by Laura Del
“What are we going to do?” Moms asked still using her Cindy voice, her eyes welling up with tears. “Father is going to be here in an hour and a half.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I told her. “You take care of…” I paused, pointing to the floor, “that. Sorry.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.”
“I’ll help,” Mad said, nodding to me. I mouthed “thank you” and went to go get the Father to postpone.
“Bobby, Mortimer, and Andrew are on their way,” Sandy updated me as she hung up her cell.
I nodded, picking up the cordless phone, and going into the living room for quiet. What I was about to do was wrong, and I didn’t need anyone witnessing it. I dialed the number for the church by memory, which surprised me because it had been years since I had used it, and I waited for Father Flanagan to answer.
He did on the second ring. “Father Flanagan speaking,” he said in his fake Irish accent, “how may I help you?”
“Hi, Father, it’s Patricia Wyatt. We have a bit of a situation over here, and we were wondering whether we could postpone the wedding until later. We’ll notify the guests on our end, all you have to do is say yes to making the nuptials around two or two-thirty.”
He sighed and then began a whole song and dance. “I don’t think we can do that, Patricia. You see I’m very busy today,” he lied, I could tell, “and the only time I have available is this morning.”
I put the phone to my chest and whispered, “God, forgive me.” Then I placed the phone back to my ear. “Listen, Father,” my voice was low and menacing, “you will do this, or I will tell everyone your little secret.”
“I beg your pardon,” he sounded affronted.
“The fact that you have been lying to everyone about your accent,” I clarified.
“My accent?” his voice turned scared.
“It’s fake. Now,” I paused, taking a deep breath, “are you going to help me out or am I going to have to write a little article about our local priest who has lied to everyone for years by pretending he was more Irish than he actually was?”
There was a weighted silence on the other end of the line for a second, then I heard him clear his throat. “You wouldn’t,” he said in a normal American accent.
“I would,” I assured him. “But that doesn’t have to happen. If you help me now, I can forget everything.”
“You have a mean spirit, Patricia Wyatt,” he hissed, and I knew I had him. “What time did you say?”
“Two or two-thirty, whatever’s convenient for you, Father.”
“Two o’clock it is,” he said begrudgingly.
“Have a good morning, Father,” I said with a smile.
“You too,” he answered back in his Irish accent. He was trying to sound pleasant, but I could still hear the distain in his voice, so I hung up before God sent a lightning bolt down to smite me.
Luckily, that didn’t happen, but as I turned around to go back to the kitchen, Mike was leaning against the doorway with a smirk on his face.
“What?” I asked, and he shook his head. “What?” I repeated a little defensive.
“You just extorted a priest,” he said in awe.
I shrugged. “A matron of honor’s gotta do what she’s gotta do.”
“Have I ever told ya to remind me not to get on your bad side?”
I laughed a little as we walked back into the kitchen. “Once or twice. Where’s Pops?”
“Upstairs sleepin’ it off,” he sighed. “I gave him a cup of coffee and plenty of water, then told him to take two aspirin when he wakes up. Not like he was sober enough to understand.”
I nodded as we walked into silence. “Okay, ladies,” I said looking at all of them, “we’ve got a lot of work to do. I got Father Flanagan to change the time to around two o’clock, so we have to call all the guests and tell them. M—” I stopped, catching myself about to call my mother Moms. “Cindy, do you have all of the phone numbers?”
She nodded. “Sure do.”
“Good. When the guys come, they can shovel a path to the tent so that the guests don’t slip and fall or get wet. Mike,” I said, looking at him, “do you think you can start shoveling out front while we work in here?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll call the caterers and Mrs. A and tell them to be here around a quarter to one?” I made the statement a question, and they all nodded. “All right, people. Let’s do this.”
“This,” Tina said, pointing to me, “is why you always want Patty when there’s a crisis. And why we’re friends.” They all laughed as I rolled my eyes.
Then I remembered. “Oh. Please eat while you’re doing this, we need all the strength we can get. What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty,” Mommy said as she got out the planner and all the contact information from one of the drawers in the median. Then she placed it on the table.
“Okay. That gives us,” I paused, doing the math in my head, “about six and a half hours to get all this done. Ready?” Everyone nodded, taking handfuls of papers out of the planner, each with contact information on them. “Let’s go.”
Fang watched me pace as I dialed the number for the caterer by heart. He was sitting by the median, and I was the only one his blue puppy eyes were on. I would have thought it was adorable if it wasn’t for the crisis that was laid in front of us. After I dialed, I pointed to the garage so Mike could get the shovel out of there. He nodded and went on his way while I dealt with the caterer. Allison Cooper, the feisty owner of the only catering company within miles, was so understanding and a little grateful because she had no idea how she was going to get to the house with all the snow. I comforted her by telling her that it was all right, and that we would see her around one o’clock or so. She agreed and I hung up.
Then it was time to tackle Mrs. A When I dialed her home, she answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Mrs. A we have a little bit of a problem,” I said.
“The snow,” she responded. “I figured we would be postponing. When is it now?”
“Two o’clock,” I answered without skipping a beat.
“I’ll be there by twelve-thirty, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Bye, Pat,” she said, and I could tell she was smiling.
“Bye, Mrs. A.” And with that I hung up.
The next thing I knew, I heard my cellphone ringing from upstairs. I sighed, signaled to everyone that I’d be back and then I went to go fetch it, Fang trotting behind me. I told him to stay, and he sat at the bottom of the stairs while I went up. When I finally got into my room, the phone had stopped ringing, and as I looked at the caller I.D., I saw that it was Angel. I called her back and she answered instantly. “Hey, fleshy girl,” she said, sounding a little off.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and my stomach growled. I really need to eat something.
“Did Wolfman tell you that they were sendin’ someone?” she asked.
Then I had to think, everything seemed so long ago. Finally, I remembered him saying something along those lines. “Yeah,” I answered, “he did. And?”
“It’s me,” she responded.
“Okay,” I said slowly, not really understanding what she was saying.
“I’m here,” she clarified. “Outside. And I’m freezing my tits off. But I didn’t want to surprise you, fleshy girl, so I figured I’d call and then you could come down and answer the door,” she stopped, and then added as an afterthought, “please.”
I let out a long breath. “All right. Ring the door bell, and I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Gotcha,” she said and hung up on me.
I shook my head and sighed. “Why me?”
Walking out of the room and down the stairs again, the doorbell rang. Fang barked, and I hushed
him. He had waited the entire time at the bottom of the stairs for me, and I petted him when I reached the last one. “I’ll get it,” I called to the rest, opening the door in the process. There stood Angel, long black hair down and flowing straight. Her gorgeous face just as interesting to look at as ever. She smiled at me, perfectly white teeth sparkling against her golden skin. Her dark eyes looking me up and down, I guessed to see if I was intact.
The Native American beauty raised a black eyebrow at me and asked, “Are you gonna let me in or what?”
I smiled at her. “I’m debating.”
She laughed, hugging me to her, and then she walked in with snow on her black boots. When we closed the door, I noticed she was wearing all black, including the black leather jacket I had bought her for Christmas. Something was a little different about her, and I realized there was a green streak in her hair. It suited her.
After she wiped her feet on the rug, she stepped away from me a little, really looking at me. “Well, you don’t look any worse for wear, so I guess that’s good.”
“I feel like hell,” I told her.
She grimaced. “Yeah, you look like it. I was just tryin’ to be nice.”
I laughed, and I heard someone behind me gasp and drop something heavy. I turned to see Mike standing there, mouth agape. He had dropped the shovel on the hardwood floor and was looking at Angel and me as if we were on fire. “What the hell are you doin’ here?” he asked her.
“I’m the messenger,” she answered with a smirk, “so don’t fuckin’ shoot me. Okay?”
“You?” he was shocked. “They sent you?”
“I requested it,” she huffed. “I figured the news should come from me. I mean, I didn’t have to do this shit, ya know. So I think you should be just a little bit fuckin’ grateful, don’t you?” she asked with a smile and then she noticed Fang sitting at the bottom of the steps. “Hello, little one,” she spoke normally. “How are you? You doin’ good?” He barked at her in answer. “Glad to hear it.”
I looked between them. “You two know each other?”
“It’s a wolf thing,” both Angel and Mike answered at the same time, and somehow that made me not believe them. At all.
“Okay,” I sighed, letting it go. “What’s the news?”
“Patty,” Tina said as she walked up to the three of us, “who’s at the…” she paused, eyeing Angel. “Who are you?”
“Angel,” Angel answered, and she nodded at Tina.
Tina almost looked down her nose at her, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Angel was two inches taller, it would have had a wonderfully intimidating effect. “You’re Angel?”
She nodded. “Yeah. What’s it to you?”
Tina folded her arms. “I’m Christina, Patty’s best friend.”
“Yeah,” Angel scoffed, “I know who you are.”
“This is not happening,” I muttered to myself. This was the female equivalent of a piss off. And there was no time for it. “Listen, ladies, could we do this later? We kind of have some more important shit to do right now, okay?” I asked and they both nodded. “Good.” I focused on Angel. “Where do you want to do this?”
“You gotta room?”
I nodded, going back up the stairs. Yet again. Halfway, I looked over the railing and told Tina to take Fang into the kitchen. She nodded, and I continued to walk, hearing two pairs of footsteps behind me. As all three of us went into my room, I had this feeling of dread wash over me, as if there was nothing in the world that would be able to stop what was about to happen. So I took a deep breath, closed the door, and waited for the bomb to drop.
chapter
TWENTY-THREE
Mike and I stood by the bed, holding hands, while Angel smiled at us for a second. It seemed like forever before she spoke. “So what do you want first? The good news or the bad news?”
Mike and I looked at each other, and he shrugged. “Whatever you feel like telling, Angel,” I told her.
“Well,” she sighed, “you’re off the hook with the whole turning into a werewolf thing. They’ve made you an honorary member of the pack, which is good, and Mike will remain Alpha. But it’s conditional.”
“What are the conditions?” I asked, a little annoyed that they would even give me any such nonsense.
“You have to promise not to tell any other pack that you were ever Alpha,” she explained. “If it ever came out, fleshy girl, we’d be laughing stock.”
That didn’t seem so terrible, so I nodded. “Okay. That sounds fair to me.”
She grimaced. “There’s kinda more.”
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes to the headache that was part hunger and part aggravation. “Go on.”
“If you stay with Wolfman, they want you to get married as soon as possible, and want it to be a wolf only wedding.”
“What?” Both Mike and I screamed.
“That’s not right, Angel,” Mike growled.
“Don’t shoot the messenger, Wolfman. I tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn’t hear of it.”
“It was that blond werewolf, wasn’t it?” I asked her.
She nodded. “Yeah, Derek can be a real asshole.”
I grimaced. “His name is Derek?”
“Yup,” Angel sighed. “The douche bags of douche bags. He’s not well liked.”
“I wonder why,” I muttered.
“Can we get back to the fact that they’re forcin’ us to be married in front of the pack?” Mike interrupted, and I could see his eyes were yellowing around the edges. “Who the hell do they think they are? Pat’s got family, ya know. And people who really care about her. She deserves any kinda weddin’ she wants, after what that asshole put her through.”
“I know,” Angel yelled. “Don’t you think I tried to tell them that? But they were insistent. And you know once the pack makes up their minds, they’re not easily persuaded.”
“So this means I get no one to be there with me?” I asked, trying to make heads or tails of this mess. It seemed as though I was the one being screwed six ways to Sunday in this situation.
She nodded. “That’s what they said.” There must have been something in my eyes because she backed away, adding, “Sorry.”
“Anything else?” I asked, my voice on the edge of anger.
Angel looked down at her boots. “Your first child, if he or she wants a pack, they have to choose ours.”
I could feel my nostrils flare in anger, but I took a deep breath before I said anything. “So now they’re telling me how to raise our hypothetical children,” I paused, taking another deep breath. “Well, that’s just dandy, isn’t it?”
“What if we refuse?” Mike asked her, holding onto my hand tighter.
“Then you are no longer Alpha,” she replied.
“I’m no longer Alpha,” he stated, very matter of fact.
I shook my head. “No, Mike.”
“But—”
“You deserve to be Alpha, Wolf,” I interrupted him, looking up into his now fully green eyes. “I’m not going to let them take that away from you.”
“What about you? It’s not fair that their makin’ you do this.”
“Maybe we can tilt the scales a little,” I suggested, and his brow furrowed. Turning my attention to Angel, I gave her my best imitation of a smile. “You get them on the phone, and tell them that I have a little amendment to this agreement. They allow me one person that is not pack, at my own wedding, or I will go out into the streets of Louisiana, find myself the nearest pack, and make them—what did they call it—a laughing stock. If you know what I mean.”
A smile spread across her face slowly, and she nodded. “Whatever you say, Alpha. God, I wish I could be there to see the look on their pathetic faces. I’ll be right back,” she said, and was about to leave, but turned to ask, “Any particular day you want their answer?”<
br />
“Now, would be preferable,” I answered.
Her smile grew wider. “Yes, ma’am.” And with that she left us alone.
I plopped down on the bed, letting go of Mike’s hand and sighing. “This has just been a crap week.”
He nodded, sitting next to me. “Seems like it. I mean, I came into a freakin’ shit storm in here. I can only imagine what you’ve been through the last couple ‘a days.”
“You have no idea, Wolf,” I breathed, my stomach growling, but I ignored it. “I bet you never had this kind of trouble with all your other girlfriends.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. Besides Angel and you, I haven’t had what you might call ‘girlfriends’ in my life. In fact, Angel wasn’t really a girlfriend; she was just a friend with benefits.”
I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out whether he was serious, and when I realized he was, my eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”
He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. “Just what I said, bébé.”
“You’ve never been in a relationship before?”
“Not like with me and you,” he replied, smiling his bright green-eyed smile, and my mouth dropped open. “God, Pat, you don’t have to be that surprised.”
“You’ve had sexual partners, right?” I asked him, and he shrugged again. “Oh my God. Are you telling me that you’ve never had a first love?”
Without missing a beat he said, “You.”
“You’ve never been in love with anyone besides me? You’re fifty-seven years old, Mike,” I huffed. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I always thought that I’d be a one and done kinda guy. And it turns out I am. I don’t find that strange, even if you do.”
I sat there just looking at him for a second and then realized something. “I really don’t know that much about your life. Other than the fact that you’re a dog person, a werewolf, and your parents died when you were eighteen, I don’t know any of your secrets, any of your normal stories, or any of your deepest darkest fantasies.”
“You know me, bébé,” he protested. “There’s not much more to tell.”