I shake my head in amusement.
“See, Flynn, this is why all the ladies flock to us,” Ty interjects. “Just like last night, you insist on being, like, the world’s greatest mime or something. I don’t even think I heard you say one thing last night.”
Jude scoffs. “Like you remember anything about last night, bro.”
“Hey, man, I was just celebrating you! My baby brother is getting married! That’s huge.”
“Come on,” Remy announces, his face completely pinched in annoyance and all of my brothers’ bags hanging from his shoulders. “They’re boarding our flight, assholes. Time to get home and not drink for an eternity.”
I smile a little at Remy’s pain. He’s two years older than me, so I know, at his age, he has to be feeling this shit pretty good.
“Bullshit,” Jude denies. “You’re drinking at my wedding, bro, because that’s what you do at all weddings. You dance, you celebrate, and you drink like a fish in the name of the happy bride and groom.”
Not all weddings end with a happy bride and groom, I think to myself, and when I look over at Rem, I note his face has already shifted. No doubt going to a dark, nearly fucking morbid place as he remembers his almost-wedding of nearly a decade and a half ago, and all three of the rest of us see it. It’s like a pin in a shrieking balloon—just like that, pop, all the shit-talk is done.
Jude and Ty step forward and take their bags, and without a word, Remy stalks in the other direction, headed for our plane.
“All weddings? Why’d you have to say it like that?” Ty whispers harshly to Jude as we all hustle along behind Remy toward the gate.
I smack Ty on the back of the head and pass them. “Just drop it.”
The last thing we need on this long flight home is to spend all our time reliving the absolute hellfire of witnessing Remy getting ditched at the altar. That might’ve been over a decade ago, but the memory still holds some serious power.
All we need right now is to get home, sleep off this wild weekend, and get back to normal.
And that we… Well, thanks to a certain woman with emerald eyes and wild curls, it definitely includes me.
Daisy
What a day.
From the instant I took an Uber from Flynn’s house and met Damien and my coworkers at brunch, my schedule has been jam-packed with all sorts of work shit. From meetings with potential furniture and fabric distributors for future staging projects to a big conference at the Wynn where Damien and Thomas updated us on the firm’s goals and plans for the next two years, I barely managed to get back to my room, pack my stuff, and make my evening flight back to LAX.
You were so busy that you almost forgot about the craziness of last night’s wedding bells.
I sigh and look out the window of the plane, watching as the world below passes me by. The sun is setting in the evening sky, and clouds and desert and a weekend of actions I never expected cross my vision.
It feels big and uncontainable, and I feel as small as this view of the world suggests I am. I’m just a tiny speck of life, and all the hugely consequential things I’m hyperventilating over right now are barely even a blip in the universe.
Thankfully, though, for as anxiety-inducing as it all is, the result is an otherwise unattainable level of peace. My life here in the United States will be safe. My job is secure. My dreams have the room to breathe, to fly, to go on.
I must be lost in the tangled web of my thoughts because the gentleman next to me taps my elbow to get my attention and smiles when I turn around. He’s a sweet-looking old man, likely in his eighties if the worn skin, knowing eyes, and scraggly gray hair are characteristics to go by, and I look to him expectantly.
He smiles bigger then, pointing above his own head to the looming flight attendant and drink cart that I’ve completely failed to notice.
“Oh!” I say, a little startled. I have no idea how long they’ve been trying to get my attention. “I’ll just take a water.”
The flight attendant smiles, her white teeth shining through a pink-lipped smile, and I don’t know what it is about the poised, calm manner of her expression, but it sets me off like a firecracker.
“You know what, make that a vodka with cranberry. And…well, and the water too.”
The old man to my right glances toward me briefly before going back to his book. The flight attendant makes my drink after going back and forth to the front for the nip of liquor, and I fidget in my seat so much that the old man leans away from me slightly.
My knee bounces, and my hand thrums out a rhythm on the newly abandoned armrest.
Okay. Okay. Everything is fine. Totally and completely fine, but like, better. Because my problems are solved, I’ve officially cleaned out the cobwebs from the inside of my vagina, and I’ll have a story to tell my future grandkids one day that will officially make me the favorite grandma. All is well.
I try to smile as the flight attendant hands me two plastic cups, one with booze and one with water, but I’m pretty sure it comes off a little psycho for her taste, because she quickly kicks the release at the bottom of the cart and moves on—all the way to the back of the plane after flagging the other attendant behind her to pick up where she left off.
“Great,” I murmur to myself before turning to the old man next to me. “I’m running people off now. I bet I’d run you off too if there were any empty seats on this plane.”
“What was that, dear?” he asks, placing his bookmark in his paperback and glancing toward me.
I shake my head as the heat of my embarrassment rushes my cheeks. Jesus, Daisy. What are you doing? Running your mouth to strangers now?
“Nothing, sir. I’m sorry for bugging you,” I apologize. “Just ignore me.”
“Oh dear. You were the victim of a mugging?” he asks, horrified understanding seeping into his eyes as he takes a look at my stiff drink with sympathy.
A mugging? What?
“No, no,” I emphasize with a shake of my head, realizing he must have misheard me. Safe to say, my cheeks have stoked a permanent flame at this point. “Not a mugging. Just…well…just a little issue with work that led to me marrying a stranger.”
“A strangler?” he asks, aghast.
“No! No strangler!” I rush to explain. “Lucky I did not come in contact with a strangler. Although, I guess, I probably could have in my mental state last night. But Flynn’s not that. He’s actually a good guy. At least…I think. I mean, he’s pretty dirty in bed, as it turns out, but that’s neither here nor there. He was nothing but nice to me from the moment I met him. He’s just…a stranger.”
Mr. Old Man looks perplexed, and I can only fucking imagine what he’s doing with that overshare of information. Christ, what’s wrong with me? Even with the awareness of that little self-reflection, for some reason, I keep going. I don’t know why. Maybe because I don’t feel like I can tell anyone I actually know because of all the shame and humiliation and legalities, but venting to this guy feels like a much-needed exercise in emotional expulsion.
“It’s a little weird that we got married by a drag queen Marilyn Monroe, but I have the marriage certificate and I’m pretty sure it’s legal, so that’s all that matters, right?”