Page 78 of For Pleasure Or Worse

“Fuck this!” I yelled out. Frankie followed me through the maze of bodies like an anchor until we hit a paved edge leading into a row of cabanas and ridiculous ride-on animals. I tugged in a jagged breath of air only the slightest bit less polluted, and Pike pointed ahead to a dark head of hair wearing a sparkly crown with a veil attached.

My ears popped from the pressure change. “It’s not her.”

“You can’t even see her,” Angelo said. “How do you know it’s not her?”

“I just fucking do. That’s not what the crown of her head looks like. Her hair was curly when she left the house, and that girl is too tall to be Tally. Keep moving. I’ll know my wife when I see her.”

“It’s another bride.” Pike shrugged, pointing at the list. “We have to find another bride.”

I stuck my tongue in my cheek and put both hands on my hips. “Fine.” I let up, reluctantly. The eagerness to win the game was still there despite the hiccups. “Quickly.”

We shouldered through to the circle of women, and somehow unsurprisingly, the first voice and face I landed on wasn’t a stranger at all. It was Mia. Standing there in her sequined mini skirt and familiar indignant scowl that should have been a warning in and of itself, but instead perked me right up.

Natalia was close.

The noise around me dissipated and I beelined toward my future sister-in-law who had already caught the attention of the other bride in that feminine, girl power way Natalia described a drunken bathroom stall visit was like for women. All giggles and handholding, complimenting each other like they’d known one another their entire lives. “Where is she?” I demanded.

Mia popped a hip out and stuck her hand to it as she slowly turned toward me. “Look who decided to finally show up.”

“Well you didn’t make it very easy, now did you?”

“You were busy.” She squinted. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I was taking a photo with this gorgeous, gorgeous girl and winning a scavenger hunt.” She turned back to the brunette in her veil and lifted her phone to take a selfie. A moment later my phone buzzed in my pocket. Said photo, sent to the godforsaken group chat Angelo had started. Mia gave me a deprecating pat on the shoulder. “Maybe she doesn’t want to be found, Mateo.”

“Maybe not, but she’ll have to send me away herself if that’s the case. Quit making this harder for me to fix, Mia.” I felt mybrother and Pike at my back and strangely enough Mia’s scowl deepened and her glare turned dark looking over my shoulder.

“Don’t kill the messenger,” Angelo chided.

“You greasy little meatball—” She pointed a sharp finger and I caught it right at my ear. You couldn’t have pinned two more fiery, cocksure people against each other if you tried. Mia was a brat and Angelo was a dick. If taking on Tally didn’t put me in an early grave, mediating these two would. They started fighting like siblings the second they got the chance, which should have been endearing, but this was a different kind of loathing I wasn’t touching with a ten-foot pole.

“Little?” Angelo scoffed, taunting her. “Ain’t nothing little here, sweetheart.”

Mia stuck her pinky in the air toward him, and Pike and I turned our laughs in the opposite direction.

“Mia, please,” Frankie cut in. “Point us in the right direction. We promise to be on our best behavior.” He jutted his bottom lip out, and I recalled how charming and freshly kicked puppy my best friend could become if he really wanted to. It was a secret weapon.

She regaled him, crossing her arms and looking around. I followed her line of sight as though it would lead me right to Natalia but the crowd behind us was boundless and ever-changing. I could hardly see three heads away. “Tell you what,” she said, tapping her lips with her finger and then gesturing toward the row of rideable animals only someone who lost a bet or was stupid drunk would be caught dead on. “If Mr. Gabagool can stay on that mechanical bull over there longer than me, I’ll walk you right to her.”

Alas.

I stuck my tongue in my cheek.

“Who’s Mr. Gabagool?” Angelo asked.

“It’s you,” I said.

“Me?”

Mia cackled. “You.”

Angelo scrubbed a hand down his short beard. “You know, that’s kind of racist.”

She was extremely proud of herself. There was no lack of venomous wit when it came to the Russo girls, I’d learned firsthand. Probably something to do with their upbringing; comedy came as a natural salve to the slow burn of childhood trauma.

Angelo pushed past me, knocking my shoulder and squaring right up to Mia and I could have sworn I saw a smile twitch at the corner of her lips. I braced for some sort of impact, because it felt inevitable, but my brother just tilted his head down toward her short frame and said, “You’re on, little nightmare.”

“This is going to be bad.”I chewed the corner of my thumb as Mia stomped up to the mechanical bull attendant with the confidence of a sorority girl walking into a bar without a wallet.

“Entertaining,” Pike supplied instead. “How’s the anxiety?”

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