“Yeah.”
“Congratulations, brother. Be happy.”
“Right.”
Walker flipped the phone shut.
Chapter Three
Signing Bonus
I sat in the passenger seat of my own car, the glossy, violet and ice blue cardboard folder that carried our wedding photos and a large envelope with our marriage certificate was sitting on my thighs, a huge bouquet of roses was in my hand, the Vegas traffic was heavy, Walker was driving us back to the hotel.
We’d been married by Liberace. Not the real one, obviously, since he’d passed. A fake one. I didn’t know you could be married by Liberace. I knew Elvis would marry you, Liberace, no.
I found this hilarious, totally loved it. If I knew you could be married by Liberace, even if I was head over heels in love with the man I married and thinking I was starting a life that would last forever, I’d blow off the traditional and go for Liberace in a chapel festooned with violet, ice blue and a liberal hand with silver gilding. It was freaking awesome.
But I wondered why Ty Walker chose Liberace. I didn’t think he got a kick out of it because, as far as I could tell, he had no sense of humor… or any emotion, really. It was likely because it was the first wedding chapel we happened upon so he swung the Charger in.
When we arrived inside, the vestibule was packed. Two brides all kitted out in big dresses. One had at least two dozen friends and family around her, groom in a tux, girlfriend in a bridesmaid dress, another male in a tux – wedding party. This was planned. They’d picked Liberace specifically. Their posse had come with them, vacation and big event. The other bride and groom had about half a dozen friends around them, the bride’s gown clearly off the rack and not fitting properly and her hair was a mess as was her makeup. Her groom was wearing shorts. She’d probably donned that gown in the car. They’d been partying and were about two sheets to the wind, teetering on three. Not planned. Spontaneous but happy. Good times that may, or may not, be regretted in the morning. I couldn’t tell. Right now they seemed giddy with happiness but it could be giddy with booze. They’d wake up tomorrow and realize they’d done the one thing that could happen in Vegas that didn’t stay in Vegas. And looking at their loopy, drunken grins, I hoped they didn’t care.
Walker walked me up to the desk that had a huge display of real wedding bouquets and shelves of boxed confetti in every color behind it and also behind it was a diminutive woman with loads of dyed, dark hair ratted out into hairstyle the likes of which I’d never seen and, not to be mean or anything, I hoped I’d never see again. She also was sporting an excess of bulky rhinestones which adorned her at ears, neck, wrists and fingers and so much makeup it was unreal. It wasn’t a look I’d choose but she worked it, except the hairstyle.
“Love is in the air!” she cried when we stopped at the tall counter that was topped with glass under which were photos of happy couples, the bride and groom sandwiching a smiling-like-a-lunatic Liberace sporting an enormous, lilac-hued pompadour, these pictures intermingling with printed menus of wedding packages. “We’ve got a wait of about half an hour, a bit more. I hope that isn’t a problem,” she went on.
“Nope,” Walker replied.
“Excellent,” she breathed, clasping her hands in front of her then she took us both in. “What’ll it be? Menu’s on the counter. We got a basic version then add-ons or you could go with the deluxe package. And, I tell all my lovebirds, whatever you do, go for the bubble machine even if it’s just as an add-on. Nothing says joy like bubbles,” she advised and I pressed my lips together to stop from giggling but even though I thought she was funny, I couldn’t exactly argue with the fact that nothing said joy like bubbles, I’d just never thought of bubbles like that. She looked behind us then at us. “You need witnesses?”
“Yep,” Walker answered.
She leaned in. “We throw that in, freebie.”
Walker just stared at her.
“That’s great,” I said.
“Basic,” Walker said and her smiling, love is in the air eyes went up to him and her face fell a little.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“Cash,” he added.
She gave him a top-to-waist and muttered, “Right.” Then she moved to the cash register.
My eyes moved to the bouquets.
After Walker told me what I needed to know for now and gave me thousands of dollars to make it so, I’d braved the Vegas heat and gone shopping. I was exhausted. I wanted a shower and a nap but he was intent on getting this done and I figured, if we did it then it would be over, I wouldn’t have a mind filled with whether or not I’d made the right decision or kicking myself for getting played by Shift rather than upping stakes and getting the fuck out of Dallas about thirty seconds after we laid Ronnie in the ground.
And as I tried on dress after dress trying to find one to get married in, I thought about the men in my life (by the way, the first dress I’d been instructed to get I’d found right away – a wedding dress, not so easy and, incidentally, I’d done a detour from Walker’s instructions in order to buy a bikini, a hopeful effort that I might eventually get to veg beside a pool where every girl knows she can let the sun bake away her life, however crazy it is, and I needed that for certain).
In thinking about the men in my life, I started at the beginning and counted them down.
First, there was my grandfather. A decent enough guy if you didn’t know him. Not so decent if you did. Total shit at being a Dad. This was evidenced by the fact that my mother was a mess. He hadn’t learned any lessons from what went bad with her before taking me on. This was because, first, he didn’t want to learn and second, he was the kind of man who always thought he was right so he didn’t think there was anything to learn and my Mom flying off the rails was therefore all on her not on the fact that her mother was a weak woman cowed by an overbearing man and her father was more interested in football than fatherhood and expected the women in his life to tow the line and wasn’t best pleased, and showed it, when they didn’t do what he wanted even if he hadn’t expended the effort to explain what he wanted.
There you go. Enough said about Granddad.
Then there was Ronnie.
And, enough said.
Then there was Shift.
Definitely enough said.
Now there was Ty Walker, an admittedly gorgeous and weirdly honest yet still unforthcoming ex-con who went to a pimp to get himself a wife for reasons unknown.
Again, enough said.
Evidence was suggesting in the man department I should give up while the giving up was good.
So, upon finding my wedding ensemble, an extortionately expensive dress full price that had been marked down twice and I knew why, only a buyer would see it on the hanger and know it was fabulous, I decided to give up while the giving up was good.
In other words, this would be my only wedding. I was done with men and that done could be displayed in neon lights, that was how done I was.
And I had a fabulous dress, great shoes and Ty Walker’s diamonds.
And since this was it for me, I wanted a bouquet.
“Can you, uh… add on a bouquet?” I asked the lady. “Ring it up separately. I’ll pay for it with my credit card.”
Her gleeful eyes came to me and she cried, “Absolutely, darlin’!” Then she threw out an arm indicating the bouquets like she was the gowned eye candy on a game show. “You pick.”
I looked at the bouquets and instantly spotted the one I wanted. “Top row, second one in.”
A huge, close bundle of blush-colored roses mixed here and there with gorgeous ivory ones. Nothing else. Just roses pressed together tightly. Elegant. Gorgeous.
“Fabulous choice,” the woman approved, moving to the bouquet, she plucked it out and I saw the spray of stems was bound with a wide, ivory organdie ribbon tied in a big bow. She turned, offered it to me, I took it and she announced, “One hundred and fifty dollars.”
Oh my God. One hundred and fifty
dollars? There were a lot of roses, probably two dozen, maybe even more, they were gorgeous, each one sheer perfection, but still.
I stared down at the bundle, muttering, “Um…”
“Add it,” Walker rumbled and my head jerked back and to the side to look up at him.
“You don’t –” I started.
His eyes tipped down to me. I shut up.
“All righty, lovebirds,” the woman chirped.
“Photo,” Walker stated and I looked from him to the now beaming woman.
“Five by seven or eight by ten?” she asked.
“Two. Of both,” he answered.
“No problem,” she stated. “Anything else? Confetti?” She did the game show thing with her arm again, indicating the boxes of confetti behind her but eyeing my dress. “We got pink.”
“No,” Walker said firmly, she bit her lip and I waded in.
“My man isn’t a confetti type of guy.”
And this I knew to be true. Earlier, he’d returned to our hotel room while I was in the bathroom getting gussied up for the big event. When I came out, he barely looked at me even though I was coiffed, made up and had the dress on (but my feet were bare) before he passed me and went into the bathroom saying, “Delivery will come. Accept it. Tip. The boxes on the bed are for you.” Then he disappeared in the bathroom.
No, “Honey, you look fabulous,” which I wasn’t expecting but his eyes didn’t even flare. Nothing. My dress was fantastic, it fit like it was made for me, it was sexy yet elegant and my hair had totally behaved for once and it looked amazing, all this but nothing from Ty Walker. I could have been wearing a potato sack.
So definitely not a confetti guy. I was surprised he wanted pictures.
After he went into the bathroom, I’d gone to the boxes on the bed but the minute I spied them, my step had gone hesitant.
That was because the boxes on the bed were a very distinctive color and they were tied by white, satin ribbons. And there were four of them.
I’d sat on the bed and slowly opened the first one, finding it hard to breathe.
It was a set of earrings. Diamonds clustered in the shape of a flower. Gorgeous. Not huge. The sparkle and setting saying it all. The fact that the post was screw in laying testimony to how expensive they were. They were not earrings you’d want to lose because the doohickey fell off the back.
The second box held a necklace, a delicate white gold chain on which was suspended a flower cluster of diamonds that matched the earrings. The pendant was larger than the earrings, eye-catching but not ostentatious.
The third, a diamond bracelet made up of the same flower clusters. It was extraordinary and it had to be at least five times as expensive as the earrings and necklace because it was all diamonds linked with thick, white gold links.
I put the first two in and on but couldn’t do the clasp on the bracelet one-handed because it was too complicated.
Then I turned to the last.
The last box I knew what it was by the size. And when I opened it, I saw I was right.
A diamond engagement ring, princess cut, stone not even close to small, white gold, the stone elevated, double rows on an open curve guiding up to it set with an array of much smaller diamonds but a whole lot of them.
I stared at it thinking that Ty Walker was not fucking around.
I held my breath as I slipped it on, lost my breath when it caught on my knuckle, deep breathed as I panicked that it would be too small then it slid over my knuckle and down where it sat at the base of my finger snugly. It wouldn’t ever fall off. Perfect fit.
“Shit,” I whispered, staring at the beautiful ring that looked really fucking great on my finger.
Then a knock came at the door. I jumped then hurried to the door to find a man stood there holding a hanger on which was a zipped-up suit holder and he was balancing four boxes in his other hand.
“One hour tailoring,” he announced.
There you go. In Vegas, you could get anything.
I smiled at him and let him in, he put down the boxes on the top of the cabinet unit, hung up the hanger in the closet, I gave him a ten, he smiled and hustled out. I went to the boxes, white cardboard sides but clear plastic top. I sifted through them. Four dress shirts. One deep gray, one deep lavender, one deep blue and the last a light, dove gray.
The shower went off but Walker didn’t come out so I stopped sifting through his stuff and went about my final preparations, in other words, perfume, deodorant, lip gloss and shifting things I needed from my purse to my new satin clutch with the rhinestone clasp that matched my shoes.
I was sitting in a chair putting on my spike-heeled, deep blush, satin, open-toed sandals with the wrapped heel and ankle strap that had a rhinestone buckle when he came out.
Then my fingers arrested on the buckle when my head came up and I saw my new fiancé wearing nothing but a towel.
I was right. All muscle. Lots of it, all of them big.
I was also right. Perfect skin as far as the eye could see.
That was, the skin not inked but even the inked skin was perfect because the ink was awesome. He had a lot of tats. Lots of them. Or, more to the point, he had two tats but one that curved, slanted and swirled doing all of this while covering a lot of space, from the top of his left forearm, up, covering his upper arm, up, curving over his shoulder and up his neck, curling around his shoulder to his back and across his left lat, at the front snaking across his chest, pec, midriff, abs, most of this halfway across his massive, muscled torso, some of its awesomeness slithering even further to invade the right side of his upper body, more going around his left side to lead to more on his back and even more meandering down to disappear tantalizingly into the towel. The other tat was a line of intriguing symbols that ran from his inner right wrist curving around to end at the top of his outer forearm.
The big tat was amazing, a work of art. The smaller tattoo was not as cool but still fascinating. That said, I was too overwhelmed by all that was him and how beautiful every inch of it was to pay discriminating attention to the tats.
He was digging into the bag Shift packed and pulled out a pair of black underwear.
When the underwear appeared, my head dipped straight back down to my shoe. It took awhile to get them fastened because my fingers were trembling. By the time I looked up, he had on a pair of dark gray suit pants and was shrugging on the dove gray shirt.
“I need your help with the bracelet,” I said and my voice sounded funny, scratchy.
His eyes came to me and he jerked his chin up but kept buttoning his shirt.
“Uh… just wondering,” I went on as I stood. “What’s with the bling?” Then I lifted a hand and touched the diamonds at my neck.
“Man in the lobby?” he returned.
I nodded, knowing who he was referring to.
“Watchin’ me. Watchin’ you.”
I nodded again. I knew this though his confirmation of it still made my gut get tight. I also figured it explained the circuitous route we took to Vegas. That man was tailing us, Walker knew it and was either trying to shake him or play with him.
“Knows me,” he continued.
I nodded again.
“Knows how I am with my women.”
I nodded again but at this news I felt my chest expand so much I was finding it hard to breathe.
“He’ll expect bling,” he finished.
Learning this, for the first time in my life I had to make a conscious effort to suck in air.
I searched for then found my voice. “This is a lot of bling and I don’t know –”
“Signing bonus.”
I blinked then asked, “What?”
“Yours to keep. Signing bonus.”
My chest deflated but I felt a strange warmth invading my insides.
“Ty,” I whispered.
He finished buttoning his shirt, went to the bed, tagged the bracelet and came to me. He bent low, grabbed my wrist and lifted it. I held it up as he clasped it on,
all business and he did it like he’d done it before. Often.
Then his hands went away but his eyes came to mine.
“My business is important to me. You’re facilitatin’ me gettin’ on with that. I appreciate it. Signing bonus.”
Then, without another word, he walked to the desk and rifled through a bunch of bags there that I hadn’t noticed, what with diamonds and impending nuptials and all. He pulled out a glossy, distinctive colored bag, the same as the boxes still scattered on the bed and out came two more boxes. One, he opened then unearthed cufflinks and put them in his cuffs. The other, he opened, pulled out whatever was in it and then put it in his trouser pocket. I would find out later that was our wedding bands.
Then he went to the duffle, pawed through it and pulled out socks.
Five minutes later, he was adjusting his collar under his suit jacket as we walked out the door.
Twenty minutes later we were at the Liberace chapel of love.
A little over five minutes after that, Walker was handing over cash for a wedding, a bouquet and photos.
One minute after that, his hand came to my elbow, fingers curling around, that strange, intense heat hit my skin where his fingers touched and he led me to an open corner, a small space but the only space void of happy, soon-to-be linked for eternity (maybe) lovebirds.
His hand dropped and my mind centered on the touch that still burned the skin around my elbow. Then my eyes caught on something and I forced myself to focus.
Across the way, there was a silver gild framed, full-length mirror and in it, Walker and I were reflected.
I was wearing a blush-colored, silk crêpe, to the knee, snug fitting, sleeveless dress, the bodice a wide vee that showed lots of chest and hints of cleavage, the material skimming over the points of my shoulders to dip into another vee that exposed my back to the bra-line. My hair was down and I’d curled it in chunky curls so there was a lot more of it than normal and normally there was a lot of it. My shoes were fantastic. My diamonds, more so. Much more.
Even being such a big guy, he wore his suit well. The one hour tailors had done a good job. The suit wasn’t shit, not at all. And it fit him perfectly. It was fabulous, it was expensive. Maybe not top-of-the-line Italian but nothing to sneeze at including the shirt, the material of which was very fine, the tailoring, for one hour, spectacular.
Lady Luck Page 5