by Monroe, Max
I shake my head. “I know I fucking won’t.” I’ve got a run going of what must be close to a hundred times at this point since we stood on the altar and said I do two hours ago, and I’m not even close to sick of myself.
“Me either.” She looks at me with those big blue eyes of hers, and I fall in love with her all over again.
Lena is my wife. My future. My forever.
Life doesn’t get any better than this.
Our reception is in full swing, the swank venue filled with our nearest and dearest as they finish up dinner and chat and laugh among one another.
I sit at the bridal table, with my beautiful, sexy wife beside me, my hand sliding under the table to find a home on her thigh and squeezing it gently, and Lena grins up at me with a million-watt smile. She starts to open her mouth to say something, but she is interrupted when my grandfather stands up from his seat and starts loudly clinking his fork against his glass.
“Kiss her!” Merl shouts with a giant grin. “Kiss your gorgeous girl!”
“Yeah, Theodore!” Brogan joins in on the insanity, standing up from his seat at a table that’s located in the middle of the room and encouraging everyone at our reception to join in on the ridiculous tradition. “Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her!”
Of course, they all do. My assistant Carey and his husband Bill, my mom and dad, Lena’s father, Jared.
Hell, even my Billionaire Book Club buddies join in on the shenanigans, Thatch’s voice calling out the loudest. “Fluffing kiss her, dude!”
I have to admit, kissing my wife is hardly a demand I’d consider avoiding, but unfortunately, I’m too busy trying to figure out what in the fuck my brother is wearing.
I squint my eyes when I realize he’s changed clothes since the ceremony, and instead of a classic black tuxedo, he is now wearing a maroon velour tracksuit.
And when he turns around to face the tables behind him, I notice the word Bro is embroidered on the back of the damn jacket.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mutter, but when I glance at Lena, I don’t miss the knowing amusement that’s written all over her beautiful face.
“Tell me you didn’t have a part in that,” I whisper toward her.
“You bet your hot ass, I did.” She grins like the devil. “I needed to make sure my new brother-in-law was dressed to the nines for Vicky.”
A barking laugh escapes my lungs. “So, you bought him a fucking velour tracksuit?”
“Uh-huh.” She winks. “Had it embroidered and everything.”
“Good lord, you’re trouble.”
“I am.” Lena waggles her brows. “Now, you need to kiss me before Merl breaks his glass with that damn fork.”
I chuckle at that, but I’m more than happy to oblige. Without hesitation, I gently place my hands on Lena’s cheeks and pull her lips to mine for a soft, lingering kiss.
Merl wolf whistles.
Brogan fist-pumps the air in his goddamn tracksuit.
Thatch shouts “Attaboy!” while Cap yells “Get a fucking room!”
And everyone else fills the air with claps and laughter.
Obviously, our reception is filled with lunatics. But, hey, I guess that’s our fault. They’re our friends and family.
Once dinner is done and Maybe and my brother Brogan have given their toasts, the MC announces that before the music starts, there will be one last speech of the evening.
Lena and I look at each other in confusion, but it only lasts so long because Cap walks up to the bridal table, microphone in hand, and stands beside us.
“Lord Almighty, who gave my brother a mic?” she whispers next to me, and I have to smother a laugh.
He grins like a bastard, puts the mic to his lips, and looks out toward the crowd. “It’s only natural that when your sister marries one of your best friends, you end up obligated to give a speech at the wedding.”
“We definitely didn’t ask you to give a speech,” Lena objects, and the crowd laughs as Cap waves her off and continues.
“You get begged and begged to give a speech, and eventually, even if you don’t want to, you give in.”
“Liar!” Lena shouts.
“Anyway, I’m not one to disappoint, so I made sure to make ample notes to ensure I hit all the good points of Theo and Lena’s relationship.”
“Oh God,” my wife groans, covering her face with her eyes, as Cap pulls a piece of paper from his suit jacket. “Here we go.”
“Once upon a time, I sent my innocent, virtuous, virgin sister off to Italy for an internship in fashion.”
Maybe snorts audibly at the other end of the table, and Lena shoots her a glare.
“Without my permission, she headed to the coast for a holiday full of Italian men with big, Italian cocks.”
The crowd shrieks. My jaw drops on a shocked laugh.
But Cap just keeps on rolling. “Of course, in the end, she ended up with my friend turned partial scumbag, Theo, and then pursued a secret, whirlwind relationship with him.”
“Cap!” Lena warns, and he just shrugs.
“Anyway, lots of shit happened—particularly me giving Theo a black eye and Lena acting out of Hawkins character by being an asshole, but now, here we are. At their wedding. Which for some un-fucking-believable reason is happening before my own goddamn wedding, and—”
“Just a month to go, honey!” Ruby shouts with a laugh.
I smirk. He’s still pissed that Lena’s and my wedding ending up being before his. Honestly, I tried to talk my wife out of that plan, knowing her brother would be unbearable, but she was hell-bent on April because of her career. Come June, she’ll be opening her very first boutique in Tribeca.
And, well, when it comes to Lena, I’m a man willing to do anything to make her happy.
“Anyway. Whatever.” Cap scowls but pulls himself together and lifts his glass in the air. “Congratulations, I guess. Cheers to the bride and groom who kept their relationship a secret from me for the longest fucking time and just had to have their wedding before mine.”
Everyone in the crowd looks at one another in bewilderment before reluctantly following his lead and joining in on the half-assed toast.
“Hell of a speech,” I remark, and Lena giggles.
“Yeah, thanks a lot, Cappy. Nearly moved me to tears.”
But Cap just shrugs and heads back toward Ruby.
Not too long after, the band begins to play, and people head toward the main dance floor.
I’m just about to ask my wife for a dance, but my brother jogging around the reception venue in his fucking tracksuit grabs my attention.
“Becky!” he shouts with his hand cupped around his mouth. “Becky!”
“What the fuck is he doing?” I mutter, and Lena tilts her head to the side as she watches him too.
“Who is Becky? Did he bring a date?”
I shrug. “I don’t think so, but this is Brogan we’re talking about. Anything is possible.”
“Becky!” he exclaims as he comes to a stop, a few feet away from the bridal table and right in front of Lena’s mom.
“Can I have this dance, Becky?” Brogan asks and gallantly bends over, reaching out his hand toward her.
Oh no.
Victoria Hawkins stands there, dressed to the nines in luxury brands and with what have to be a million dollars’ worth of diamonds around her neck, and her normally snooty face has kicked up a notch to superior disgust. “Excuse me?” Her face scrunches up like she swallowed a fucking lemon.
“Come on, Becky. Don’t leave me hanging,” Brogan cajoles. “Say you’ll dance with me, please?”
She scowls. “My name isn’t Becky.”
“It’s not?” Brogan tilts his head to the side and assesses her face closely like maybe she’s confused about her own fucking name. “Are you sure, Becky?”
Victoria can only shake her head, her body one damn Becky away from going into total shock.
Lena completely loses it, her cackles so loud they echo over the damn music
.
Instantly, I look away from my brother and Victoria to see my wife laughing so hard she has tears in her eyes.
“This is literally the best day of my life,” she says through wheezing breaths. “Best. Fucking. Day. Of. My. Life.”
“You are evil for getting Brogan that fucking tracksuit,” I say, and I have to bite my lip to fight my own laughter. “But I pretty much love everything about this right now.”
“Me too.” Lena grins up at me. “Besides being occasionally evil, do you know what else I am?”
“What?”
“I’m yours.”
It’s my turn to grin. “And I’m yours.”
“Forever?”
I nod. “For-fucking-eternity.”
“That’s a long time, Mr. Serious,” she teases, but I slide my fingers under her chin and press a soft kiss to her lips.
“When it comes to you, honey,” I whisper against her mouth, “I’d pay every penny of my money to make us both immortal.”
“God, I love you,” she whispers back before giggling softly. “And we really need to start changing the channel when Twilight comes on. It’s going to your head.”
“I love you too.” I press one final kiss to her lips and lean back with a grin and a shake of my head. “If you’re gonna Twilight at all, baby, you gotta Twi-hard.”
When her smile lights up the whole damn reception, I know without a doubt, for the rest of my life, I’ll do everything in my power to put that smile on Lena’s face as often as possible.
Because this woman, she’s my everything.
She’s my home.
THE END
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The Day I Stopped Falling for Jerks Excerpt
* * *
The Day I Stopped Falling for Jerks podcast
Episode 1: “Is this thing on?”
Hi, everyone.
I’d like to welcome you to episode one of my very first podcast.
[quiet, hesitant laugh]
I’m a little nervous, so please bear with me as I try to figure out how to podcast.
See, I’m more a writer of words than a podcaster of words, but what I’m about to tell you is honestly too damn big to fit into one of my columns.
Way too big.
It’s a real doozy, guys, but I have to get it out.
And I’m hoping, once I finish recording this—since my boss says I might start feeling symptomatic of, say, poisoning, if I ruin this new venture—I’ll actually be able to upload it to Scoop’s website. Apparently, I’m told, podcasting is the wave of the future, and if we—meaning Scoop—don’t get our foot in the door first, we—meaning I—might as well find another room. Room meaning office.
I’m pretty sure she’ll fire me, okay?
Still, I figure pouring my guts out to a bunch of strangers has to be at least close to therapeutic, so consider my fingers and toes crossed that my technical inability doesn’t mean it’s for nothing.
[mumble from producer]
Oh, good. I’m told the uploading portion of this podcast will be taken care of by someone else. Smart move, guys.
[laughs again]
Okay, so where do I even begin?
[long, audible sigh]
Well, I guess my love life would be a good start, huh?
I mean, it’s the whole reason I’m here, ready to pour my heart out to you.
The past.
The present.
The future, as I’ve sworn and promised it to myself.
They’re all kind of a hot mess, but it’s really the chaos I’ve gotten myself into this time that made me decide to take action.
Think of a woman trying to stand up in a hammock during an earthquake, and then throw in a writhing pit of cobras dancing below it for good measure. Add in the task of juggling several oddly shaped objects and a horrible lack of hand-eye coordination, and you might have some idea of what I look like while trying to navigate lust, like, and love.
Relationships, dating, finding love…God, you guys, it is so hard.
I envy those people who manage to find the love of their lives on a first date or—even more mind-blowing—a chance encounter a la love-at-first-sight that blossoms into a long-term courtship.
Like, how in the hell does that even happen?
It feels like some trippy, magical unicorn kind of shit or, worse yet, an evil consecration for those with a special, dark gift. And I’m not exactly comfortable exploring how many pagan gods I’d have to promise ill-willed deeds to in order to experience the easy road to love.
Hell, even the hard road.
As long as it didn’t end in disaster, I’d be ahead of where I am now—where I always seem to be.
See, I’ve been a serial dater, a constant cultivator of bad relationships, for as long as I can remember.
Even my kindergarten boyfriend, Kenny, is a prime example of what I’ve come to know as normal.
He was a swoony little bastard, even at the ripe age of nearly six, and I was a naïve five-year-old, hungry for pure love. We were happy for about a day and a half, but when another skirt-wielder, Amber Carter, ran by, the apparent love of his life—Kenny’s description of me—wasn’t the only twinkle in his mossy green eyes anymore. One push off the monkey bars, and my first official relationship promptly ended in what would be one of many breakups for me.
Think of all the very worst guys to date—the players, the weirdos, the clingy momma’s boys, and the jerks…good God, picture the jerks.
Do you have those men in your head?
Well, I, Luciana “Lucky” Wright, have dated them all.
It might sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not. I’ve been there, done that, written the book, and filmed the Lifetime movie.
And all those good-for-nothing men left me with were weeks filled with Netflix binges fueled by ice cream and the same damn question rolling through my mind—Where are all the good men?
You know, the men who are actually worthy of us. The men who know what the
y want and have good intentions to boot. The ones who know how to truly love a woman, one woman, for the rest of their lives.
Are they underground somewhere? In one of those highly discriminatory bunkers from the movie Deep Impact, perhaps? Do I actually have to discover the meaning of life to get the password?
I honestly don’t know. But I believe, in order for you to truly understand my frustration, I need to show you the final straw in my never-ending cycle of dating jerks. The moment that made me say “Sayonara, Jerks!” and write those fuckers off for good.
It’s going to feel like some serious Romeo and Juliet kind of shit, but I can tell you, a Shakespearean love story it is not.
Keep listening. You’ll see.
* * *
When I zig, love zags.
When I stand up, love sits down.
And when I fall, that little bitch puts a boot in my ribs, lest I get comfortable while prone for even a second.
Love and I are not on the same page. Not even in the same book.
But as much as I’ve gone through on my journey to stumble upon some glass slippers and Prince Charming, it’s taken me a little longer to link all the trouble together…to link it, quite frankly, to me.
So let’s go back a few months, to May 30th…to the exact point in time when I started to realize just how big of a problem I have with love.
A big, fat fuck—
[audible gasp]
Whoops.
[laughs]
Am I allowed to curse in these things?
[muffled response from producer]
Okay, well, I’m not sure of the actual rules, so I’ll just go ahead and apologize in advance. There’s no way in hell I’m going to get through this story, my story, without dropping some f-bombs. I suggest you consider your listening carefully if you’re particularly sensitive to language.
I mean, I don’t plan to be an absolute heathen, but really, you’ll see, an expletive or two will be highly necessary for the telling of this tale.