Crazy Bitch (Bitches and Queens)

by Rachael James

  Chapter 16

  Sam stepped to the side to let Willow through the door, barely able to hide his disgust at the sight of her. Seriously, she always looked five minutes past her last fuck and five minutes away from the next—a fucking white-trash disaster. He honestly didn’t understand how she had captivated Hannah so, or why his very reasonable, very sensible fiancée was so fond of her either.

  He glanced over at Hannah, who was sitting behind her desk, and didn’t bother to conceal his dismay. “Good God, you’re a mess! Are you ill?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Hannah dismissed with a wave of her manicured hand, sounding a little out of breath.

  “You look all rumpled. Have you seen a doctor?”

  “They don’t give antibiotics for being messy,” Hannah denied.

  “They should,” Sam said. “If I were a real potential buyer, I would take one look at you and reconsider. Did you forget you were trying to run a high-end label? You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

  “Sam,” Hannah cautioned with warning.

  Sam sat down across the wide desk. Folding his hands, he rested them across the wood, not knowing that Willow’s naked ass had been plastered there only a few moments before. His smoky-green eyes narrowed to slits before he opened them wide and started to look slightly ill. “Oh,” he gagged in disgust.

  “Sam, I have needs too…” Hannah started.

  Sam covered his ears with his hands and started to sing loudly and off-key, “La, la, la… Are you done yet? I don’t want to hear about your needs. The fact that you have them revolts me. I think I may have just puked in my mouth.”

  “Grow up,” Hannah retorted.

  “I’m not the one chasing after Little Miss Trailer Park,” Sam snapped back.

  “Be nice,” Hannah warned, “or I won’t let you play. Willow is delicate. Her feelings are easily hurt. You know how sensitive those artistic types can be.” He should. God knows how many bitch fits I had to soothe over, Hannah thought to herself. She didn’t understand why Sam didn’t like Willow. The two of them were so alike, she would have thought they would have gotten along like two peas-in-a-pod. Maybe they were just too similar for comfort?

  “I don’t want to play with your skanky ho.”

  “Sam!” Hannah yelled in outrage. “What did I just say? Referring to someone as a skanky ho is not playing nice.”

  “Whatever,” Sam shrugged indifferently. “I guess I don’t need to ask about this,” he said as he tossed the glossy tabloid on the desk.

  Hannah glanced uninterested at the cover shot of her kissing Willow with the bold headline reading—JUST FRIENDS???

  “You wouldn’t like the answer, if you did,” Hannah said.

  “Probably not,” Sam agreed. “But I do have one question? How is it that in ten years no paparazzi have ever been able to track you down in Austin until now?”

  “Maybe it was his lucky day,” Hannah offered.

  “Or maybe, someone intentionally leaked this to the press?”

  “Now why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know, Hannah. I don’t know the reasons for most of the fucking shit you do, but it does feel a bit desperate to me. What’s going to happen if you lose this little game you’re playing?”

  “I never fucking lose.”

  That night, the foursome decided to go out and celebrate. Willow had officially sold her first design, and Kate had finally found a wedding dress that Sam couldn’t disapprove of because she decided to reclaim her inner-bridezilla and kicked him out of the decision-making process.

  Before Sam and Kate arrived, Hannah sat snuggled against Willow’s breasts with her long legs stretched out on the booth. “I’m sorry,” she pleaded.

  “No, you’re not,” Willow denied. “If you were really sorry, you wouldn’t be sitting like this.”

  “Where the hell else am I supposed to sit? You have the best tits in town,” Hannah declared grumpily as she held Willow’s fingers against her chest. “I honestly don’t see how it makes a difference. You have an open-relationship.”

  “It just does,” Willow said.

  “Why?” Hannah questioned.

  Willow fell silent. She wasn’t about to explain what had transpired after she had come home from work to her. Zachary had been waiting for her with the tabloid in hand. He might be a dreamer, but he was also a balls-to-the-wall, brutally honest sort of guy too. And he was hurt, not that it had happened but that she had been hiding it from him. An open-relationship can’t work if one partner isn’t completely open and honest.

  Zachary wanted a confrontation, and Willow fessed up. She even admitted that she was very confused about her feelings towards Hannah without giving him any unnecessary details. If she had been utterly honest and told him all that had transpired, he would be the first person to tell her it was time to get out of Dodge. He would have told her that their, Hannah and hers, relationship wasn’t healthy, and he would be right. It wasn’t healthy, but Willow didn’t want it to end.

  “Why?” Hannah insisted as she leaned back and looked into Willow’s eyes. A small smile curled on her lips. “I know why,” she whispered as she pulled Willow’s lips down to hers.

  Sam’s eyes narrowed to slits when he spotted the lady lovers making out in the shadow-filled booth. “You’ve got be fucking kidding me,” he groaned.

  Kate’s eyes followed his glare and she stifled her own groan. It was bad enough she had to put up with Hannah, now it appeared Sam had officially come down to her level. Throughout the entire evening, Sam did his best to make every conversation as painfully awkward and tense as possible. Eventually, Kate pleaded a headache because she could no longer stand being around him while he was around them.

  At first, she had thought he was just pissed about the dress. In her defense, Kate realized that she was going to eighty before they found the right one. Also, she was superstitious given that the few bumps in their relationships had been more like insurmountable mountains.

  The problem with their relationship was that they didn’t have any problems, usually. Most of the time, they got along fabulously so that when some little issue did arise—it avalanched out of control. All right, so maybe the last issue wasn’t exactly little, she did almost die, but in the grand scheme of things, one tiny, little vein had almost destroyed them. The problem, if it could be called as such, was that perhaps they were just a little too perfect for each other, a little too much in love. And their relationship was just a little too smooth-sailing. In their tiny little corner of paradise, they couldn’t seem to find the coping skills they needed for the real world. And this was an issue.

  For weeks, Kate had tried to deny it. She believed that if they could just make it to the altar everything would go back to normal, but after she spent the entire drive home listening to Sam rant about Willow, Kate realized that he wasn’t just pissed about a dress. She didn’t want to think it, much less believe it, but Sam was beginning to sound like a jealous ex-lover.

  From the beginning, he had insisted that Hannah was just a friend, and Kate accepted it because she didn’t want to believe otherwise. Secretly, she had always suspected that their relationship was something beyond mere friendship. What exactly it might be—Kate didn’t know nor did she want to—but she very much needed to know what it meant for them.

  As soon as they stepped into Sam’s condominium, Kate asked, “Do we have a problem?”

  “What are you talking about?” Sam questioned.

  “We are about to get married in a few weeks and you are obsessing about who another woman is sleeping with,” Kate answered.

  “It’s not another woman. It’s Hannah.”

  “That doesn’t make it right,” Kate called out.

  “This isn’t about us. It’s about Willow and the fact that she’s a slut.”

  “It takes one to know one,” Kate muttered.

  “Oh my God! I am or was nothing like that gold-digging whore. For Christ’s sake, she takes her clothes off in ro
oms full of strangers,” Sam declared.

  “So did you,” Kate retorted. “At least she got paid for stripping. You just did it for free.”

  “Years ago, before I met you,” Sam gritted through his teeth. “And I wasn’t a stripper, just very promiscuous.”

  “Need I remind you that on the very first night we met, you pulled me on stage and dry-humped me in front of a room full of strangers,” Kate said.

  Sam shrugged impatiently. “Because I wanted to fuck you and I thought you wanted to fuck me too.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” Kate answered.

  Sam smirked. “Yes you did. Just like you want to fuck me now.”

  “No, I don’t,” Kate assured him. “Not when you’re behaving like this.”

  “Like what?” Sam questioned defensively.

  “Like you’re in love with Hannah and can’t stand to see her happy with someone else,” Kate whispered softly.

  “In love with Hannah,” Sam mimicked with disgust. “Come on, Kate,” he said as he walked over and put his hands on face. “You’re the only woman I will ever be in love with. You know that. The problem is Hannah isn’t a happy soul. Hannah doesn’t do happy. Whenever Hannah is happy bad things happen.”

  Chapter 17

  Kate’s family was the huggingest motherfuckers Hannah had ever met. No wonder Kate was such a hot mess. “What the fuck? I thought this was a wedding rehearsal—not a goddamn family reunion,” Hannah muttered softly.

  “Hannah, don’t start now,” Willow quietly whispered.

  Hannah glared at Willow, who was sitting beside her in the pew. Willow was just as bad as Sam, both of them harassing her about how she should behave. Hannah, don’t say this. Don’t say that. Don’t touch Willow in front of Kate’s family. Seriously—did they both believe she had never been out in public before? And fuck Kate’s family. Whoever heard of aunts, uncles, and fourth cousins twice removed showing up for the rehearsal? Once they all began arriving in droves, Hannah half-expected to see the RVs parked out in back with a game of yard darts set up in the front. It was fucking ridiculous.

  “She’s just a selfish little bitch. She knows Sam isn’t his best in front of strangers,” Hannah hissed back.

  Willow looked across the old country church and saw Sam yakking it up with one of Kate’s male cousins. “He seems to be getting along just fine to me.”

  “Just give him a few minutes,” Hannah warned.

  Willow suspected that the impeding storm was caused by more than Kate and her family. The clouds began gathering as soon as Willow informed her that she had to leave right after the dinner because a record label was sending over one of their people to watch Zachary’s band perform. This was important to him, and Willow wanted to be there to support him, especially considering their relationship had been rocky at best the last several weeks.

  Hannah hadn’t taken the news well. She had said that tonight was very important to her as well. Her precious baby boy was about to get married, and she needed Willow there to support her. Torn, Willow had done her best to balance herself between the two of them. It would be tight, but she was sure, if everything stayed on schedule, she should be able to get back to the city in time for Zachary’s first set. Of course, that was all contingent on Hannah not having a major meltdown, which was feeling more and more inevitable.

  As soon as everyone was settled, the minister, a middle-aged man named Mark Thompson, stepped to the front of the church. He started by arranging the groomsmen, a various collection Kate’s cousins as Sam lacked male friends and the few that he had he wasn’t about to stand up with him, and then he directed Sam. “Now Sam, if you want to walk to the back with your mother and we will begin by having you escort her down the aisle.”

  Kate was just about to alleviate the awkward pause when Hannah groaned loudly, “Fuuuck!”

  All eyes turned towards her, including Sam’s, who was now glaring. He specifically remembered telling her she wasn’t allowed to say that word inside the church building. Hannah ignored everyone. Reaching for her clutch, she pulled out a large wad of hundred dollar bills.

  “I’ll do it,” she hissed as she strolled flamboyantly towards the front, dropped the cash in a basket that rested on top of the altar, and then twirled back around and made her way towards him. “It’s fine,” she spat. “I put money in the swear basket.”

  “It’s not a fucking…” Sam stopped and growled at her. He reached for his wallet, pulled out a few twenties, dropped them in the basket, and walked back where she was waiting with a smirk. “…it’s not a swear basket. It is for contributions.”

  “Fuck you, Sam,” Hannah pronounced succinctly. “It is now.”

  Once they were alone in the back of the church, waiting for the music to start, Sam leaned over and whispered, “Are you sure you are all right?”

  Hannah narrowed her huge eyes to lethal slits. “That’s the fourth time you have asked me that question. If you ask me again, I swear I will take one of those hymnals and bash it over your skull.”

  “Fine,” Sam jeered.

  But it wasn’t fine. As soon as the two of them arrived, he could tell all was not right in Lady Love Land. For the last several weeks, he had tried to avoid Willow and visit Hannah when she wasn’t around. It wasn’t easy as the two were practically joined at the hip. From what he observed, the two of them had failed to find a happy medium. Either they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, disgusting, or they were fighting like cats and, well, cats.

  Sam was just beginning to come to terms that Hannah had needs. He was open-minded, especially with sexual matters, and could probably watch any other person on the entire planet get off—but he had a very difficult time thinking of Hannah that way. Over the years, she had had her various pets, but he had never been forced to see Hannah stick her tongue halfway down their throats. It was so revolting—every time she kissed Willow, he felt like he needed to hurl. In his opinion, it was past damn time for Hannah to crack the whip and get Willow behaving like a proper pet, or more preferably, get rid of the nasty ho.

  Sam had already decided that once he returned from his honeymoon, he and Hannah were going to sit down and have a long talk. By then, Willow would have fulfilled the conditions of her internship and, hopefully, Hannah would have come to her senses. If not, he was fully prepared to tell her that if she had to have needs, then she needed to find someone a little less skanktastic and a little less engaged to someone else. Hannah needed to find someone normal to balance out her craziness.

  Speaking of which, he wouldn’t have continued to ask if she was all right if the air surrounding her wasn’t charged and heavy—a surefire sign that one of her fits was hovering on the horizon. She had better damn well wait until she got home to lose her mind. He had spent over six hours decorating this church with Kate and her family, and he didn’t want to see it fall to shambles in a matter of minutes.

  When the music started playing, they started down the aisle but midway up, Sam came to a sudden halt. Reaching once again for his wallet and pulling out another twenty-dollar bill, he spun around and faced her. “Bitch, I know you didn’t just do that.”

  “What?” Hannah asked with exaggerated innocence.

  “For starters, it is an aisle—not a catwalk. Secondly, you know if I were in heels there would no way you would out-strut me,” Sam spat angrily.

  Further up the church, Kate closed her eyes and began to rub her temple. She heard her father ask, “Why would Sam be wearing heels?”

  “He was speaking figuratively,” Kate muttered. He had done so well all day long blending in with her family, but as the dynamic duo continued their heated discussion about the proper way to walk down the aisle, she could see their eyes seeing him in a different light. “Sweet Jesus,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “Katie dear, you shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain, especially inside a church,” her mother, Jane, gently chided.

  “It wasn’t in vain,” Kate grumbled.

&
nbsp; Several minutes later, Sam and Hannah did finally make it up the aisle, but Sam hadn’t raised her to his level. He had sunk down to hers. Instead of resembling anything that might look remotely normal, they looked like a pair of late-spring runway models. Kate walked over to Sam. She reached for his hands and whispered so softly that only he could hear. “If I come to that doorway tomorrow and find you with your jacket hooked around your finger slung over her shoulder, I swear I will turn around and walk the other way.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Sam declared.

  “Yes, Sam,” Kate stated, “it was.”

  Kate had just started down the aisle with her father when Sam, still waiting at the front of the church, hunkered down on his knees. He suddenly stood after they had only taken a few steps and called out, “Cut the music.”

  “What?” Kate questioned baffled and turned around towards the alcove where her cousin Billy was working in the sound booth. “Don’t cut the music.”

  “Babe, you were so close,” Sam started to explain. “You’ve almost got it. I loved the confidence, but maybe on this occasion we’re looking for something a little more demure. Remember, it’s not a tittie parade. And Bob,” he said to her father, “a little less just rode in on a horse cowboy amble. I don’t know, maybe something a little more whimsical. Is whimsical the right word?” Sam questioned.

  “Bittersweet,” Hannah offered, who was once again sitting down beside Willow.

  Sam snapped his fingers. “Excellent, Hannah. That’s it, Bob. Something a little more bittersweet. After all, it is your only daughter getting married.”

  Kate and Bob returned to the back of the church. They had only gotten a few steps further when Sam stood and yelled out again, “Cut! Kate, the posture is fantastic, but the look is all wrong. Why are you glaring at me? I’m doing this for us. Twenty years from now, we don’t want to look back at these pictures and have you looking like some horrible cow.”