“You’re a wedding planner?” the woman beside me asked.
“Yuuup.”
A bemused expression played on her lips. “A wedding planner who hates marriage?”
Ohhh, whoops. Maybe I shouldn’t go around broadcasting that info at this moment, but fuck it. It wasn’t like I’d see this girl ever again.
“Look, marriage is fine for other people, it’s just not something I ever planned on doing.” Ever in a million years ever.
“Totally get it. It’s not for everyone.”
“Oh God, you’re not a newlywed who thinks I’m a horrible person now, are you?”
“No,” she said, blushing. “Not that I would mind or anything, but the guys in L.A. are…well, noncommittal is the word I’d use, but it doesn’t seem like that’s a problem for you. Don’t worry, I won’t tell you congratulations.” She smiled. “I’m Tiana, by the way.”
“You can just call me Mrs. Richard James Dirty Dick Dawson,” I said through a mouthful of dough. “Also known as wife of can’t-keep-it-in-his-damn-pants.”
Tiana’s eyes went round on her pixie face, and some of the ice cream she’d just taken a bite of came sputtering out of her mouth, which she promptly covered with a napkin.
Yep, I got that a lot. Probably taken aback by my unfiltered mouth, which was nothing new for me. It seemed to get me in trouble more often than not.
When she’d composed herself, she gave me a tight smile. “So, you don’t seem overly thrilled to be married to this…Dawson guy.”
“If you met him, you’d understand why.”
“Then why did you?” she snapped, and then, as if she realized how that came across, she cleared her throat and tucked a piece of blond hair behind her ear. “I mean, how did it happen?”
“Just a stupid drunken mistake between friends, I guess. Well, former friends.”
“Right…uh-huh.”
“Did you want to try one of these?” I said, holding out the bowl of balls.
“No, you can keep all the balls. I should be going.” She stood up to leave, and got a couple of steps away before turning back to face me. “It was, uh…nice meeting you. Good luck with…everything.”
Before I could swallow and respond, she was practically running over other customers to get out the door.
People are so fucking strange, I thought, piling a marshmallow on top of a Butterfinger chunk on top of a smushed dough ball and then dunking it into my shake.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Three’s a Crowd
“YOU KNOW, I’VE never understood why Ryan Reynolds’s character complains in this movie. I’d love to be Sandra Bullock’s bitch.” I tossed a handful of Shayne’s buttered popcorn and M&M mix into my mouth. As if I hadn’t had enough sweets this week, but since I hadn’t gone into diabetic shock yet, I figured I’d load up. Besides, the combination of sweet and salty was my favorite, and it was a must during our girls-only movies-in-pajamas nights. First up tonight was The Proposal, and it didn’t matter that we’d already seen it two-point-five million times in the past. We ended up quoting and talking through most of it anyway.
“That’s only because you’ve never been anyone’s bitch before,” Shayne said, grabbing her own handful of popcorn. “Until you work for a diva boss from hell, you have no idea what you’re saying.” Poor, sweet Shayne had worked for the most notorious, ridiculous matchmaker cow in Los Angeles, until my friend grew a pair and told the woman to fuck off. That also happened to be the same day she moved in with me, so I’d like to think my influence on her has been a positive one.
~Pats self on back~ Good job, self.
“I sort of feel like one right now, but you may have a point,” I said. “I’ll save it for a role play. Speaking of which, you look like Pippi Longstocking with your hair like that. Nate coming over later?”
Shayne twirled one of her long red braids and grinned. “You’re a kinky bitch, you know that, right?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t been tied up a time or two with those suspenders he wears.”
The blush on her face said it all.
“Hah, knew it,” I said, throwing kernels across the couch at her. “Really, Shayne, I’m so proud. How’s rockin’ the cradle still goin’ for ya?”
Shayne answered by sending a handful of the buttery stuff in my direction.
“So I take it that means it’s going great, spanks so much for asking, but you still have an issue over the fact that he’s barely out of diapers.”
“Paige!”
“Sorry, sorry. If I had a twenty-four-year-old at my beck and call, I’d never come out of my room.”
“He’s twenty-five now,” she said, rolling her eyes as the doorbell went off.
I hit the pause button. “Did you order pizza?” I asked.
“No.”
“Chinese?”
“No.”
Ding dong ding dong ding dong—
“Then who the hell…” I swung my legs off the couch and got to my feet as the doorbell continued to chime.
Ding dong ding dong ding dong—
“I heard you the first time, buddy.”
Ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong—
“Jesus,” I muttered, as I speed-walked across the foyer to the front door. “Calm your tits, I’m coming.”
Ding dong ding dong ding dong ding—
“What the hell is so—” I threw open the door and faltered. Dawson stood there with his finger still pressing down insistently on the doorbell.
“Would you knock that off?” I said, swiping his hand.
“Just wanted to announce my arrival…” His eyes lowered to my pajama shorts and he let out a hum of approval.
It was the first moment in my lifetime that I’d wished I knew how to cover myself up, because I did not need or want his eyes on me.
Looking down, I noticed the hand not ringing the shit out of my doorbell was attached to a mighty large suitcase. “Dick, what are you doing here, and why are you hauling a suitcase around at night like you’re homeless? Wait. Are you homeless?”
“I’m moving in, of course. Wife.” Then he pressed a kiss to my cheek and rolled his suitcase right on past me as I stared at him, mouth agape.
Did he say moving…in?
Leaving the door open so he could waltz right back out, I dashed across the foyer and blocked his path. “Uh, you’re not moving in.”
“Are you going to stop me, love?”
“I’ve already got a roommate.”
Dawson’s gaze traveled up the grand staircase and then down to the halls branching out from the foyer. “You’ve also got a pretty sweet pad with at least five bedrooms to spare, though I have my eye on one in particular.”
“This house isn’t big enough for your ego. It already has to deal with mine. Besides, there’s nothing in my father’s little arrangement that says we have to live together.”
“You’re right. I’m just doing this for fun.”
He started moving again, this time toward the living room where Shayne was lounging, and I let out a huff and slammed the door shut before following after him.
“Oh…hi, Dawson,” Shayne said, sitting up and looking between us. Then she noticed the suitcase. “You, uh…spending the night?”
“Moving in, actually.”
She looked at me with wide eyes. “Really.”
“What better way to get intimately reacquainted with my new wife than by joining our lives”—he put his arm around me—“and our bedrooms?”
My teeth were grinding so hard I was surprised I wasn’t spitting out the fillings. “You mean what better way to torment your new wife by encroaching on her space.”
Shayne’s eyes had bulged at the word wife, but she quickly schooled her face back to neutral. “Well, I, uh…should probably get going—”
“Don’t you even think about moving off that couch, Shayne Callahan.” I pushed Dawson’s arm off and shot daggers his way. “I can’t say how much I appreci
ate you stopping by, really, but it’s movie night, and I’ll be damned if I let you mess up tradition. You can see yourself out the way you came.”
“No can do, love. Like our marriage, I’m in it for the long haul.” He had an eat-shit look on his smug, not-handsome-at-all face. I wanted to mop the floor with it, but I wanted to finish my damn popcorn more.
“Fine. Stay. Pick a room. Make yourself scarce.” I grabbed the remote and flounced onto the couch. As the sound of Sandra Bullock’s character begging Ryan Reynolds’s character to be her fake fiancé filled the room, I attempted to tune out the unwanted presence.
Okay, so he wanted to live here. Not like he didn’t have a mansion two seconds away, but whatever floated his boat. We all had full-time careers, so I didn’t have to see him. And I could up my social game the rest of the time. This was just his way of torturing me, which was nothing new, and unless I wanted to have a restraining order put up against the person I was married to, this was one battle I’d have to concede for the sake of winning the war.
There. Problem solved. He could do whatever he wanted for the mandatory marriage months, and then after that he could go back to manwhoring his way through the city. I had a feeling he’d get bored with this little charade before it reached that point, though.
“I love this movie,” Dawson said, rounding the couch and plopping down in the middle between Shayne and me. His arms went on the back of the couch, and he kicked his boot-clad feet onto the coffee table. “Good choice, ladies.”
Shayne tilted her head back to look at me behind Dawson, and she bit into her bottom lip to keep the smile threatening to bust through from coming out. I was glad someone thought this shit was funny. And everyone called me the pain in the ass.
“You guys do this often?” Dawson asked, grabbing the popcorn bowl off the table like he lived here.
Oh…right.
“No,” I said, just as Shayne piped up with, “Yes.”
He grinned, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. Then he stopped mid-chew. “Holy fuck, this is good.”
Shayne perked up. “Thank you. It’s Paige’s favorite.”
Glancing over at me, he raised his eyebrows. “Is it? And here I thought she just ate wounded hearts for dinner.”
I kicked his legs off the table and his hearty laugh filled the room.
A few minutes later, I saw him nudge Shayne. “Do you see this? I didn’t even have to beg or blackmail her to get married.”
“Dawson?” I said. “Shut up and watch the movie.”
And a little while later, during the bachelorette scene:
“If you ladies need a lap dance, please don’t call that guy. I’ll gladly grind on your lap.”
“And wow, would you look at the time,” Shayne said, ducking out from under his arm and getting to her feet.
I glanced at the clock and frowned. “It’s nine thirty.”
“Yeah, I forgot I’m supposed to…meet Nate.”
“No way. He knows you’re mine tonight.”
Shayne gave me an apologetic smile, her eyes flitting to Dawson.
Great. So he wasn’t just a cockblocker, but he also scared off my friends. That guy was going to get a nut punch, and he didn’t even know it.
“You can’t leave me here with this intruder, hooker. It goes against girl code.”
Shayne fingered one of her braids. “But…remember what you said about spending some…quality time with my guy?”
“I remember saying no such word. I do, however, remember saying ‘kinky.’”
“Yes, exactly,” she said, backing slowly toward the door, not so subtly making her escape. “So, uh…I better get to it.”
“I think that’s a superb idea, Shayne. We need a little newlywed time.” Dawson held up the bowl in his hands. “And thanks for the popcorn.”
“You’re welcome, and congrats on—” Her words cut off when she saw the daggers I directed her way, which was a smart move on her part. “Never mind.”
“Don’t think I’m gonna forget this,” I warned.
“Course not. You guys have fun tonight,” she said, throwing a wink my way and then running out of the room as fast as her long legs could take her.
“Kinky time, eh?” Dawson said, stretching out on the couch to fill the space she’d left. “I didn’t know she had it in her.”
“It’s not like you have a lock on whips, chains, and ball gags.”
“Ball gags? Really?” Dawson looked over his shoulder at where Shayne had exited. “Shayne, wait, come back.” Then he gave me one of those seductive smiles, the ones he generally saved for his conquests. “Feels like old times, doesn’t it? You, me, a chick flick…”
I flipped off the TV and threw him the remote. “I’m going to bed.”
“Perfect,” he said, jumping off the couch and grabbing the handle of his suitcase. Before I could fold up the blanket, he was rolling his luggage down the hall.
“Dawson,” I called after him, throwing the blanket over the top of the sofa. “Stop. That’s my side of the house.”
“I can’t very well take Shayne’s side, now can I?”
“To use her words, ‘yes, you bloody well can.’” When he ignored me, I said, “She doesn’t need the whole east wing, so why don’t you take the blue room upstairs to the back?”
He stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “Because that’s too far from you. Defeats the purpose of living together entirely.”
As he wheeled his suitcase into my room, I picked up the pace.
“Oh no, no, no you don’t. You’re not sleeping in my bed.” When he gave me a droll look, I sighed. “I mean, again.”
“Why, love? Do you steal all the covers? Or”—he lowered his voice—“do you just like to masturbate in private?”
“Jesus Christ, here.” I snatched the handle of his suitcase away and pulled it into the bedroom next door. “This is as close as you’re getting, and don’t you dare try to pick the lock to climb in my bed.”
Dawson looked around the spacious guest bedroom, designed in a black, white, and red Old Hollywood motif after Ryleigh had given me a few pictures of forties and fifties actors that had been left over from the After Dark renovation. He stopped in front of a picture of Lana Turner. “Sleeping in a room full of gorgeous girls. Pita, you’re too kind.”
“And you’re a pain in my ass,” I said, throwing my nickname back in his face.
“Why do I get the feeling you don’t mean that in a loving term-of-endearment kind of way?”
I slammed the door shut in his face and yelled, “Night, Dick.”
“Love you too, Pita.”
As I shut and locked my bedroom door, I tried not to let my frustration get the better of me. I wasn’t an angry person, under normal circumstances, and I’d been nothing but on the defensive for days now. The guy in the guest room next to me drove me crazy, there was no denying that. It wasn’t like I hated Dawson, though I lived to snap at him every chance I got. It was…well, there was a lot of history there, and things between us had always been complicated. Add in the fact that we were now apparently roommates, as well as legally wed, and didn’t that just fuck up my head good and well.
Time to focus on the positive side. The craziest shit I’d have to endure had now happened, so how much worse could it get?
CHAPTER EIGHT
It’s Always the Skinny Bitch’s Fault
THE ANSWER TO that question would be a whole lot fucking worse.
I should really learn to listen to my gut more. Because when a nosy stranger asks too many questions and you end up, oh, I don’t know, spilling your guts, it will always come back to bite you in the ass.
There I was, speeding to a meeting at a new-to-me venue, lamenting the fact that technically my name was now Paige Iris Traynor-Ashcroft-Dawson. Sweet Jesus, it was like a daytime soap opera where I’d been married and divorced three times already. Eventually I’d wake up, right? This couldn’t be real life. I couldn’t not be single, for God’s s
ake. My bad-girl reputation was at stake.
So after last night’s fun little move-in shocker, I was running about five minutes behind schedule, which wasn’t like me at all, but the blame for that lay purely at Dawson’s feet, since he’d decided this morning was the perfect time to lock me out of my own master bathroom. What did he do in there, anyway? Brush his hair five hundred times? Meticulously apply his guyliner? Jack off onto every available surface?
Fuck me sideways, he better not have done that.
I wrenched my Tahoe into the parking lot of the California on the Shore hotel and pulled into the first available space.
After checking my face in the rearview mirror to make sure my red lipstick had stayed put and there was no spinach in my teeth after sucking down the disgustingly healthy green drink my chef made me force down my throat most mornings, I grabbed my briefcase and dashed across the parking lot. Part of my job as a wedding planner extraordinaire was searching out new venues and getting face time with the managers—all the better to get the coveted dates and last-minute openings. Like when a bride comes to you three months before the big day and says she’ll absolutely die if she can’t get the California on the Shore instead of the previously agreed upon, and paid for, Ritz-Carlton. Because you’re the shit at what you do, you make that happen.
Which was exactly what today’s meeting was about, and exactly why I was still cursing Dawson’s name for making me late as I stepped into the perfumed lobby, though now I was only down to about three minutes after the hour.
The open lobby was empty, save for the lone receptionist behind the counter, typing away without bothering to look up or greet any guests who entered. So much for the warm welcome. That alone would’ve had me walking back out the door, but this was the place my client wanted, so this was the place she’d get. Guaran-damn-teed.
As I headed in the receptionist’s direction, I glanced around at the flowers littering the lobby. They certainly didn’t look like fresh arrangements, and one touch of a white rose confirmed they were big, fat fakes. Wow. Hotels in Los Angeles still did that? Okay, so they’d all have to be changed out for my client’s wedding…that meant a higher cost for her, but there was no way I was throwing an event with a room full of fake, dusty roses. If this was the venue she wanted—and didn’t her taste speak volumes—then it would need a drastic overhaul. Luckily, the ideas on how to fix it were already flowing: luscious garden roses, lisianthus, and anemones, with a touch of seasonal greenery like seeded eucalyptus, maybe a flower-strewn path that led the guests inside…
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