Chapter 5 #2
Michelle grimaces. “I don’t know if I even want to date another guy. I think I’m ready to become a lesbian.”
I shrug. “If that’s what you want, we’ll just make sure that she’s also got a job—no more bums.”
Michelle’s choppy blond hair, a messy array around her oval face, shifts as she nods. “No more bums.”
“Well, now that that’s settled…” I release her and clap my hands together.
“Yeah…” Brown eyes flecked with various lighter shades of the same color move over my form. “Where did you get that?” she asks, gesturing to the cream-colored shift I’m wearing.
I open my mouth, look down, and shut it. “That’s…” I start, not sure how much I should tell her—how much can I tell her without getting her into trouble? “… a long story,” I finish lamely.
Michelle wastes no time pulling me back into our combo living room and kitchen and points to the love seat beneath the one window our apartment boasts—aside from the even smaller one in my bedroom.
“Spill,” she orders the second my ass meets the cushion.
I scratch the side of my neck. “Well, the thing is… I don’t know if I can.”
Her brows arch and she stands back, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m your best friend,” she says, as if I’ve somehow forgotten that fact in the last twenty-four hours. “Aren’t I?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, of course you are, but—”
“No buts, bitch.” She shakes her head. “Either you spill, or I’m selling your collection of romance novels to a used bookstore.”
A gasp. “You wouldn’t!” My gaze darts to the hallway entrance and the way back to my bedroom where my precious babies lie in neat stacks along the wall of my closet and peeking out from beneath my bed.
“I won’t,” she hedges, “if you tell me what the fuck happened yesterday. You never texted me about how the venue was or the event. Did you get some good tips? And why are you wearing that?” She points to the shift.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I tell her seriously.
“Try me.” Her tone is one hundred percent challenge, and she knows me well enough to know that I never turn down a challenge—it’s either one of my flaws or one of my favorite personality quirks, depending on my mood. Now that she’s issued one, I have no recourse but to accept.
I tell her everything. From walking in on the dead bride, to finding out about the arranged marriage, to the groom coming in and telling me to marry him if I didn’t want to find myself six feet under, pushing up daisies.
Halfway through my tale of woe, Michelle stops me. “Wait, I think I need a drink if you’re going to keep going.”
Grabbing a nearby throw blanket and pulling it over my lap, I adjust myself to sit crisscrossed on one half of the love seat. “Grab me one, too, please!” I call over.
“Mimosas?” She looks back.
“Duh!”
Michelle pops the fridge, grabs the two-day-old bottle of sparkling Moscato from the grocers down the street, and pours two half glasses with a splash of orange juice in each before coming back over.
She hands me my drink and then hooks her foot into the side of the beanbag tucked half under the metal spiral stairs that lead up to her loft room.
Dragging it a bit closer, she drops into it and then we both take long gulps of the bubbly, tart liquid.
As one, the two of us sigh. Mimosas always make life better.
“So,” she says after a beat, “you’re telling me that you’re a married woman now?”
I hold up my left hand, the ring that Giulio placed on my finger glimmering in the dim morning light. “Holy fucking shit.” She leans forward. “Is that real?”
“He’s in the mob,” I tell her. “What do you think?”
Her eyes flash from the ring to me. “Do you think it’s a blood diamond?” she whispers as if she’s too afraid that someone might hear despite us being alone in our apartment.
I shake my head. “If it is, it doesn’t matter. I’m giving it back the first chance I can.”
“What?” she squawks. “Why?”
Lowering my hand, I frown. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s not mine to keep.”
“Uh, yeah, it is,” she says, staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. I mean, to be fair, that’s pretty much her usual way of looking at me, but I digress… “You married him, right?”
“I guess, but it wasn’t like… real, though.”
“Did you or did you not sign a form after you said your vows?”
I think back. The whole thing had been kind of a blur, but I distantly remember a dark-skinned man in a pinstriped suit approaching Giulio and me after the ceremony and shuffling paper after paper in front of us.
Giulio told me to sign, and I was full of so much panic and fear that he’d change his mind and decide to get rid of me anyway that I did so.
Shrinking into the love seat, I lift my glass back to my lips and down half of the contents.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Michelle deadpans.
My attention falls to the ring on my left hand, and I lift it to stare at the clear surface of the gem.
The glittering diamond is cut into the shape of a teardrop set into a silver band—or maybe it’s white gold.
I’m no jeweler. All I know is that it’s pretty and sparkly.
“I’m married.” Even saying the words doesn’t make them feel true.
Michelle grumbles. “I was supposed to be your maid of honor, you bitch.”
I look up in time to see her polish off her mimosa and grimace as the bubbles hit her throat.
“It wasn’t like I planned it,” I remind her.
She cuts a hand through the air. “Oh, I know,” she says. “That’s the only reason why we’re still friends.”
“You couldn’t live without me,” I tell her honestly. “No one else would hold your hair back while you puked the rainbow.”
Michelle’s gasp, followed by the familiar struggle of her trying to get out of the beanbag too fast, is accompanied by her annoyed huff of “It was one time!”
With a giggle, I jump up out of my seat, down the rest of my mimosa, and rush past her to my room. I get inside and slam the door shut just as I hear her body thump off the beanbag and onto the floor.
“You’re not getting away that easily!” she shouts.
“Yes, I am!” I shout back. “And you have to let me because it’s”—I glance back at the digital clock sitting on my nightstand—“almost noon and you have a shift today!”
Silence and then, “Fuck!”
I chuckle at the sudden sounds of metal creaking as Michelle climbs up to her room.
I take my roommate’s abrupt distraction as an opportunity to get out of the shift and hop into the shower before she can gather her things and steal all of the hot water.
She deserves an icy shower after making me take her shift yesterday and inadvertently getting me hitched to a psycho mafia man.
Despite my internal decision to let her shower in the cold, I hurry through cleaning myself and hop back out before half of the hot water is gone.
Yanking on a pair of denim shorts and an oversize band T-shirt, I spot my Converse, half hidden beneath the bed, and snatch them up, too.
Rolling on a pair of mismatched socks, I lace up my shoes and pause when my eyes land on the elephant in the room—or rather the elephant-sized wedding dress.
Pipes squeak and clank as Michelle starts the shower back up.
Biting down on my lower lip, I finally pick up the dress and find a hanger to stick it on.
With little other space to put it, I hook it onto the back of my closet door.
The train spills over the floor, half covering my book stacks.
Folding my arms, I take a step back and just stare at it, trying to remember if I took it off myself when I came home last night.
Wait. How did I get home last night?
I remember passing lights and the soft, buttery feel of leather under my fingers as I sat in the back of the town car that Giulio had forced me into.
I remember him telling me that someone named Alonzo—his driver, I assume—already knew where I lived.
But as I search and search through my memories, I don’t recall ever getting out of the car or getting into my apartment.
Did Giulio bring me home? Did he strip me?
He totally saw you naked, the mean bitch of an internal voice of mine says with a grin.
Unfortunately, she might be right. I’d woken up in the shift I’d had on under the wedding gown, but the fabric is thin and nearly transparent.
If he was the one to take off the ugly, big-ass wedding dress, he probably saw the outline of my nipples at least. A blush steals over my cheeks, and I press my palms into them to try and lessen the heat.
Even if Giulio did see me naked last night, though, that still doesn’t tell me what I’m supposed to do now. If he just brought me home and left me here, how am I supposed to reach him again? Am I supposed to try?
Concerned, I pop my head out of my room and glance up the hall. No dark, hulking figure with a gun pops out. The water in the bathroom shuts off a moment later, and I duck back into my room.
“It couldn’t have been a dream or hallucination,” I say absently. The dress and ring are proof that it was very much real.
As the sun comes in through the horizontal window at the top of the wall above my bed, the light glints on my keys sitting on my nightstand.
My brow furrows as I cross the room; I don’t remember putting my keys there, but then I see the rest of the stuff sitting next to them and realize they must have been put there by Giulio.
I pick up the brand-new cell phone sitting alongside my keys, turning it over in my hand.
It looks nothing like my old, cracked cell, which, now that I think of it, is strangely missing.
I scan my bed and see my purse discarded there, but there’s no telltale lump of a cell phone in the small bag.
The screen on the new phone lights up a second later, and I release a muffled shriek of surprise, nearly dropping it before I manage to shove the thing to my chest and keep it from slipping through my fingers.
The phone continues to ring, vibrating against my boob with an insistent buzz.
I pull it away and look down. The caller’s name is listed as “Husband.”
He. Did. Not. I check the phone, but the name remains the same. He totally did.
“Oh shit,” I mutter. “Oh fucking shit fuck. What do I do?” I look around like there’s a ghost somewhere in the room that might have the answer. When none magically appear to give me sage advice, I have to accept that I’m the only one with the power to make my decisions.
And I choose life.
I hit decline.
The phone screen goes black, and I release a sigh of relief. Crisis averted.
A moment later, the phone lights up and begins ringing again, this time somehow sounding more insistent.
Crisis reactivated.
“Are you kidding me?” I glare at the phone in my hand like it’s the spawn of Satan. “You can’t give me one day? Just one?” The phone continues to ring, uncaring of my request.
With a groan, I hit the answer button and then put it to my ear. “What?” I snap before thinking better of it.
A beat passes, and then Giulio’s low baritone rumbles over the line. “I’m glad to see that you’re alive and well, Daisy.”
“Are you going to let me stay that way?” I blurt.
Foot, meet my fucking mouth. Please don’t stick around.
Another moment of silence passes, and I’m not entirely sure if Giulio’s actually considering my question or if he’s laughing at me.
When he speaks, he doesn’t sound as if he was laughing, so perhaps that was just wishful thinking on my part—people who laugh are less likely to kill you. At least, I hope they are.
“That depends entirely on you,” Giulio says.
“I haven’t told anyone!” I say quickly. “Well, except for my best friend, but she doesn’t count and she won’t tell anyone, but I had to tell her that I got married because if I didn’t tell her, then she’d kill me.
I mean, not like you would kill me—please don’t kill me—but, like, in the way that would make me wish for death, you know? She threatened to get rid of my books.”
The words come out in a rush of air, and this time, I’m sure the quiet that follows isn’t laughter.
It’s probably surprise or irritation. I hold my breath as I wait to find out.
Instead of commenting on my words and the reveal that I told my best friend about us—which I mean…
what kind of an “us” is there?—Giulio says something completely unexpected.
“I’m coming to pick you up in twenty minutes. Be ready.”