Chapter Five
The promise of a foreboding future.
Amber
“You’re…married?” my sister, Limoncella, drawls over the phone while I paw through Liam’s cabinets and fridge. Everything is labeled. With bright pink tape and black sharpie. His perishables are modest. His canned and dry foods are stocked with vehement variety.
I have yet to locate quinoa.
I respect him better as a vegan for it.
“Yep,” I note, absently judging the man’s pasta and rice collection. I have never seen so many different kinds. Yet, he lacks couscous and rotini. More respect. “To Liam Warrick. Do you remember him from school?”
“ Um . No. I was two grades above you, and hated people.”
I smile. “Ah, that’s right. My bad. I forgot. You’ve since outgrown that hatred, haven’t you?”
“No.”
“Oops. Silly me.” I stumble upon a collection of coffee , and my brow rises on its particular label: Bambi’s Beans, for Juice.
Okay, fine. I’ll give Liam an ounce of credit. Is he pure evil? Yes . But has he always been a detail-oriented, careful person—who knows exactly how to lull someone into a false sense of security before snapping them in two?
Also yes.
“I remember Liam from my meeting with him,” Limoncella notes. “He’s the billionaire owner of Whirlwind Branding, isn’t he? The enterprise that handles the branding projects of almost anyone worth anything in, like, fifty countries? Locations all over the world? Base headquarters right here, in Iferous, Indiana?”
I select a caramel pre-ground cup and find my way to what appears to be a brand new Keurig. “Thank you, Google definitions. What do you mean you had a meeting with him?”
“Back when I was thinking about buying the bookstore, I knew I had to give it a makeover if it was going to make it, so I went to Whirlwind. Talked to the receptionist. Asked about packages for startup independents, and left my name there, expecting that I wouldn’t get a call back. And I didn’t.”
She got an email.
“I got an email.”
Classic freaking Liam. My eyes roll as I pull a perfectly mundane pale blue mug from one of the cabinets.
“Liam himself offered to meet with me, gave me an entire roadmap, and then invested in my initial costs. Did I not mention any of this?”
I hum. “Nope.”
“Huh.”
“You called me one day and said I bought a bookstore .”
“Ahhh.” Dry laughter buzzes through the line. “You mean kinda like how you called me today and said I got married ?”
“Yeah, exactly like that.”
Together, we sigh, dreamily, and say, “ Genetics. ”
Limoncella then mutters, “We were not taught how to communicate effectively.”
“Nope. Can’t say that we were.” My coffee finishes, and you’ll never guess what I find tucked beside the oatmilk in the fridge—real creamer, unopened, fresh. The man actually went shopping for me. And knew I’d want caramel. Isn’t it just like him to have identified the most basic characteristics of his victims?
“So, how’s rich married life? Are you insufferable yet? And, also, can I borrow a yacht?”
“I don’t know if Liam has a yacht, but my bed looks like a coffin.”
She gasps. “Love that. Love that.”
“ Right? It’s the spookiest, prettiest room I’ve ever seen. I’ll have to send you pictures.”
“Yeah, or invite me over to your swanky new house. I promise not to stain anything with my middle class. Maybe you should plan a dinner? For your favorite family member, and her new brother-in-law?”
My sister…and Liam…in the same room.
I shudder. “Are you sure you want to come over for dinner, Limon? Liam’s vegan.”
“Oh no. Tofu. My only weakness.” I can picture her rolling her eyes. “Yeah. I’m sure I want to meet my sister’s husband as her sister, not his client. Don’t be stupid.”
Oh well. I can’t exactly keep my sister out of my “marital bliss” for an entire year. Knowing her, she’ll be pole vaulting the front gate and breaking in with a crowbar by the end of the week if I don’t give her something akin to hope. “I’ll talk to Liam about it. He’s…an interesting character. He might not want people he doesn’t know well in his home.”
“What a considerate little wife.”
I gag. “No, I’m not.”
“You are, though. Probably why he took one look at you and scooped you up as his little bride.”
Groaning into my coffee, I mutter, “Did you miss the part where I mentioned how we went to school together?”
“Nope. Bet he’s been planning this since he first met you.”
My eyes roll. “We met in kindergarten. I was five.”
“And sooo cute, if my memory serves. Made me nauseous, you did.”
I sigh. Sometimes talking to Limoncella is a losing battle in a long war. She’s very set in her ways. Opinions, immoveable. If she and Liam meet, and disagree on something, it’s gonna feel like home. But… Quieter. Stiffer.
In the thirteen years I’ve known Liam, he has never yelled, and I once watched him fall face first into wood chips on the playground. By the time I’d run up to him to make sure he was all right amidst all the other laughing and pointing kids, he’d turned himself onto his back.
Staring at the sky, face scraped and brows knit, he muttered, “I miscalculated my grip strength. I’ll have to work on that.”
We were ten.
He’s always been certifiably insane.
Just like my sister.
I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to take before it feels like I’m in an asylum.
My guess, though? Five minutes.
So, yeah, I’ll just nudge talking to Liam about inviting her over sometime ever so slightly to the back burner.
? ? ?
Bambi,
Happy Monday. I hope you slept well last night. I apologize for being unable to join you for breakfast. I rise early for work, and you sleep like the dead (haha, see what I did there? bc ur bed’s like a coffin?).
Below, I have collected a list of items appropriate for my wife to own.
It falls among your housespouse duties to order everything in your size. (I will check.) Use the card I gave you for necessities.
Tolerating you always,
Liam
I genuinely don’t know what to do with him. I just do not. I also don’t know what to make of that comma after Bambi . He has wifed me up in his emails, no longer sectioning off our correspondence in his business brain box.
Given that distressing fact, it’s a wonder he hasn’t referenced more Barbie movies. It leaves me no choice but to conclude that referencing Barbie movies is strictly a business move. No two ways about that.
Yup.
Fending off moderate to severe trepidation, I click the first link.
I don’t know what I expected, but it’s certainly not a site titled LoliPop and a gothic dress with enough poof in its skirt to put the clouds to shame. It is so… pretty .
It’s so terribly pretty. It is also three hundred dollars . For the dress. Another hundred-fifty for the corset styled with it in the image.
Trepidation building, I open the next link—another extravagant, beautiful, dark, wine-red dress with a layered skirt. The next link—fish-net tights, with flesh-colored fleece, for winter, which January happens to be. The next link— a tiara .
Ruby gems drip off the dark metal like drops of blood, and I am obsessed . It’s so pretty. It’s all so pretty. Liam wants me to get all of this? Is he serious? I mean, of course he’s serious, but—
It hits me.
In the face.
Like a dagger between the brows.
Probably because I am currently looking at an ornate dagger and a decorative sheath that Liam wants me to buy.
All of this is the clothing not included that came at the end of whatever advertisement Liam’s decided he watched for me. He has bought the furniture sets, blackmailed the “doll,” and now he’s opting to accessorize.
I email back:
Liam:
I’m not your dress-up doll.
Sincerely,
Amber
His reply comes through before I can so much as contemplate opening my document and continuing my very important business of…staring at a blank page.
Bambi,
You must be confused. That’s exactly what you are.
Expecting favorable response,
Liam
Why does his sign off read like a threat?
Oh. Yeah. Probably because it is one.
Liam:
You shouldn’t treat people like your toys.
Deeply concerned,
Amber
Again, he foils my plans of productivity with near-immediate response time.
Bambi,
Why not?
Has been to therapy,
Liam
I roll my lips into my mouth, so I won’t laugh at his therapy thing. The man absolutely went to therapy so he could make jokes about therapy. That is awful , and not even a little bit hilarious.
Goodness. How do I reply to this one?
It isn’t kind won’t work. Liam doesn’t particularly care about being kind. The fact that treating people as though they are people is simply the decent thing to do won’t matter, so I use all my grand Liam knowledge and compose an effective point:
Liam:
It’s not what Barbie’s taught you.
Listen to Barbie,
Amber
Bambi,
Barbie taught me to be who I wanna be, so I’m gonna be an insufferable dictator. Buy the clothes and rest assured I’ll not personally be dressing you up in them.
Meeting starting, gtg,
Liam
P.S. I know you want them, so, honestly, why are you even fighting me?
Choose better battles, Bambi.
I hate how his point is one hundred percent true.
I hate it the entire time I’m selecting sizes, adding thousands of dollars worth of clothes to my cart, and muttering, “I was not even a little bit worried you’d try to dress me yourself, stupid.”