Neanderthal Marries Human: A Smarter Romance (Knitting in the City)

by Penny Reid

  “Enough. We’re leaving.”

  “No! It’s the last thing on the list.” Elizabeth held up a list. It was a numbered list of ten items. All but the bottom one was crossed out.

  They began calling to me in a chorus, tugging at my shirt. Janie made her way to the front, pressed against me, and whispered in my ear. “Please, please, please....”

  “A little help here?” I looked to Nico.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know how we’re going to get them out of here unless they’re willing.”

  “Fine.” I gritted my teeth and said, “Janie and I will get married.”

  “You can’t get married,” Nico said, trying to dissuade me with a vigorous headshake. “It’ll break your mother’s heart.”

  I squinted at him. “What do you know about it?”

  “I crochet with the girls every Tuesday. I know all about it.” Nico looked around the room then said to the Elvis impersonator, “What do we need to do to get married here?”

  Elvis, who’d been standing like a statue, shook himself and stuttered, “Uh-uh-uh….”

  “Who is getting married?” Dan asked over the continuing chorus of protests from the knitting group.

  Janie was still rubbing against me, and I was starting to return her kisses. Fuck if she wasn’t driving me crazy. I’d never seen her so uninhibited. I was equal parts turned on and exasperated. She had me on fire.

  “I’ll take one for the team. Elizabeth and I’ll do it.” Nico rubbed his hands together. He was smiling. It didn’t look like this was going to be a sacrifice.

  Dan shook his head at Nico. “She is going to be pissed tomorrow when she finds out.”

  “Finds out? She’s here, isn’t she? She’s awake, isn’t she? And look….” He pulled a box out of his cargo pants, opened it to show us a diamond engagement ring and two wedding bands. “I even have the rings.”

  Dan glanced from the rings to Nico. “Did you plan this?”

  Nico shook his head. “No. But I’m going to take advantage of it.”

  “She’s stoned out of her mind.”

  “Tomato, tomah-to.”

  “Fine,” I said, putting my hands up because it was the easiest option, and Janie’s continuing assault had become overwhelming. I needed to put a stop to it or I needed to get her alone. I couldn’t leave with just her, and I wanted easy. I needed to get them home, and arguing with six mostly naked knitters was the opposite of easy. “Fine. We’ll have a wedding. But everyone needs to get dressed first.”

  “Yay!” Janie smiled up at me and the assault was over. They moved away in a sloppy mess of limbs and bare bodies, hugging each other.

  “Clothes on. Wedding after,” I reminded them.

  The next several minutes were spent sorting through their clothes. Janie gave Elizabeth the veil. Once they had their clothes on, things didn’t get much better. They each seemed to be trying to out-do the other for the shortest skirt.

  Janie easily won, but this was only because her legs were longest. Elizabeth’s blue dress and Janie’s red one didn’t have straps. Sandra was the only one in pants, and they were leather pants. The outfits looked more like wrapping paper than clothing.

  Nico finally got Elvis talking, though Dan kept shooting the man dirty looks. I guessed Dan was still thinking about finding him with his hands on Kat. I didn’t want to know what was going on there, between Kat and Dan. I knew, based on the background checks I’d done on all the ladies, that Kat was more than just a secretary at an architecture firm, but I hadn’t shared the information with Dan, and he hadn’t asked.

  The girls didn’t seem any more sober, but with the wedding to look forward to, they took direction better and sat in the pews when instructed. Random bouts and snorts of laughter erupted periodically.

  I was going to have to get a sample of Sandra’s Amsterdam absinthe chocolate and get it tested just to make sure they hadn’t ingested anything stronger or dangerous. But none of them looked sick. So Dan called for a car, and we made the ladies promise to leave as soon as Elizabeth and Nico were married.

  It was decided that Dan would be the best man and that I would walk Elizabeth down the aisle. I protested when the group wanted Janie to be the maid of honor because she wasn’t walking in a straight line very well. I was overruled.

  An organist appeared from someplace. He was in his eighties at least and walked into the chapel as if he’d been planning to show up all along. He sat down and began playing “A Big Hunk O’ Love.” I guessed that the impersonator usually sang along. He didn’t. He stood at the front, not looking anything like Elvis.

  Nico and Dan also stood at the front. I watched Janie take slow steps away from where Elizabeth and I were waiting at the back of the small building. Amazingly she didn’t fall.

  “We’re so lucky,” Elizabeth loud whispered at my side.

  I glanced at her. “What?”

  She peered at me. “We are lucky. I am lucky to have Nico. You are lucky to have Janie. He gives meaning to the beating of my heart. You and I…we despise almost everyone, which means we save all our love and affection for a small few. I don’t know how they put up with the intensity of it, but they do.”

  I searched her face. She was still stoned out of her mind, which might have meant that her walls were down and she was speaking honestly.

  She continued. “I really do like you, Quinn. You love her like she deserves. You should let her love you back.”

  “I do,” I said. Then, because she was being so honest and she probably wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning, I added, “Janie makes me a better person.”

  She gave me a small smile before she turned to the front of the chapel. “You make yourself a better person. Janie is just a reminder of why it’s worth it.”

  I blinked at her, taking in this nugget of wisdom. But before I could say anything else, we were walking down the aisle. I glanced at Janie. She was still high as a kite, but she was beaming at her friend. Nico was watching Elizabeth. He looked like he was about to float out of his shoes.

  We reached them in five steps, and I handed Elizabeth to Nico. I then took a seat in the front pew, the one closest to Janie so that she was standing directly before me. If I wanted to, or if she started to fall, I could reach forward without standing and bring her to my lap.

  Mercifully, the organ music stopped. I almost moaned my relief. Elvis cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention, and then he began in a singsong fashion, “Dearly beloved….”

  He read the words from a piece of paper and didn’t look up once during his recitation. This was probably because Dan was still giving him the evil eye.

  I glanced at Nico and Elizabeth and got the distinct impression that they no longer saw us; they weren’t at all aware of the shitty Vegas chapel or the lack of flowers and decorations. They saw only each other.

  That’s how it’s supposed to be, I thought.

  I understood why some people wanted to get married in a beautiful church, temple, or mosque. They wanted to exchange vows surrounded by the presence of their maker. They wanted the experience to be sacred. They wanted beauty around them as they pledged their life together.

  I thought I would be more like Nico when the time came. He looked at Elizabeth, and she was the only beauty he saw. It wouldn’t have mattered if they’d been in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the Siddiqa Fatima Zahra Mosque in Kuwait, under the sky, in a tent, or in a piece of shit chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

  Nico didn’t care.

  “I, Elizabeth Heather Finney, take you, Niccolò Ludvico Manganiello….”

  “To be my husband,” Elvis prompted.

  But Elizabeth didn’t repeat after him. She swayed forward a little then repeated his name. “Niccolò Ludvico Manganiello….”

  Elvis looked between the two of them, cleared his throat. “That’s right. Now say, to be my husband.”

  Elizabeth ignored him. She started jumping up and down. “Manganiello…Manganiello…Manganiello!”
Each time she said his last name it was louder until she was shouting it. I knew Elizabeth had trouble saying Nico’s last name. But her shouting of Manganiello was ridiculous.

  Nico laughed and shook his head. “Tutto questo è ridicolo. Quel che conta è che il mio cuore ti amava ancor prima di incontrarti e ti amerà sempre. Sii mia e lascia che io sia tuo.”

  Nico had told me once that Elizabeth went crazy when he spoke Italian to her. This was information I considered irrelevant.

  Regardless, he was right. Sitting in the front row of the chapel, I saw the evidence clear as day.

  Elizabeth swayed again, her hands lifted to Nico’s shoulders. The ladies all sighed loudly. I glanced at Janie and found her looking at me like she was starving and I was fried chicken. I lifted my eyebrows at the intensity of her gaze.

  I needed to learn Italian.

  Elizabeth, her nose now an inch from Nico’s, moaned and said, “Oh, screw it. Just say husband and wife already!”

  Elvis looked between them, then to me. I shrugged.

  “Uh…husband and wife,” he said.

  Elizabeth jumped into Nico’s arms, her legs wrapped around his middle, and swallowed his startled laugh when she kissed the hell out of him.

  ***

  The car drove us back to the casino hotel where the ladies were staying. When we exited the car we split up the girls; each of us helped two make it into the hotel.

  “This is like herding cats.” Dan was carrying a passed out Marie over his shoulder, fireman-style. His other arm was around Kat’s waist, stumble walking with her.

  “This is worse,” I said.

  It was worse. It was torture.

  Janie was snuggled against my chest and her hands were roaming. She hadn’t stopped looking at me like I was a meal since Nico’s little performance. Twice I’d pulled her fingers out of my pants while we walked across the floor of the casino. Janie’s exploration would have been nicer if Sandra hadn’t been on my back.

  The only way I’d been able to keep Sandra from running off was by giving her a piggyback ride. Her legs were around my waist, her arms around my neck. Every few minutes she’d dig her heels into my sides, arch her back, and say, “Yee haw!” or “Get a rope!” or “Save a horse, ride a cowboy!”

  “It’s not so bad.” Nico said. “Chi s'accontenta gode.”

  Nico’s arms were full of Elizabeth and Ashley. He was the only one who was smiling. Ashley was surprisingly docile. She seemed content to lay her head on his shoulder and quietly follow where he led. Elizabeth had her arms around him and was kissing his neck and face. She also followed him without question.

  “What does that mean?” Dan frowned. “I don’t speak Italian.”

  “It means a contented mind is a perpetual feast,” Nico said. “Similar to a burden that one chooses is not felt.” His hand around Elizabeth slid down the side of her body and grabbed her ass. “Enjoy yourself, and you might find that the task is not so difficult.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.” Dan gritted his teeth and walked around a slot machine. He was propping up a mostly asleep Marie while Kat was tonguing his ear. “You’re holding your wife. If I enjoy myself I’m a scumbag.”

  We finally reached the elevator. Nico pressed the button. We waited.

  My attention flickered to Dan. Kat leaned in to him, pressed her body against his, and kissed his jaw. “You’re cute,” she said, and her hand slid from his neck to his chest, then lower.

  I cocked an eyebrow at them.

  “Fuck….” Dan gasped. His eyes lifted to the ceiling of the casino. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Hurry up.”

  “I think she likes you.” Nico grinned between Elizabeth’s kisses.

  “No.” Dan’s voice was tight. He tried turning from Kat, but she was plastered to him. If he moved away too far or too fast, she would fall. If he let go of Marie, she would fall. “Kat would never do this if she were sober. Can one of you help me out? Move her hand?”

  “Sorry.” Nico didn’t sound sorry. “My hands are full.”

  Dan looked to me. Sandra giggled in my ear and bucked, smacking my ass. “This is fun!” she said. She slurred her words, making it sound like she’d said, Thishun. Then she slumped, her body dead weight. I had to lean forward and grip her legs to keep her from falling.

  The movement revived Janie. She turned more fully against me, kissed my neck, and pulled my shirt completely out of my pants. She whispered in my ear, “I want you to talk dirty to me and call me Kitten so I can scratch your back and eat your….”

  I straightened and pulled away before she could finish.Otherwise, I would probably dump Sandra on the floor, grab Janie, and find a stairwell.

  Instead, I glared at Dan and said, “You’re on your own.”

  CHAPTER 23

  *Janie*

  The next morning I woke up feeling like death.

  Then the world slowly came into focus.

  I realized I was in bed.

  And I was lying on a man’s chest.

  And I was topless.

  “Oh shit!”

  Startled and completely horrified, I tried to jump up and out of the bed but succeeded only in falling to the floor in a tangled mass of sheets.

  “Janie?”

  I blinked from my position on the floor, sitting completely still. I even held my breath.

  The voice that said my name sounded like Quinn’s. I licked my lips, forced myself to breathe, then peeked over the edge of the bed.

  Quinn was lying there, his head propped up on his hand, his elbow on the bed. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he had on camouflage cargo pants. I squinted at the pants then I moved my gaze back to his.

  His hair was askew as it was a little longer than usual, and his eyes were sleepy.

  I closed my eyes then opened them again. Sure enough, he was still there.

  “…Quinn?” I was surprised by the sound of my voice. It sounded raspy, and my throat hurt. I blinked at him again. “What…who…how…why are you here?”

  Quinn’s gaze moved over me as he sat up. He seemed to be studying me or waiting for me to say something.

  But I had nothing to say. My mind was oddly vacant, and my head hurt. I tried to think, tried to recall my last memory, and found the only thing I remembered was getting ready to go out the night before.

  After the spa, we came back to the hotel room. Fiona was flying back early, so we all said our goodbyes then got ready for our last night.

  I remembered putting on a red dress that Elizabeth had picked out and thinking it was scandalous.

  I remembered the girls putting a veil on me and a white sash that read Getting Hitched.

  I remembered Sandra passing out chocolates and Ashley passing out drinks and us making a toast to Las Vegas.

  Everything after that was a void of unknowns.

  “Kitten.”

  My eyes refocused on his, and I stared at him. He looked pensive and…watchful.

  “Yes?”

  “What do you remember?”

  I pressed my mouth into a line and shook my head, my eyes drifting shut. “Please, please, please don’t tell me that I was drugged again.”

  I heard him sigh and I knew the answer.

  I thought about freaking out. I decided against it. Instead, I attempted to sit perfectly still and just…wait. I would wait for the memories to return or to wake up from this bad dream. I didn’t realize it at the time, but sitting perfectly still and denying the existence of reality was—by definition—freaking out.

  Then someone screamed. Actually, it was more like a shriek.

  My eyes flew open and I glanced toward the sound.

  Quinn looked at the door, looked at me, then fell back on the bed. He covered his eyes with his forearm. I thought I heard him laughing; it sounded both irritated and amused.

  “Are you…?” I tried to swallowed, but I was so parched that nothing went down. I needed water. “Are you going to see what that was?”

  “Nope.”

&
nbsp; I watched him. When he said nothing else, I scootched closer to the bed. “Do you know what that was about?”

  “Yep.”

  Another shriek sounded from beyond the door. I frowned at him. He still wasn’t moving.

  I stood with the intent to walk out of the room but remembered my half-nakedness. Also, I was dizzy. I spun in an unsteady circle trying to find something to wear. Finding a man’s green T-shirt—presumably Quinn’s, unless there was another man lurking about that was Quinn’s size and smelled like him—I pulled it on and walked to the door.

  “Don’t, Janie.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at him. He looked exhausted and had a very strange expression on his face. “Why not?”

  “Because once you open the door, you let the world in. Just come back to bed. Elizabeth’s crisis can wait.”

  My eyes widened and I flinched. “Elizabeth’s crisis?”

  Quinn sighed again, groaned, cussed, then pulled the covers over his head. Despite the muffling effect of the sheets, I heard him say, “Just be thankful that we didn’t elope last night.”

  I frowned at the lump he’d become under the covers, trying to make sense of his words. When no sense could be found, I opened the door and stumbled out of the bedroom.

  I heard voices coming from one of the bedrooms so I made a beeline for the sounds. Within one of the rooms, I found Elizabeth sitting on the bed, white as the sheets she sat on. On one side was Ashley; on the other side was Marie. They were all dressed in the same clothes they’d worn the night before.

  But Elizabeth had on my veil.

  “Hey. What’s going on?” I tiptoed toward the bed, searching the room for danger and finding none.

  Elizabeth turned saucer-round eyes to me and held up her left hand. “Look.”

  I crossed the room, squinting because I’d forgotten to put on my glasses. I was almost on top of her before I realized she wore an engagement ring and a wedding ring. Last night she’d had neither, because, although she was engaged to Nico, they hadn’t yet chosen a ring.

  I gasped.

  “I know! Right?” Elizabeth groaned then regarded the ring with evident despondency.

  “What the…? Well, where did those come from?”