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"Then tell me why, of all the people you could have called, you chose to call me."
I exhaled so loudly that the bartender gave me a strange look. "If anyone is going to stop my father from dying of a heart attack in the next twenty-four hours, it's probably going to be you."
He was silent for a few seconds after that. "Fine," he finally said. "I'm coming."
Lei
There's no way you're leaving me now." Matthew held on to my arm as if it was a matter of life and death. Three quarters of an hour ago, something no one wanted to happen on their wedding day had happened. The bride hadn't turned up, but a groom had casually– and drunkenly– announced that there would be no ceremony and that the guests should either go home or to the reception so the day would at least end in a party instead of a disaster.
Alexander was an idiot, and his cool handling of the situation did nothing to calm Audrey's father. In fact, with every phone call she didn't receive from him or her mother, the tension rose considerably.
He was firmly convinced that his daughter had gone through a rebellious phase and was doing it just to spite him.
But she didn't sound like that a few minutes ago.
"What else am I supposed to do here, huh? Celebrate with your son-in-law?" That wouldn't happen for the next hundred years, and after that I would officially request to be buried in another cemetery so I wouldn't have to stumble across the island next to him in a zombie apocalypse.
Involuntarily, I wrinkled my nose. Maybe Audrey had come to her senses and realized she didn't have to play her father's and fiancé's game. But I didn't want to have to explain to Matthew that I had put these ideas into her head last night.
Matthew looked at me indignantly. "Your moral support would be appreciated."
"Why don't you take Naomi's arm and head home? I'm sure this will all be sorted out in no time. And do us all a favor and don't jump to conclusions."
"How can you be so unaffected by this?"
An amused laugh escaped me. "I was not left at the altar, my friend."
No, I had just been called by the bride and summoned to a downtown bar less than an hour after she called off the wedding. I wasn't usually one to gloat, but right now it felt like I was ahead of everyone else.
"And neither were you. So get a grip."
"But Alexander was supposed to take over my company, and..."
Inwardly I rolled my eyes. "He doesn't have to marry Audrey to do that if there were other rules."
Finally, I released his fingers from my arm and took a step toward the center aisle between the rows of chairs. Most of the guests had already left, but scattered groups were standing around, talking about the morning's developments.
I pointed at Matthew with my chin. "If I were you, I'd put a stop to this. Before you read about it in the tabloids tomorrow."
I could already see the headlines.
* * *
The doorto the bar closed behind me, but I stood in the foyer a moment longer than I should have, my gaze fixed on the young woman at the bar. The white dress fell to the floor in long swaths, and with every movement of her upper body, her skin shimmered through the top. It was an ivory A-line fromVera Wang's spring collection– which I only knew because my brother's wife had tried on every dress in that collection, only to end up choosing a horrible pink nightmare of a dress she had found at a vintage sale.
Considering that Audrey had refused to even bother looking for a dress for months, she really did look fantastic. Every week her father had complained about his daughter's unwillingness to wear it, and yet now it looked completely like her dress.
My presence was so wrong that I finally just joined her, sat on the stool next to her, and rested my forearms on the counter. I was probably knee-deep in shit anyway, so there was no point in making another decision to the contrary.
There was a full glass of alcohol in front of her, but it looked like she hadn't touched it yet. I grabbed it and drank half of it in one go. I was calm personified, but for some reason it almost felt like I had been left at the altar this very morning. Apparently, the groom was missing all of his emotions because I had found them all.
Instead of asking her what had happened, I remained silent. It wasn't long before she turned her head in my direction, and then her body followed.
"The wedding is not happening," she said, closing a hand around the glass so she could spin it in a circle and play with it, lost in thought.
"Tell me something I don't already know."
"Is everyone upset?"
