UnLoved Forever

by Lexy Timms

  The look he gave her spoke volumes.

  “I don’t know, park next to a dumpster! Set it on fire! How the hell should I know?”

  “You’re thinking like a merc, my angel,” Maria said, leaning in to talk quietly. “You need to think more like an infiltrator. The time for stealth is over. Coming in on the president’s plane removed that option for all time.”

  “William is not known for subtlety,” Elaina scoffed. “He has the get-a-bigger-hammer approach to everything. Problem is, sometimes it works.”

  “Like now,” Maria agreed. “Right now, we have a foot race to capture the flag.”

  “Balls to the wall!” Elaina cried.

  Maria looked at the woman and whispered, “Yes. Quite.”

  Dani stared at them. Maybe she had been letting her experience in the backwater cities and jungles take over. It was what she’d learned. Luke was the one who’d had to deal with civilization and protocols and interfacing. For a moment she wished she could have him there, to ask his advice. For a moment she wanted him to tell her what to do. It passed quickly.

  “You’re right,” Dani said, pulling her shirt down and straightening it.

  “Good heavens, your shirt is torn!” Maria pulled the cloth, noticing for the first time the rip along the stomach “Was that from me?”

  “Yeah. One of your heels. I still have welt where it grazed me, but the shirt took the worst of the damage.”

  “That’s a different shirt?” Elaina asked, looking closer.

  Dani opened her mouth to answer, unsure how they’d gotten sidetracked yet again, when Marcus chose that moment to swerve across three lanes of traffic. He rode two wheels on the raised shoulder before cutting back in front of the slow traffic in front of him and bouncing the car so hard the bottom scraped. Sparks showered in an arc that reached over the roof, and he fishtailed into the fast lane. Dani fell against her mother and struggled to right herself.

  “I thought it was the same shirt,” Elaina said, clucking over the tear. “You ripped this one, too?”

  Dani shrugged, and pulled the hole toward her for a closer inspection. “I usually am better with my clothing than this, but it’s been a tough couple of days.”

  Marcus accelerated, passing between two cars, and cut off the one on the right. He hit the exit ramp starting from the left lane and cut across the freeway. A panel van with Nick’s Plumbing and Works locked up its brakes and skidded sideways to make room for the battered car.

  “You tore another shirt?” Maria asked. “Where?”

  “Same place, for the most part,” Dani said, looking at the hole again.

  “No, I mean where is it now?”

  “Ah... Air Force One, I think.”

  “You left your dirty laundry on the president’s plane?” Elaina covered her mouth, her eyes wide in shock.

  “Not the first time dirty laundry was found in the president’s bedroom,” Maria said dryly.

  Elaina looked up at her and laughed. “Oh, my dear!” She crowed to Dani, “You’ll save the day by getting the stick, but you’ll topple the presidency with a torn shirt and a pair of old shorts.”

  “William bought us all new clothes,” Dani said, feeling a little defensive as Marcus ran a red light and pushed through a busy intersection. He didn’t hit a thing, but the cars around him buckled and fenders crumpled as he passed. Horns blared. The sound of sirens blossomed in the distance. “I left my panties and a bra in there, too.”

  Maria looked at Elaina and snickered. Elaina by this time was gasping for breath she was laughing so hard.

  Marcus crashed through the signs that said EVENT PARKING $5 and the car flew over the entrance curb, gathering air, and crashed down in front of the convention center.

  “Ladies!” he called. “We have arrived.”

  They abandoned the car in the front of the center. The suspension groaned once before the passenger axel broke and the wheel quietly rolled away, back to the workers replacing the parking signs with orange cones and hand-lettered signs on cardboard.

  Dani led the charge to the front door, but a phalanx of men stopped them.

  “Tickets are available over there.” This was Stanley, according to his shirt. The other pocket read “Houston Security Services”, and the huge badge that hung from the front of that pocket pulled his shirt down on one side, making him look less impressive and more like a boy playing dress-up.

  Dani caught Marcus’ hand. “No,” she said under breath, “let’s try to do this without weapons, shall we? It’s only a bridal show.” She pelted down the steps and came to realization that she was out of money. “Um... Can someone lend me $20?”

  Elaina reached into her pocket and wadded a bill to throw at her. Dani ran back to the ticket booth. “Four, please,” she said, and handed the crumpled bill to the perplexed woman in the ticket kiosk.

  “Eighty dollars is your change,” she said, fingering the bill uncertainly and then holding it up to the light. “I hope you don’t mind if you get it in fives.” She pulled out a wad of bills from the cash box. “One.” She turned the next bill to align it with the previous. “Two.”

  Dani reached in and grabbed the four tickets, and ran back. The security guard took them and looked back at the woman still counting five-dollar bills. “Don’t you want your change?”

  “MOVE, BOY!” Marcus growled, and the startled security guard took an involuntary step backward. His men looked at each other and started forward, only to be quelled almost instantly by a look that struck terror into their very hearts.

  It was all the hole they needed to push through into a hallway that culminated in a series of heavy metal doors. One stood propped open down on the end, creating a bottleneck where eager women waited patiently to have their hands stamped so they could go out and come in again later.

  “How does she do that?” Dani asked, half under her breath.

  Elaina blushed modestly. “Practice. What is the quote? Something about telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip?”

  “Winston Churchill,” Maria murmured as the three of them pushed through the heavy metal doors. “I wasn’t sure that applied to facial expressions, but you certainly got the point across.”

  “I’d hurry up, ladies. We’re not out for a Sunday stroll,” Marcus muttered as shouts erupted behind them. Dani looked back just in time to see another car careening into the parking lot, followed by a panel van from Nick’s Plumbing and Works. The driver of the van seemed to be holding something resembling a pipe.

  Down the street, the squeal of brakes and the smoke of tires being forced beyond their endurance signaled the rest of the party.

  “What are the odds that those are people really eager to plan a wedding?” Dani asked of no one in particular.

  The group exchanged glances and, bypassing the girl with the hand stamp entirely, they reached for the doors and flung them open. A single glittery balloon escaped over their heads. The air filled with the high-pitched chatter of thousands of feminine voices and the sickly-sweet smell of roses. Lots and lots of roses.

  “My heavens,” Maria said, speaking for them all. “We’re in bridal hell.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  As the car careened into the parking lot, Luke decided that he had gone insane. The police were coming, he could hear the sirens. Presumably, the FBI was on its way, too. And likely the car that was spinning in the middle of the freeway had friends nearby.

  Cars were abandoned with open doors in the middle of the parking lot. More vehicles arrived, swerving to avoid the pedestrians and tearing off those doors and bending the vehicles they collided with into strange pretzel shapes. The noise was incredible. The convention center was now playing host to an impromptu demolition derby.

  He spotted the remains of Edwin’s rental car. It had lost most of the driver’s side paint, door handles, and front fender. The grill was missing, the bumper was firmly tucked up under the front wheels, and the tire on the passenger si
de was most notable by its absence. The fact that a man dressed in overalls was banging away at the windshield with a lead pipe was a little confusing.

  There had to be dozens of people in the parking lot who had come to the bridal show. Women, dressed in shimmering pastels, walking with older versions of themselves, talking in loud, shrill voices with phones whipped out to record the moment. It was eerily familiar, giving a strange sense of déjà vu until Luke remembered the crowd in front of the house they’d left only an hour or so before.

  Since when has every moment of the day become something to post on Facebook? he wondered as the car came to a stop as close to the main building as they could get. Which wasn’t really close at this point.

  The problem was, near-hysterical brides-to-be and their entourages weren’t the only ones in the parking lot. A dozen or so men were piling out of cars, looking nothing like anything you’d expect at a wedding outside of a security detail, even if half of them wore suits. Of course, there was a huge difference between a tuxedo and what screamed, ‘I am a government agent’ but then Men in Black really hadn’t been all that far off. Metal flashed in the sun. These men were armed and dangerous.

  As one, they all looked to the car as it came rolling to a stop. Thomas and William stepped out first, both doors opening in unison, as though they’d choreographed the moment. Not a show of solidarity so much as a jockeying for who was top dog, ending in a tie.

  In the moment of clarity, Luke held out hope that this could be resolved peacefully. Until Edwin screamed “Elaina!” and bolted for the front doors.

  It was like they had been standing and waiting for a battle cry, and for some reason Luke’s mother’s name was all they needed. The men in suits charged the doors, and the pale, frightened faces of the men standing in pressed uniforms of the hired cops ran from the onslaught.

  It was the Visigoths attacking the gates of Rome, the Orcs breaking into whatever the hell the name of that place was. It was a siege the likes of which had never been seen before. A handful of women coming out dropped bags stuffed with samples and fled, leaving a trail of chocolates and flowers in their wake. The hardier souls stopped to record the moment for all posterity. A few rounded on the men, screaming defiance, punctuated with handbags to the head. Several such men stumbled and fell, regained their feet, only to look around in confusion, as though unsure who was the enemy.

  Luke found himself praying that everyone would keep their arms under control. This didn’t need to turn into a bloodbath. He launched himself from the car, unsure of what exactly he was going to do, but knowing that if this horde was heading inside then so was he, for Dani was in there somewhere.

  The security guards hadn’t fled the scene entirely, they’d merely retreated. The defenders slammed the doors shut, and Luke could see frantic activity behind the small windows of the doors. He imagined they were struggling to lock down the crash bars to prevent further entry. The invaders took no notice and rammed the doors, pounding with fists and open palms and kicks.

  William simply strolled to the box office and motioned for Luke to follow him.

  “Sixty,” the woman behind the counter said by way of greeting, laying five-dollar bills into a neat pile, “sixty-five, seventy...” The next bill was upside down and she took time to straighten it properly. “Seventy-five, eighty...” She looked up, perplexed. “Where did she go?”

  “Five, please,” William said as the sound of trash cans being slammed against the locked doors reached his ears. He turned to Luke. “There have to be a dozen entrances and exits,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  As the machine rolled out five tickets, a hand reached past him and grabbed the coupons. Whoever was making off with the tickets had a good grip and ran, the roll of tickets spinning behind him.

  Luke’s fist shot out and caught the man behind the head. He tripped, fell over a trash can, and bolted.

  William looked at the stream of tickets and dug into his wallet. He dropped two hundred-dollar bills and grabbed the bulk of the tickets.

  He then walked stiffly into the back of the crowd. The screaming, armed throng grew quiet and actually parted for him. Luke was astounded, and kept as close behind his father as possible. William walked in total silence. Even the man hitting Edwin’s rental car paused to watch.

  William strode to the window. Luke could see the frightened face of a security guard who was on a cell phone. Behind him, Luke heard an officer saying into his phone, “Sir, we ARE the police, please open the doors!” Apparently the cavalry had caught up.

  William looked the young man behind the window in the eye and held up one fist. As he opened it, the length of tickets spilled out. The door opened.

  “So that’s how you get that job,” someone said. Luke couldn’t tell who.

  The guards looked at each other and opened the doors. The men shuffled past, a few having the grace to look sheepish. William strode through with Luke in his shadow as the horde broke through the gates and faced a room awash in pink.

  Tapestries and bunting, tablecloths, and all that glittery paraphernalia that showed up at receptions that no one knew what to do with, napkins, towels, cloths, all in muted pinks and powder blues and sunny yellows, spilled across tables laid out in long rows that seemed to stretch on forever. It was an affront to the eye. Especially given the size of the convention center.

  A sign with WELCOME TO THE WORLD’S LARGEST BRIDAL EXPO hung limply from stretched- out strings tied to a second story railing that ran the length of the immense building.

  It was a stadium, an aircraft hangar, a big building. The second story was a thin line of offices and meeting rooms that took a little room on the edge of the open area, tenuously holding to the walls, trying to stay out of the way.

  At the far end of the mall, a television, 80-inches at least, hung from the railing, playing the same things over and over. Maps of the setting, ads, images of happy brides with happy grooms standing under happy white roses strung on happy arches.

  And below that, table after table of vendors.

  It seemed like thousands of booths. Millions. Hundreds of millions that reached to infinity. The barbarian horde, so sure of it prowess, paused at one and tried to digest the current mission. There was one booth in all that mess that mattered. It was a race, but no one knew where to start. There was awkward shuffling, muted whispers as the groups regrouped into smaller gatherings to figure things out while women in their bridal best advanced on the men uncertainly, carrying large baskets slung over their arms, and offering handfuls of samples.

  “A garter for your...partner?” offered the foremost of them, holding out a bright satin circlet with a ribbon tied around it, bearing a coupon for wedding night finery. She passed through the crowd, bestowing her tokens with a certain sort of dogged determination that spoke of someone hired to do a job, and by God she was going to do it. Luke stared at the bit of blue lace and ribbon in his hand and felt the blood rush to his cheeks, though he pocketed it all the same.

  After all, it was a coupon of the “Buy one get one free” variety.

  First, though, he needed to find his bride.

  More relaxed now that they were there, and the world was apparently not ending just yet, Luke found that he wasn’t worried anymore so much as he was pissed off. And frustrated. And very, very tired. This all was way too much like the whole wedding planning fiasco of two weeks ago. Except that had far fewer vendors. And much better quality stuff.

  Luke nudged the guy next to him, who was staring in fascination at the table in front of them. “If you think that’s a place setting, you should see what they can do if they put a gold charger under the plate and then combine it with something like those black tablecloths over there. You might think the black is a little out there, but for an evening reception...”

  Luke stammered to a halt, aware that the eyes of a dozen men were on him, and no small number of women, too. He kind of shrugged. The group looked at each other. There was a great deal of ethnic diversi
ty. The suits seemed not so out of place when surrounded by mannequins wearing wedding dresses.

  It was a man with a decidedly Asian cast who broke first. With a wild look at his compatriots, he raised a fist still holding a garter and yelled “Elaina!” before running full-tilt into the display area.

  “Thanks,” Luke said sarcastically to Edwin as the older man took off in a different direction.

  William stood still at the entrance, a calm rock around which the rest of the men flowed. They split and took off in every direction, leaving William alone in the tumult.

  Thomas walked up to him as the last of the tsunami rushed past. “You must show me how you do that,” Thomas said.

  Luke silently agreed.

  “Do what?” William blinked.

  “Okay,” Luke said, having had enough of this whole mess already, and they’d only just arrived. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to grab his fiancée and find another exit. Preferably one somewhere on the opposite side of the building. Let them find the damn bird. “I’m going to find my bride.”

  “NO!” William said, grabbing Luke’s arm. “You’re the only one who knows what the thing looks like.”

  “I, uh...” Luke swallowed and looked at the large television showing a different happy bride with a different happy groom. The happy white roses looked the same, though. “I can’t remember what it looked like.”

  “Seriously?” William asked, staring at Luke as though he’d just grown another head.

  “He’s your boy?” Thomas raised an eyebrow.

  “Nice,” Luke said and pulled free, shaking his head. The question was which way to go. He couldn’t exactly go running through the throng, yelling ‘Dani!’

  On the other hand, there was a great deal of shouting going on from all directions. Mostly a single word: “Elaina” coming from voices who were not used to speaking English. It was like a strange game of Marco Polo, only without the water.

  The lunatics had escaped.

  And his father bought them each a ticket.

  “This would be a hell of a lot easier if either of us had a cell phone. Like normal people,” Luke muttered, and with a resigned shake of his head he took off, heading into the thickest part of the expo with no clear idea at all how he was going to find the woman he loved.