Page 17 of Plain Sight

“You weren’t supposed to get kidnapped. Either time.” No wedding is supposed to play out like this one. I can’t tell if it’s more fucked up or less fucked up that I can’t picture it going any other way. Do crime scenes usually see a pretty girl on the street and ask her to dinner? Do human train wrecks snap out of it at first sight? That’s not what happened to me. Poor Lily.

Another sigh, this one softer. “That’s already been, like…litigated. We’ve gone over that. This was supposed to be our wedding day. So can we get on with it.”

“Jesus, I love you like this.”

Lily starts to laugh, and I put my hands on her face and kiss her right in the middle of it. She’s warm. She’s warm and alive and sweet. She tastes slightly citrusy, like she had a virgin mimosa while they were getting ready. Something shakes in the far distance. I spent one summer doing a deep dive on Pompeii. People got out because it spewed ashes into the air for, like, eighteen hours before the eruption. I’m not fucking Vesuvius. I’m not Pompeii. If everything foundational about me is spewing ashes, then that would fuck up our wedding day even more. The thought dissolves into the kiss. Lily’s hands are on my neck. A kiss is a warning of an eruption, if you think about it, but I’m not thinking much at all. Certainly not about dick jokes.

“We need to go to the hospital.” Here comes Mason, Protective Dad Mode activated.

Lily pulls away, her hands slipping down to my lapels. “What? No.”

Yes. Yes, actually we should go to the hospital. Because a chunk of molten knowledge flies out of the active volcano of my memory and almost cracks my skull.

Lily’s pregnant. I don’t want to blurt that out here in this room, but it’s true. Someone with a medical degree should be in charge of deciding if she’s okay.

“He’s right,” I say.

Lily narrows her eyes. “Did all the guests leave?”

“No,” Mason allows. “But the ceremony doesn’t matter as much as⁠—”

“Yes, it does,” Lily interrupts. My brain is finally starting to put together that her wedding dress is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Black lace neckline. Black lace sleeves. It looks like the white blooms out of black lace. Like Lily’s touched down in mid-flight to become a bride. All the color of her—her red hair, the slightly smudged lipstick from where I kissed her, the bright flush of her cheeks—is so vivid it hurts. “Do you think I’m going to let them do this?”

“Lily—” Mason says.

“The kidnapper can go fuck himself,” Lily continues. “My grandfather can go fuck himself. They are not going to win. Not on my wedding day.”

“Your grandfather⁠—”

“He’s the one who hired that asshole! Walsh came into the bridal suite and said he brought me a gift from my grandfather! It was some email from a private investigator that says my mother’s dead. That’s how he wanted me to die. Thinking she was dead. Where did he even go?”

She cranes her neck to look. Just then, August and Julien emerge from the hallway, August signing.

“Nothing,” Julien says. He runs a hand through his hair. His face is pale. August’s isn’t. “There was an exit through the neighboring building.”

“This motherfucker.” Hades pulls himself back through the window and closes it, flipping the latch like it offended him. “We’ll find him.”

“After the wedding,” Lily orders. “Take me back to the cathedral.”

Our second arrival causes more of a stir. Some of the guests have moved out to the lobby, and a gasp goes up when Lily and I come through.

Then Sunshine marches in like an army general, a critical eye on Lily’s dress.

“We’ll need a few minutes, and then it’ll be good as new. Are you okay?” She pulls Lily into a tight hug. “We don’t have to talk about it if you’d rather not.”

“I’m fine,” Lily says, loud and clear. “I am extremely fine. I might’ve gotten something on my dress.”

Sunshine snaps her fingers, and four older ladies surround her.. Lily’s hidden behind a wall of bridesmaids in pink dress.

“Jesus, Jameson. I can’t let you get married like this. Come on.”

Gabriel’s hand is on my elbow, and then he and Jacob Chambers are ushering me down a hallway and into a bathroom.

“What are you talking about? I look fine.”

My brother takes me by the shoulders and turns me. There’s a mirror over the sink.

Oh.