pay before the ceremony,” Elsie countered.
“I’m going to get the money,” I said. “Promise.”
My friends looked skeptical. We were all in the business together, and I knew I had seriously screwed up.
“I had been hoping we could finally rent office space,” Grace said. “Now we may not even be able to afford food.”
“I’m going
to call the Sutherlands about it today,” I promised.
“You would think that doing weddings for rich people meant we too would have money,” Sophie said, stabbing her cinnamon bun.
“They are just the worst,” Amy said.
“I hope you weren’t too mean to Evan,” Brea told me. “You’re going to see him again for his half sister Imogen’s wedding.”
“I might see him at the end of the wedding, but only in the audience, if we even survive to make it that far.”
“Why can’t we get nice, sweet brides instead of these terrible bridezillas?”
“No one is as bad as Camilla,” Elsie said. “At least that’s over with.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Sophie said, raising her coffee mug.
“We’re in the home stretch on Imogen’s wedding, ladies,” I said, typing notes on my laptop. “Three months until the big day. We’ve got food tastings scheduled, and I still need to finalize the gift bags.”
“I had a flower arrangement done that looked similar to the pictures she sent me,” Amy complained. “Now she doesn’t want it.”
“You know brides get jittery the closer it comes to the date and they have to make decisions,” I reminded my friends.
“As long as she pays and the wedding goes through. You can’t have two grooms and a feral cat holed up in your tiny condo!” Amy joked.
“I don’t know,” Sophie said with a smirk, “two billionaires at the same time?”
“Oh my god,” I exclaimed, covering my face.
“No good deed goes unpunished!” Amy joked.
That was the story of my life. I was such a people pleaser, such a pushover, that my life was a continuous punishment for trying to make things easier for other people.
It was evening when I was finally back in the tiny condo. It still smelled like Evan. He clearly hadn’t brought any grooming products with him, so that clean, masculine scent that permeated my space was all him. I should light a candle or do laundry, but it did smell good. I looked around. The condo wasn’t going to be mine much longer if I didn’t figure out the payment, and it was my own fault.