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“Well, I’ll clean up in here then.”
She’s not going to be deterred, and even though I’m mildly buzzed, and I think I have a lump the size of a fist sprouting from the back of my head when I hit the floor, I help. It doesn’t take us long to get everything thrown in the garbage. I wipe down the countertops, and she does the table. Soon, the kitchen is sparkly clean. We didn’t say a word while we were tidying, but I think it might have been the most fun I’ve had cleaning anything in a long time.
“I guess I should probably get out of this dress.” She glances down at herself. How she managed not to get a stain or a spot on the thing, I have no idea.
I’m still wearing my tux, and it’s only thanks to the house’s central air that I haven’t melted into a puddle of black by now. “Me too.”
“Okay. “
“Yeah.”
I know I’m extremely awkward at the moment, but there’s no help for it. Before I can recover, Azalea slips quietly out of the kitchen. I give her space and time, even though she’s in a separate room behind a closed door upstairs. I could go and change, but I just stay where I am. It’s like I’ve grown roots into the tile of the kitchen floor, and staring at the kitchen sink and stained dishcloth is about all I can do at the moment. I’m frozen. In time. Well, I’m not, not really, but for some reason, I wish I was.
A sudden scream shatters the quiet in the kitchen. I’m off, racing through the house, thumping up the stairs in my stupid shiny shoes that pinch my feet, cursing them with every step. My heart is thudding painfully in my chest. Already, I imagine the worst-case scenario. Someone has found us, broken in, and taken my bride, who isn’t really my bride. I’ve endangered her. This is the very reason I don’t get involved with people. Ever. My brothers like to rib me about it since they all have jobs outside the house that they work confidently in, and they also make attempts to blend in with other people, even in the world of dating, or at the very least, through casual encounters, but I was right. I knew I was right. And now this.
“Azalea!” I fling open her bedroom door and find her standing in the middle of the room, red-faced and cursing a blue streak. There isn’t anyone else in there, and she’s very much unharmed.
I can feel my lungs deflating like old balloons—those nasty, stretched-out, full-of-saliva old balloons—as I release an exhale of relief. “Holy god, you scared the life out of me. I thought you’d been taken.”
“Taken?” Her nose scrunches up. “No! No, I haven’t been re-kidnapped by someone other than you, Mr. Kidnappypants. I just…” Her arm cranks around her back, her fingers brushing the zipper. The dress is tight, and while it fits her perfectly, the seams don’t like that and groan out a fabric-stretching sound in response. “I can’t get this stupid motherfudger zipper undone.” She stomps her foot and twists her arms back around. They go to her side, and she sighs.
It’s an angry sigh, and I tear my eyes off the adorable way her bottom looks in that dress and latch my gaze firmly on the offending zipper. “Should…uh…should I help you?”
“Yes!” she huffs. “Please do!”
By the time I reach her, which is approximately ten seconds and ten steps later, my heart is going at a double rate. Double painful, double time, double hammering at my ribs. It’s so loud that I’m pretty sure she can hear it, so I start humming under my breath. She can hear that for sure, and she whips around, one eyebrow cocked at a funny angle. She turns back when I don’t stop humming—now that I’ve started, how can I stop and save face—and she remains perfectly still.
My fingers find the zipper pull in between the fabric of the dress. It’s skillfully hidden. It’s also jammed up in the fabric from her attempts to pull it down. I’m good with my hands…uh, usually, but it still takes me a good long while to work the zipper free. Azalea stays perfectly still and entirely patient. When the zipper gives, she lets out a tiny gasp, I let out a gasp, the zipper lets out a gasp, and the dress lets out a gasp as the zipper, which had a good deal of momentum, goes sliding down the zipper-y track nicely. I don’t mean to go as far as I do, but my hand and my arm kind of drag the zipper down all on their own, and it goes like butter.
It means that as I leap away, my hands already rocketing up to my eyes, the dress shivers away from Azalea’s body, becoming a separate entity again, to pool at her feet. I catch more than an eyeful of creamy skin, silky white stockings, white lacey panties, a white garter, and, uh, nothing after that.
