Dax was over me, cursing and holding me and yelling at the other hand billers for not doing anything. A cop car pulled up onto the curb. I started crying and tried to get to James, but a cop was already questioning him. The hand-biller guy was still flailing around and screeching. It took two cops to get him into the backseat of the car.
“Miss? Mind telling me what happened?” the cop asked.
All I saw was James holding his hand. “That guy. He attacked me. My little brother was trying … he saved me.”
James didn’t look up at me, but he was sniffling. I wondered how bad his hand hurt.
The policeman had to fill out a police report, but since all the other hand billers agreed that James was protecting me, he didn’t get a ticket or in trouble or whatever happens to thirteen-year-olds with cops. The hand billers seemed pleased—one guy was leaving in a cop car, and three more competitors, one costumed, left in cupid’s ride.
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad,” James said as Dax turned onto Las Vegas Boulevard.
“What, that you win the Brother of the Year award? You’re not going to get in trouble. How is your hand?”
James grimaced. “Throbbing. Mostly the two middle fingers and the knuckles.”
Dax and I exchanged a look. He drove like we were in an ambulance and everything was touch and go.
We made it to the chapel. I’d never seen my parents more shocked then when we came through the front door, their banged-up children and a half-naked cupid. Dad took James to the hospital straightaway, and then I sort of looked around and realized. Oh. Boyfriend. Shirtless. Mother.
“So, Mom. This, um … this is Dax Cranston.”
Dax wiped his hand on his diaper and held it out. “This is exactly how I always pictured meeting Holly’s mom.”
Mom took his hand feebly. “We met. At Jim’s funeral.”
“Oh.” Dax’s smile faded. “Right.”
Mom clasped her hands together. “Well, I have a bride in the Bridal suite to attend to. Dax, thank you for giving my son and daughter a ride back. I imagine you need to get back to work?”
Dax gave me a lost look.
“Mom … Dax is my boyfriend.” I sucked in a strong breath. “We’ve been … dating. Since, like, the funeral.”
“But not at the funeral,” Dax added.
Mom swore under her breath. She never swore. Why wasn’t I the one who broke my hand?
“Dax has been wanting to meet you,” I rushed on. “But things have been so busy. He helped with the chapel too, he has really good manners, he’s respectful and usually wears a shirt.”
“I see,” Mom said. “Well, Dax, I wish the circumstances of our meeting were better. But given the craziness of today, I’m going to cancel this one out and ask you to come over another time. Maybe for some coffee.”
Dax beamed. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Holly? Later.” Mom’s eyes were ice. “We talk.”
She marched into the Bridal suite. I took Dax into the office. As soon as I closed the door, I shimmied out of my tights.
“Did you get nicked by one of my arrows? This really isn’t the place.”
“Ha-ha.” I checked my knee. There was a good three-inch cut and a bruise already blossoming. I got a water bottle out of the fridge and a first-aid kit from the cupboard and set to work cleaning myself up.
“So you’re okay?”
“As long as James’s hand isn’t broken, yeah.” I poured hydrogen peroxide over the wound and winced. “My brother plays piano. That was such a stupid move. I totally provoked that guy. The whole cupid thing threw me off.”
“That guy attacked you because I was dressed like cupid?”
“No, I was … I was just too happy that I wasn’t thinking straight.” I glanced up at Dax and saw all skin and hair again. “Maybe you should put a shirt on.”
Dax shuffled toward the door. “If you really are okay, I have to go. Is that all right?”
“Cupid duty?”
Dax’s face clouded over. “No. I have to go back to Cupid’s Dream. Something came up.”
I rifled through the box of Band-Aids. “Does this have anything to do with that fight yesterday? I thought you weren’t going to work. Now you’re dressed like cupid.”
“I’ll let you know about it later.”
“Tonight?” We hadn’t planned a meet-up, but I’d hoped for something, maybe a quick make out in the rose garden. With the cupid outfit still on.
“I don’t know. Maybe. You have to work late, and I don’t know how long this will take. I’ll call you, okay?”
“I’m sorry.” I hobbled up and gave him a squeeze. “About my mom. And James.”
“Don’t worry. In the grand scheme of life, meeting your mom while wearing a diaper isn’t a big deal.” Dax gave me a salute and closed the door behind him.
Fifteen minutes later, I got the call from Dad I didn’t want to get.
Two fingers. Broken.
There went James’s solo at the Smith Center. There went his spring concert schedule. There went his therapy, his outlet.
I squeezed my own hand into a fist and thumped my thigh. This was something I couldn’t fix.
Donna and I closed at eleven. We hadn’t had a huge rush of late-night weddings, but our day hours had seen back-to-back ceremonies. There was one of those giant thermometers in my head, the kind they put on school billboards during a fund-raiser, and with each couple, I raised the mental barometer that much closer to our goal.
Donna hunched over the books as I paced behind her, mumbling things about James and cupid and Grandpa.
“That one couple got the deluxe package. And he tipped me, I don’t know why he tipped me, I just handed her the bouquet, but that’s another twenty.”
“Holly. Relax.” Donna readjusted the ceramic Alpaca figurine on her desk. Apparently, he resembled Herbert the alpaca. Herbert. If I ever saw an alpaca baby-naming book, I would pick it up for Donna.
“Relax? My brother broke his hand and my boyfriend hasn’t called and—”
“Boyfriend?”
“Yes, Donna. He was in here earlier. Spoiler alert: it’s Dax Cranston. Don’t say a word.”
Donna puckered her lips. “First you bring in Elvis, now this.”
“I know. I know. It’s chaos and anarchy at the chapel.” I slapped my hands down on her desk. “Now, will you please tell me if the chapel is going to stay? With us?”
“You almost knocked over Herbert.”
I slid the alpaca to the center of the desk. “Better?”
“I don’t know how much better I can be after hearing that you’re dating a Cranston.”
“Donna—”
She held up a hand. “But I can’t talk. Victor and I had a little whirlwind affair back in 2002.”
“Ew, gross.”
“The man could kiss. My God, that man could kiss.” She readjusted the cuff of her grass-green suit. “I’m sure it contributed to the animosity your grandfather had. Jim could get very jealous.”
I thought I might dry heave. “You’re killing me.”
Donna threw back her head and laughed. “You did it, Holly. With all your cheesy wedding packages and hand billing and kissing the enemy, you somehow did it.”
“Did what?”
“Saved it. Saved us. We’re three thousand over our goal. Twenty away from the payment. Now all we have to do is go to that meeting with the bank in a couple of weeks, pay them half of the balloon, ask to refinance the rest, and our loan should be extended another three years. Five if we’re lucky.”
“We did it!” I threw up my arms and collided into a hug with Donna. “We did it!”
I tried to make her jump up and down with me, but she kept her arms at her sides. “Holly. Please. My suit.”
“I’ll buy you a new suit.” I smacked a kiss on Herbert the alpaca. “I will buy everyone in this chapel a new suit.”
“Or you could just start paying us.”
“That too.”
I
ran into the parking lot and danced. The lights were on at Dax’s chapel, but he didn’t come out and join me. I would tell him the news when he called after work. For now, I had to let my family know.
If Grandpa Jim was sitting on a cloud right now, he had to be smiling.
Chapter 20
Mom was asleep when I got home, so I wrote a sign and put it on her door as a surprise when she woke up. Lenore texted me some inspirational quotes from her female icons, things like, “Try and you can succeed. Stay pensive and you fail.”
I appreciated the gesture, but Bono was so much better.
Dad and James called me on speaker from Dad’s house.
“So I broke my hand for nothing?” James asked.
“You broke your hand for everything.”
“I got a black cast—you have to sign it with white or gold pen.”
“It’s the cast of a hero,” I said.
“Maybe not hero,” Dad said. “Let’s not glorify violence.”
“Did you see that other dude’s face?” James asked. “I effed him up pretty good.”
“But what did we learn from this?” Dad asked in the standard parental monotone.
“Kick instead of punch?”
Dad groaned. “James.”
“Guess what. Dad said now that my hand is broken and my piano career has gone up in flames—”
“Your career has not ended.” My stomach twisted with guilt.
“Stalled. Whatever. I needed a break from piano anyway. Mrs. Georgia always smells like eggs.” He sniffed. “So I was thinking, I want to take photography classes. I can still take pictures with my pointer finger. Dad said he’d do it with me.”
Lenore would point out that this is the first thing they have done together postdivorce and was thus some pivotal moment in the overall dynamic of our family structure.
I was not Lenore. “That’ll be cool. Hey, James?”
“What?”
“Thank you for saving me today.”
“Whatever. Oh, hey, I told Dad about Dax.”
“You what?”
“He wanted to know who the guy in the diaper was.”
“We need to talk about that,” Dad said.
“Absolutely.” I yawned. “Just not tonight. Let’s save some excitement.”
“But we will talk.”
“Can’t wait.”
“I saw you making out on the street corner,” James said. “I almost punched Dax before I punched that other dude. But it takes some balls to wear a diaper like that, so it’s cool.”
“Okay, this kid needs to sleep,” Dad said. “I’m keeping him here for a few days.”
This would also be the first time James had slept over when it wasn’t Dad’s weekend. And the first time James hadn’t yelled at Dad during the conversation. And the first time we all saved a wedding chapel.
“Proud of you, Holly!” Dad said before hanging up.
I tried calling Dax too, but his phone just went to voice mail. He was supposed to call me, right? We were maybe even going to get together. Even if we’d celebrated the holiday unofficially the day before, a little “Way to save your chapel” would have been nice.
I changed into my duck pj’s and old cross-country shirt. The Space seemed bigger tonight, the couch more comfortable. Despite the niggling feelings about Dax, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this relaxed. Actually, I could. It was before Grandpa died. I’d been bearing that chapel-sized burden for almost three months.
Sam called me after midnight to say he was coming over.
“Tonight?” I was semidozing on the couch, semiwatching a rerun of The Office. “No, I’m too tired.”
“Too late. I’m at the door.”
“What are you doing?” I asked when Sam pushed past me with a pizza under his arm.
“I’m here to offer you congratulations on saving all our jobs.”
“Thanks. But a text could have done that.”
“No. No. This is an in-person thing. So. You did it.”
I played with the string of my pajama bottoms and tried to hide a smile. “I’m sort of awesome.”
“But only sort of.” He slid the pizza box onto the table. “The real reason I’m here is because I was hungry and I didn’t want to be pathetic and eat this alone.”
“And I’m the only mouth you could think of?”
Sam sighed. “Porter is out of town. Grant and Mike took two girls from Green Valley out on a double date. And Camille mangled my heart yesterday. So yeah, it’s you, Nolan. Eat.”
He flipped back the lid and cursed. They’d shaped the crust into a heart with pepperoni slices fanning around the cheese like lace. “Communists!” he shouted.
I reached past him for a slice. “Mmmm, communist pizza.”
“Why did they do this? Are they mocking me?”
I slid my knee onto the arm of the couch. “It’s Valentine’s Day, remember? It’s a nationwide conspiracy.”
Sam tore the pepperoni off, like that would fix things, and shoved a slice into his mouth. “I was going to give Camille the promise ring today, did I tell you that? Take her to the park where we first kissed, make a picnic of her favorite foods, make it all special.” He tore off the crust. “But I’d picked it up yesterday at the jeweler, and when we were by the airport taxis I saw this old couple. He was helping his wife into the cab even though he could hardly walk himself, and I thought, that’s how Camille and I will be. Know what she said?”
“Yeah, I know. I was there when you guys hashed this out last night.”
“No, about this couple. She said, ‘Ugh, I never want to get old.’ Here I am looking at this couple and seeing forever, and she just sees an end.”
I headed to the fridge for some Cokes. “Sam, you look for metaphors too much.”
“You know who else looked for metaphors?”
“J. K. Rowling,” I said at the same time as Sam.
“It’s true!” Sam cried. “She also was a master at creating complex characters in relationships that promoted growth.”
“Sam. I know. I’ve read the books as many times as you have. And I think J. K. Rowling would also say that when you lose love you need to move on. Or else you’ll turn into Snape.”
“But Snape never had the love to begin with!” Sam said impassionedly.
“Sam. I am very sorry about you and Camille. I know you love her very much—”
“Loved her!”
“Whatever. You don’t turn off love in one day.”
“Well, now that I see what kind of person she is … do you know she told me that she doesn’t even like Harry Potter? That she just watched the movies because I like them.”
“Because that’s what you do in a relationship! You compromise. You don’t give ultimatums and expect the girl to just bow down to your orders.”
“I didn’t give an ultimatum.” He folded his arms. “I just have standards.”
My phone rang with a text. I rushed over to the coffee table, but it was Camille, asking if I was having a better Valentine’s than her. Dax and I needed to have a talk about his texting skills or lack thereof.
“Where’s your boyfriend tonight?” Sam took a swig of Coke. “Shouldn’t you be sharing a heart-shaped pizza with him?”
I rubbed my forehead. “Sam. Look. You just broke up with your girlfriend, and I’m here to talk to you or listen or whatever. But I don’t want you harping on Dax tonight, okay? We had a good day at the chapel, but it was long, in part because you never showed up to work. There is stuff going on with my brother and family and I just … I can’t, okay? I’m going to be a friend to you. But I need you to be a friend back.”
Sam slid down next to me on the couch. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
I waved my hand. “It’s fine.”
“No, no, it’s not. Here, I want you to have something.” He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the promise ring. It was white gold with a ruby and little diamonds around it. If it was real, it couldn’t have b
een cheap. “Here. The jeweler won’t take it back.”
“I’m not going to wear your creepy promise ring, Sam.”
“Then wear it as a friendship ring.” Sam shrugged. “Hold on to it for me. In case I ever find love again.”
The ring barely fit my pinky. “Porter would make so much fun of you for this.”
Sam gave me a brotherly peck on the cheek. “That’s why Porter isn’t my best friend. You are.” He swiped the remote from the table and started flipping through channels. ‘There’s a Battlestar Galactica marathon on. Want to watch?”
“It’s one in the morning.”
He shrugged. “We’re young.”
We finished off the rest of the pizza and watched an episode before falling asleep. My mom came in and put blankets on us. I had some weird dream about Dax dressed as a zombie cupid, and it ended with all my friends dead and my dad eating a pizza.
When the phone rang at five a.m., I was already onto another dream, this one involving alpacas and skateboards. Sam picked up the phone.
“Dax, what’s up?” Sam asked.
“What? Dax?” I peeked open an eye. Sam’s hair was flat on one side. I couldn’t process why Sam and I were on the couch and why he was talking on my phone. To Dax.
I shot up. “Give me the phone.”
“It’s Sam. Are you okay? No, we must have just fallen asleep.” He paused. “Don’t worry, it’s not like that.”
I grabbed the phone from Sam. “Dax? What’s going on?”
“I shouldn’t be worried about you and Sam right now, should I?”
Sam leaned in close to listen. I pushed him away. “You shouldn’t be worried about Sam and me ever.”
Dax sucked in a long breath. “I need to ask y’all a favor.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah. I’m at Red Rock. I need … can you come pick me up?”
“Like, at the casino or the mountains?”
“Casino. You don’t have to come in. I’m actually in the parking lot.”
“You want me to come pick you up from the Red Rock Casino parking lot at five in the morning? I don’t have a car. Where is your car?”
The Chapel Wars Page 18