Page 76 of Holiday Wedding
I’m tied to a chair in what looks like a storage area. The gray concrete floors beneath me are cracked and uneven. The ceiling soars high above my head, metal rafters with sporadic industrial lighting. Mounds of luggage are all around me. They’re piled on top of one another, creating a wall of black and gray with the occasional burst of color from a floral duffle bag or a maroon suitcase. Dust coats the canvas and hard-shell sides of the bags in the lowest portions of the stack. They’ve been here a long time, the luggage in this room. Forgotten things, lost and abandoned.
Have I joined them? Never to be found again?
My hands and feet have gone numb. My neck aches. It must have hung forward when I was unconscious.
I’m not alone. A man separates from the shadows and steps in front of me.
It’shim.
The guy who promised to reunite me with my friends.
Lies.
This man has knocked me out and tied me to this uncomfortable chair. The scary thing is that he seems so normal. He’s better-looking than most men, with dark blond hair, sharp cheekbones, and full lips. There’s something familiar about him. It takes me a few minutes to figure it out. When I do, a pit forms in my stomach. He’s weirdly similar to Caleb, like a poor man’s version of my fiancé.
“What’s happening? Who are you?” My words come out slurred. The effects of whatever drug he pressed to my mouth, chloroform maybe, linger in my system. I blink my eyes, trying to clear the blur from them. My head is pounding.
“Quiet!” he commands, his face twisting with anger. “You don’t get to speak. Not after the things you did.”
“What?” I’m bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
“I think you know,” he sneers. “How you and your boyfriend like to go around sabotaging other people’s careers.”
“I have no idea what you mean.” I swallow with difficulty, my mouth parched. “Can I—can I get something to drink?”
He shakes his head, about to refuse, when a female voice, full of authority, speaks up from behind me. “Justin, get me a water.”
The man transforms. His rage vanishes, replaced by a look of adoration. He moves off to the side. I hear him rummaging around. I crane my neck, trying to follow his movements and to see the woman who spoke, but they remain out of sight. The woman’s voice was sultry and melodic—vaguely familiar—but I can’t place it.
Justin.
I know that name. Where have I heard it before? Sometime recently. I rack my brain. Something to do with Caleb? The answer is there in my mind, wispy and ethereal—just out of reach.
High heels tap on the concrete floor, and she stands in front of me. If I weren’t strapped to this chair, I surely would have fallen out of it.
Lola.
Lola Monroe, in the flesh, stands before me. She’s dressed in red, like Santa, but a distorted, sexy version. Tight dress with white fur at the neckand hemline. A wide, black belt. Tall, spiked heels. Christmas ornament earrings, similar to the ones that I have, hang from her ears, swinging with the movement of her head.
I’ve never met her in person, but I remember all too well the time I caved to insecurity and Googled Caleb, when we first got together. I had scrolled through pages and pages of photos of them with their arms around each other. Back then, those images had made me feel physically sick. I have the same sensation now.
“Lola, what’s going on?” Anger seeps into my voice. I tug my wrists and am rewarded by a sharp pain that shoots out to my fingers.
“You know my name,” she says with an amused quirk of her lips. “But do you know all the things you’ve stolen from me?”
She’s talking gibberish. I keep silent, staring at her stonily.
“Cat got your tongue, eh?” She comes closer and bends down until we’re eye to eye. She inspects me as if I’m a bug she’s about to squish with her stiletto heel.
“What is it about you?” she muses, her gaze traveling over me. “What does he see in you? For the life of me, I can’t figure it out. You’re a plain little thing. So mousey. Not worth his attention, or mine for that matter.”
She stands and stares down her nose at me. A scowl carves lines in her forehead, marring her near-flawless skin. “I thought at first you were a rebound from me. It made sense to go from someone likemeto someone likeyou.Men do that when they get hurt. They run to something different, totally opposite from what they had before. But now he’s going to marry you, on Christmas Eve, of all days.”
Her beautiful face contorts with anger, turning it into something ugly. “I could have forgiven the rest of it, how you took Caleb and my career, but you went too far when you put the wedding on Christmas Eve.” She practically shrieks, “I won’t let you ruin my favorite holiday. Christmas ismine!”
Her hands turn into fists, and I’m sure she’ll lash out and hit me. She wants to do it so badly. I can sense it. Fear stirs low in my belly. I turn my head to the side, bracing myself. But she reels herself back in, slowly calming her panting breaths.
Once she’s under control, she gives me a satisfied, red-lipped smirk and says, “No. No wedding for you. It’s too late for that now.”
