Page 28 of The Bride
Janet opened the bakery box she had brought and took out a cupcake. She peeled the paper away from the cake and bit into it.
“Chocolate with vanilla frosting. I knew that was her favorite because you told me.”
“Janet, for real, I have to get to work. We can talk about this later.”
“No, I think we’re done talking.” She threw the cupcake at me and it hit me squarely in the face. “You fucking wasted two years of my fucking life.”
Fuck the drama.
I was wiping icing out of my eyes as she breezed by me. I was pissed enough and small enough to shout at her as she left.
“FYI, you suck at sucking dick.”
The front door slammed and the house rattled. I was toweling the frosting off my face when Ellie reappeared, dressed in clothes to feed the chickens.
“Don’t say a damn word,” I snapped.
“Okay. But I super hope you’re okay being broken up for good with her, because trust me when I tell you no girl is getting over that.”
I didn’t care. Because I was super over her.
* * *
It waseleven thirty that night when the front door was slammed shut hard for the second time that day.
I looked up, surprised to see Ellie. I checked my watch to be sure but yes, it was a full thirty minutes prior to midnight. I didn’t think she would be home a minute sooner. It had been tough to watch her leave tonight.
In some ways she looked all grown up in her pretty blue long dress with the thin sleeves. Her hair all blown out and hanging down her back. In other ways she looked like a girl trying to be a woman. Except she wasn’t a woman. Not yet.
That’s what seventeen was all about.
Seeing her as dressed up and as sexy as she could make herself put the whole morning into perspective. I didn’t have to worry about myself or my feelings for her. Not when she was still a girl.
I was about to comment on the thirty minutes when I looked at her face. It was red and blotched. Her lipstick was smeared around her mouth and her mascara, which she’d applied too much of, was smudged around her eyes.
She looked pissed and I thought someone was going to die that night.
That someone being Riley.
I stood up slowly, and calmly, again because I was dealing with an unpredictable animal. A teenage girl/woman.
“Ellie,” I said as I moved toward her.
“I don’t want to talk about it!” she screeched and bolted up the stairs before I could catch her. But this was something she didn’t get tonottalk about. Not when she’d been on a date with an eighteen-year-old guy and came home looking like that.
She’d shut the bedroom door, but hadn’t bothered to lock it. Maybe because she didn’t think I would ever dare to come in. I had lived in this house for four months and I had not once seen the inside of this room.
For that matter, it had probably been four months since she’d stepped in what had been her father’s room.
She was lying facedown on the bed. When I came closer, she turned her head so she wasn’t looking at me.
“Ellie, talk to me. What happened tonight?”
My gut clenched. What the hell was I going to do if that prick actually hurt her?
“I mean it, Ellie. You don’t start talking, I’m going to find that boy and make him tell me.”
“Nothing,” she said and scrambled up until she was sitting on her knees. Yep, she was all sorts of pissed off. “Okay. Are you happy? Nothing happened.”
