Page 23 of Duty Became Desire

“Do you even have a color theme, Demi?”

“No pink.”

I rolled my eyes at her look.

“No shit, Sherlock. Anything else?”

“Red, actually. It’s not that it’s a color, but it’s more used than others. I think against the black of the tuxes, and the white of my dress, red would be nice and pop.”

“Red it is.” I grabbed three dresses, one shorter, which I wasn’t going to pick, but this was her day, so I was going to make her happy. That also gave me an idea as I walked into the dressing room. “You know, Alec and I had talked about a renewing of our vows type ceremony.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“We still can’t remember, and we do want to make a go of it. So, we think it’s just the best thing,” I told her, stepping out of the dressing room. She looked over the dress and made a face.

“Love the look, but I think longer would be better here.”

“Agreed.” I went back into the room, taking the dress off. “So, you know, you never finished telling me about the night,” I started, peeking out at her, glad to see she was mildly distracted.

“What do you mean?”

“You said something about dancing, but that was it.”

“Oh, I never told you the rest, Sky? My bad. Maybe it would help clear out some of the pieces. So, after the dancing, which you two never left each other’s sides, we figured we needed some food to maybe counteract the drinks, right? So, Alec took us to this run-down place off the strip that was amazing, but greasy.

“Well, he didn’t drive us because he was drunk, but he ordered us an Uber. Anyway, we went there, then we hit another bar just to dance. By the time we rolled out, it was pushing four in the morning. I was feeling horrible, so James took me back to our place. What you did after that, I’m not sure. I guess that still doesn’t help much, huh?”

“No, not really. But it’s more than what I had.”

I closed the door and grabbed my phone, thinking that was not the story we had. There was nothing mentioned about food nor an uber. There was an easy way to figure this out though.

Hey Alec, do you have an uber account?

I pulled the dress on and zipped it, jumping slightly at the ding.

Negative, wifey. Why do you ask?

I couldn’t stop smiling over that simple word. I knew when he left Sunday morning, something wasn’t sitting right. But it was awkward. He wasn’t a one-night stand, exactly, but he wasn’t really my husband. Though he did amazing things to my body, I still wasn’t comfortable with him.

Demi just told me we went out to eat the night we got married and that you ordered us an Uber.

Doubtful, as there have been no charges on my card. This story has changed. Went looking at some venues with James yesterday and I got a different piece too.

“Are you coming out?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Checking a text about a house.” I sat my phone down and walked out, doing a twirl in the dress. It was longer, but more of a ballgown which is not something I loved.

“Hmm, maybe something more form fitting?”

“I have one more in here, but if we don’t like it, we can look elsewhere,” I told her, heading back into the room.

I picked up my phone again and reread his message.

Why all the lying? They know something and they aren’t letting on.

I firmly agree there.

I checked the time and grinned.

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