Chapter 31
chapter thirty-one
Mateo
She was really running.
All five of them in their hot pink skirts and thin heels, squealing with laughter and dodging people on the busy sidewalks through Vegas as if outrunning us was even an option. Had we not looked away for two minutes to watch Echo pull a slot handle on a Monte Carlo machine, they wouldn’t have even made it out of the bathroom. But this was fun now. I had a rush of adrenaline after seeing that shock in Natalia’s eyes and I had every intention to use it.
Their head start across the highway dwindled quickly. Our legs were just longer, steps brisker. Tally kept checking over her shoulder, maybe hoping she didn’t see me when she looked back, and the last thing I needed was for her to catch a crack in the sidewalk and go ass over tits. God I fucking loved her, but graceful and agile my fiancée was not. Wherever they were headed, we were headed, and for all we knew that could very well be a gay bar or a male strip club, or something equally impossible to talk ourselves out of. I hadn’t asked, but I was pretty sure there was a cap on how far taking one for the team would go if it came down to it.
Plus, I wouldn’t put it past those women to set us up. They were educated, and diabolical, and a little bit drunk, which was a frightening combination.
Suddenly I was slowing my strides and rethinking the eagerness in which I was leading myself and four grown men into uncharted territory. Ahead of us the Strip was thick with restaurants and stores, neon spectacle signs extended from the buildings. I was anticipating their next move, but at the same time I couldn’t give a damn where we were headed as long as it was in line behind her . My brain had two tracks. One was always Natalia. The other one was often, also, Natalia. But the deeper, more regulated, day-to-day things played out there as well. She was like a film filter over everything.
Another two blocks on the right, a door swung open and a few people filed out with cigarettes hanging from their mouths as a cacophony of shrill singing and a Joan Jett instrumental thumped loudly through the brief opening. Before it shut again Tally squeezed herself through the door and disappeared with her pack of flamingos close behind.
A fucking karaoke bar. I swiped a hand down my face. “Who here can sing?”
None of my groomsmen volunteered but Pike threw an arm around my shoulder with a shit-eating grin on his face. “There’s really nothing you wouldn’t do for this girl.”
He was right about that. Despite the dread, there was no keeping us from stomping right into the dimly lit karaoke bar. It was long and thin, like it was built between two already standing buildings and the owners threw a roof over the alleyway and called it a day. At one end there was a stage and tall bar tables scattered in front of it. A projector was casting moving lyrics against the wall and the DJ stood behind his booth with a queue of eager amateur singers waiting to give a request.
Bella was in that line.
The other four had found a table nearby and were already pointing at items on the menu. My brother, Pike, and I made ourselves at home in the empty spaces beside the girls, wiggling in like unwanted pests. I set my elbows on the table and my arm pressed flush to Natalia’s, but she didn’t move away like I expected her to. Her posture straightened, her bicep went stiff, and then she relaxed, ignoring me and the small connection there altogether.
I wasn’t going to get my hopes up over an arm touch like I was in fucking middle school. But we were headed in the right direction. We’d gone from taking separate cars into the city to sharing a sticky bar table with minimal castrating side-eye. Progress.
“That whole sneaking away thing was very cute.” I plucked a menu out of Mia’s hand across from me and dodged her long fingers attempting to snatch it back. I’d spent thirty-five years without sisters, and now I had three of them, so I considered my instigating as making up for lost time.
“Try a low crawl in the future,” Frankie suggested, tugging Ophelia into his side and wrapping her in a playful headlock. Her brown hair fell in her face. “You have these massive heads. They’re impossible to miss.”
“You’re one to talk,” O shot back at him, giggling.
“ Tally is impossible to miss,” I said. That inside thought cartwheeled off my tongue before I could catch it. The table stilled, but Tal and I were the object of everyone's attention. Feeling bold, I grazed the side of her pinky finger with mine and tacked on, “Always has been.”
For a second I thought I had her. That she might give in and turn around and we could figure it out somewhere quieter and more private while the metronome of shitty off-key karaoke ticked in the background. But the moment was gone as quickly as it presented itself. Sam and Tyler were suddenly there, hollering at each other and backing us all away from the small table top to slosh down ten plastic cups of pale yellow beer they’d somehow managed to carry with only two sets of hands.
“I don’t understand what the big fucking secret is,” Echo pecked at his brother.
“It’s none of your business who I take on dates.” Wink shrugged. He reached over and plucked the menu out of my hand and studied it too closely to be reading anything at all.
“Sam has a girlfriend?” Tally wiggled her eyebrows.
“Sam doesn’t have a girlfriend,” Sam replied.
“Sam has a date to your wedding that he’s keeping under wraps like she’s a celebrity or something,” Echo snorted, then pointed a long finger at his brother with wide eyes. “Oh shit, have I fucked her before? Is that it? There’s no hard feelings here. Wouldn’t be the first time a girl got the Swan brother special.”
“Watch your mouth.” Wink’s head shook.
“Is that on there, somewhere?” Mia pointed at the wobbly laminated menu in Sam’s hand. “I didn’t see that one.”
“Shameless,” Angelo mumbled.
“I’m just saying, you’re bringing a new girl into a pretty chaotic situation. I hope she’s up to the task.” Echo put his palms out as if surrendering. “First date at a wedding that you’re in across the country with all of your best friends is pretty fucking bold.”
A comeback was at the tip of Sam’s tongue but he tapped it back down and put his beer to his lips.
Wink had girlfriends in the service but nothing that lasted more than a few months. Amy, Megan, Stephanie, Eloise—a revolving door of the same story. The lifestyle in Delta was intimidating to most women. We were gone for half a year at a time, in dangerous conditions, with hardly any communication, and for the vast majority of that experience we didn’t yearn for anything more than a warm body to pass the lulls. Even outside the Army, acclimating back to civilian life and finding a partner who understood that most of the scars were internal was tough. Pike and I had been extraordinarily lucky in that.
“If she’s meant to be, she'll fit right in, Sam,” Tally said.
“Agreed,” I added warmly. “We’ll be on our best behavior.”
“Don’t feed the boy lies,” Echo insisted. “Just like today is a circus, that day will be a more expensive one.”
“I wouldn’t call today a circus ,” I argued passively. We may have been drunkenly gallivanting around Las Vegas playing an immature game and ignoring the astronomical elephant in the room that was me and Natalia—but that was neither here nor there.
“A circus is a show,” Mia pointed out with a proud tilt of her lips. Bella had made her way to the front of the line of singers and was flipping through the catalog of song choices. “This is a game, and you are losing.”
“You wish.” I took a beer from the center of the table and tossed it back, the entire goddamn thing in four sloppy, dribbling gulps, and wiped the damp foam from across my mouth with my sleeve. This was the worst idea I’d ever had, but I was quickly running out of them. I left the table and skipped into the line beside Bella as if I’d always been there with no shortage of impatient, frustrated side-eyes aimed at me.
“Hey, sis.” I threw an arm over her shoulder.
Isabella’s brows knitted together, and her short hair tickled the back of my hand. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Karaoke, of course.” I pointed to the list of songs, choosing one that was suitable for a duet on a whim. I gave the DJ a charismatic nod and dragged Bella up the small set of stairs and onto the stage before she could put up too much of a fight. With the spotlights shining it was almost impossible to see the audience not directly in front of us, but I shielded my eyes and found the table of my fiancée and friends watching raptly.
“You can’t just hijack my spot,” Bella spat.
“Just did. You can either sing with me or forfeit.”
“Do you even know this song?”
There were two microphones beside each other on a stool and I handed her one. “Do I need to know the words if I can just read them off the wall?”
A piano ballad started and the crowd hushed. My nerves were doing somersaults over one another but there was no time to fully panic as the lyrics began moving across the screen. I could do this; I was a natural in front of a live audience. A live audience had seen my balls, for fuck’s sake. Singing a P!nk song was the least vulnerable thing I’d done for the entertainment of someone else.
Bella was unimpressed. She crossed her arms, turning awkwardly away from me as she softly sang the opening line—which was a clear and mortifying confession of love.
Oh, hell…
A hot, uncomfortable burn, like a slap in the back of the neck, hit me as the words continued. It was too late to stop it from happening. I put a substantial distance between us, thinking that might dissuade anyone from getting the wrong idea, but Bella was a phenomenal fucking singer and people were taking notice. She hit the first chorus of the song and turned toward me with wide, and understandably angry, eyes.
“Don’t look at me,” I mouthed.
Her forehead creased down the middle and she threw a hand out to the side as if to say, Where the fuck am I supposed to look , and I realized much like Natalia, the other Russo women had their own unique, cutting language that required nothing but violent intent and the fear of God to communicate.
This had to be rewarding for Tally. It was like thinking all the presents were opened on Christmas morning and then finding one hiding at the back of the tree. My total humiliation was a fun little quirk of the scavenger hunt. Or karma’s fucked-up, sister-wives way of getting even.
The second verse started, and as soon as it was my turn to sing Bella dropped her mic to her side to scold me. “You fucking idiot,” she seethed. “‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was right there!”
I waved her off, staring intently at the lyrics as each word was highlighted, crawling inside my own skin with every shaky syllable I managed to sing. I’d heard “Just Give Me a Reason” a million times on the radio when it was popular but never actually acknowledged what it was about. Standing up here was the worst time to figure it out, as I was seemingly engaging in an intense lovers’ quarrel with my fucking sister-in-law.
“I’m going to kill you,” Bella seethed through the world's fakest smile. “I’m going to find a way to sue you for this. Emotional damages, something.”
I stuffed a hand in her face, meaning to muzzle her as my notes carried on, but the little fucking animal bit the palm of my hand. I ripped it away and the last line of my verse dropped off a cliff.
“Ou-CH.” I shook out my hand. “Do I need a fucking tetanus shot now?”
We were seconds away from throwing elbows at one another when the chorus lifted once more and we both harmonized through our disdain like a musical theater number.
“She’s my sister,” I said into the microphone, pointing toward Bella. To which a couple “eughs” and “what the fucks” returned from the darkened room of people.
“Please stop,” Bella sang.
One day, we would laugh about this. Maybe not one day soon , but someday, when we were old and sentimental and youth was lost, there would be a story about Las Vegas and a karaoke love song. Maybe by then Bella would even like me, and I’d have paid off that lawsuit she promised to throw my way.
Through the haze of lights I could barely make out Natalia’s silhouette at the back of the room but my chest felt lighter knowing she was there. My finger snapped in the direction of our table, to Tally, hopefully. With a metaphorical beer blanket draped snugly over my shoulders, I dialed it up to ten and sang my goddamn heart out. At the very least, I’d make her laugh at how ridiculous it was. On the other hand, it might be enough to win her over. If I was willing to make a fool of myself in a shitty karaoke bar there was no saying how far that desperation could extend.
All I knew was that I wanted the song to be over so that I could return to our group with what little dignity I had left and a point for the boys to fall back on. Bella was singing me in circles, but there was no rule saying I had to be good at the task to mark it off the list.
As the final keys played, my future sister-in-law abandoned her mic on the stage and bounded away from me with her hand covering her face. The audience’s reaction was lukewarm, but our friends and family lit up the room with an embarrassingly long standing ovation to really hammer in the most awkward four minutes of my life.
If I was lucky the floor would open and swallow me. But I was the opposite, and when I traipsed back over to the table, not only had I completely embarrassed myself in the name of love, but that love of mine was nowhere to be found.
Mia hung over Ophelia’s shoulder, looking down at a piece of paper keeping track of the score. “We’re tied,” Ophelia announced.
Mia tossed a hand on her hip. “That’s bullshit. Mateo stole that right out from under us. We were here first, so we should get the point.”
“That’s not how a scavenger hunt works,” Angelo pushed back. “It’s how many, not how quickly. Everything on the list is fair game.”
“I’m sorry, what exactly have you contributed to your team?”
A low whistle rang out and Camilla high-fived her sister. Angelo scrubbed an impatient hand through his short beard and Mia squared up to him with a self-righteous tilt of her head. So far, this weekend had been the catalyst to every problem. No one seemed nearly as concerned with Natalia’s whereabouts as I was; my palms were clamming waiting for her to reappear. I tried to voice that concern—the words were on the tip of my tongue—but instead I was silenced by the sight of my brother wrapping a hand in the hair at the nape of Mia’s neck, and tugging her mouth onto his.
The kiss dragged on for a questionable second before Mia ripped herself away, and if that hadn’t already left us speechless, the slap of her palm connecting with Angelo’s cheek did the job just fine.
“Oh fuck, you deserved that,” I said.
“One hundred percent,” Pike agreed.
Sam shook his head. “Am I missing something?”
“My contribution.” Angelo was grinning, even though his cheek was pink with the imprint of a thin set of fingers. There, at the bottom of the list, was the line kiss someone you just met. He stole Ophelia’s sparkly pen right out of her grip to write his initials next to it.
“He did not,” Bella scoffed.
Mia pressed her plump lips together and folded her arms over her chest. She wouldn’t make eye contact with anything but the ceiling, and the only thing more concerning than a vindictive Mia was a silent one.
“Does that…count?” Tyler mumbled.
Angelo shrugged, tossing the pen on the table nonchalantly. He’d successfully thrown a live grenade into our already uncultivated bridal party and then turned toward the bar. “Anyone need another drink?” No one replied. “Suit yourselves.”
My brother left the table, and Mia spun in the opposite direction, stomping toward the bathrooms with her sisters hot on her heels.
Reality folded in on itself, and I blinked. “Where’s Tally?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Ophelia said, but I knew her better than that. At least enough to say she’d never blindly allow her best friend to take off in Vegas alone without some kind of plan. Tal was having a field day making me chase her.
“Try again,” I offered kindly, while my hand tightened on the wooden backrest of her chair. “Come on, let me go get my wife, O.”
Her lips twisted, fighting to hold something back. She breathed deeply in through her nose and let it go as a sigh. “All she said was that she was going to find Elvis, and she needed to do it alone.”
Elvis. So this was a scavenger thing. She was trying to get ahead again.
Wracking my brain for somewhere I might find an impersonator, I came up short, and desperation struck. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I Googled it. My pulse picked up, thudding in my neck, because there were several results, but one very specific one nearby that stood out against the rest.
I knew exactly where she was headed.
It was where we’d been heading this entire time.