AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I clamp my hand on his shoulder and he whips around so fast the bottle spins out of his grasp and skitters over the floor. “We have plenty of whiskey in the Green Room.” We don’t have a green room tonight, but he won’t remember that.
“Lead on, McDuff!” He doesn’t pause to retrieve his bottle, which I take as a good sign. The thing about Alex is, even when his mean streak is activated, he’s easily biddable. By the time I get him out of the public eye, it will be easy enough to prop him in a chair and let him sleep this off. There’s every chance he’s already forgotten about Xena mocking him. He staggers ahead of me.
“You’re a good man, Mariano.” He’s slurring his speech.
“So are you.” When you’re sober.
“You should have come to me.” He halts abruptly and turns, earnest and slightly irritated. “About the money. Should’ve come to me.”
It’s true, I could, but why would I accept charity? I must earn my way now, not have it handed to me. I need to hold the purse strings, not rely on anyone else’s whims or flights of generosity. There are people who look to me for their livelihood, their safety.
“It’s not going to be the same without you.” He plunks himself in the nearest chair and drops his head into his hands. I hope we aren’t in for the maudlin-drunk routine.
“I’ll be back, Alex.”
He raises his bleary eyes and blinks slowly, as though he’s not sure if I’m real or not. “You will?”
“I will.” My contract withThrills, Spills, & Killsstipulates I’m to stay with the company for a season, which seems eminently doable. I’ll be back before the summer polo season kicks off.
“Garçon!” He snaps his fingers at a passing waiter. “Two glasses of champagne, if you please.”
There’s no point telling him he’s had enough. He’s past listening or caring. All I have to do is keep him in the corner and allow the waiter to take his time returning to our table. Alex will be asleep before the band picks out the next song.
What a sorry end to a sorry day. I’m stuck in a corner with myborrachofriend, mooning over a woman who’s made it clear that she wants nothing to do with me. Though…everything that has passed between us speaks of something primal, something real. Her passion is a flame that could change the world. Lolly Benoit is—
There’s a ruckus on the other side of the room, a crowd gathering. The music pauses and Gustavo leaps back onto the wedding bower platform and plucks the world’s strangest bouquet from behind the curtain. It’s a mass of plastic dolls and stuffed toys, Power Rangers, Wonder Woman, and some fluorescent, snub-nosed, plushy dogs I don’t recognize. Nicolás joins him. They turn their back on the crowd and together heave the bouquet over their heads.
It has weight, which means it travels farther than it would if it were a traditional bouquet. The guests at the front of the mob are out of luck. It sails over their heads, flipping and turning to their oohs and aahs before it lands squarely in Bellatrix’s hands. She brandishes her prize over her head then swoops down and kisses Esther the way I wish I’d kissed Lolly.
The rest of the night is a tale known to all drinkers and their friends. Mick helps me get Alex out of the wedding tent and into a cab. We stop in time for him to charge into the woods for “a slash, as the English say.” When we reach his house, we have to wake the housekeeper because Alex can’t find his keys. He crashes into bed fully clothed after he extracts a promise that we won’t leave him alone, “to die like Jimi Hendrix or John Bonham.” Mick has to explain the reference, but once I understand it makes perfect sense. More sense than I thought Alex had in him at his level of inebriation.
If I sleep at all, it’s only to wake each time my dreams take me to the moment when Lolly stood on her tiptoes and leaned toward me, her lips ever-so-slightly parted, then dissolved into a puddle of tears, telling me she needs to remain unseen, that she’s broken. I didn’t make that wound, but I added to it, deepened it.
It’s a relief to switch out of the watch before the dawn arrives. Mick has already left the building, but the housekeeper, it seems, has called in reinforcements. There’s no hand off. No explanation. These friends of Alex’s, all hailing back to his days at Yale, know where everything is.
“Tell him I said to take care of himself.” I get a couple of nods and a salute, but they’re busy bunking down in the easy chairs beside Alex’s bed.
When I step out of Alex’s mansion, the birds are yodeling at each other in three-part harmony. The morning air is crisp and clean. The grounds to Alex Yanez’s estate stretch on forever, the croquet pitch giving way to the formal gardens which lead to the tennis courts, then the ha-ha, the woods, the river, and the wild swamps that not even he and all his riches can tame. I walk through the dawn into the day, letting the sun beat the remnants of my ridiculous pride out of me. I flubbed it with Lolly, but that doesn’t mean I can’t win her back.
All I have to do is find a way, just as Mick said I should, no matter where I am in the world.
BLOOD, SWEAT, & TEARS
Lolly Benoit. High Winds Polo Club. Palm Beach, Florida.
The best part of my new situation is never having to see—feel, touch, kiss—Mariano again. I won’t be giving him lap dances, mashing my boobs into his face, watching his lips part in surprise, relishing the zing of power as he admits—because that was not a faked stiffie, either time—that he wants me. What does it matter? Even if that spark caught and blazed, he’s still humping the well-heeled widows for the contents of their wallets, which puts him in the ‘nuclear dumpster fire’; category as far as I’m concerned.
The endof Gustavo’s wedding party is a bit of a blur, the tequila eraser doing its job, but I think—and I could be wrong—there was some conversation with Sir Woodsalot, and some mention of freedom, whatever that means to a man flaunting his wood for paying customers. I also think I slow danced with Mr. Polo Hottie one more time. Which isn’t a disaster but isn’t the look I was going for.
Kissinghim in a rage and storming away? Yes.
Wrapping my arms around him and holding him tenderly? No.
I sleptall the way home, the taxi driver waking me when we pulled up to the barn, but I at least remembered to call Alicia and tell her I was home safe, with no serial killers in tow, before I crashed. So, that’s a plus. -ish.
Yes,indeed, that’s all over and done with, which—as I keep telling myself—is For The Best. Over. Done With. Finito.
On we go.
