Chapter 21
ABI
Ican already hear them in my apartment and I’m still down the hall, my suitcase bumping along behind me. “Oops, shit,” I bark out as the hard side case twists in my hand and the corner bumps into the wall, leaving a black mark on the pristine white paint.
“Perfect. Abso-fucking-lutely perfect,” I bitch aloud, not caring about Mrs. Miller’s kids overhearing my curses or anyone thinking I’ve lost my marbles for talking to myself.
Especially when the rebound makes the wheel run up on my heel.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I repeat, hopping on one foot and rubbing at the pain.
I knock on my own door, not willing to dig my keys out when everyone’s helped themselves to my place anyway.
The door swings open, and Violet dramatically waves an arm through the air as though she’s a Price Is Right girl and I’ve won access to my own apartment.
She doesn’t look like a game show girl, though, in sweatpants and one of Ross’s oversized gym shirts.
She does look freshly showered, at least. “Come in! We’ve been waiting for you. We’re ready to hear everything!”
“No cheating!” Archie calls out from somewhere inside.
“Cheating?” I ask.
Violet rolls her eyes, “At Aruba Bingo. Archie’s idea. Game is . . . you don’t know the words, but you have to tell us all about the wedding, your trip, Lorenzo, the works, and we have pennies to mark our cards. Winner gets to take home a bottle of wine . . . if there’s any left.”
I smile. I swear I do. But Violet’s eyes go dark and her jaw clenches.
“That son of a bitch!” she hisses. “I’ll kill him for you, don’t you worry about a thing, girl. I’ll send his body back to Italy in pieces and Aunt Sofia will handle things on that end. She knows people.” She makes it sound like that’s a perfectly normal thing to do.
“No, no,” I argue weakly. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” If I say it enough, it’ll have to be true, right?
She huffs out a laugh of disbelief then points at me with a short, manicured nail. “Keep on believing that, Abs. Good girl.”
She shoves me inside the apartment, taking my suitcase from me. It disappears, and I can’t care to see if she puts it in my bedroom or the bathroom or . . . hell, the kitchen, for all I know. As long as she’s not destroying more walls, it’s probably for the best that she manages it instead of me.
Archie and Courtney are poised in the living room, cards in front of them, pennies in one hand and wine glasses in the other.
“Let’s go, girl! I have faith that I’ve got the winning card!” Archie says with a jerk of his chin toward the glitter-accented paper in front of him.
Glitter is the herpes of crafting materials. Once you’ve got it, there’s no un-getting it. My apartment’s done for. It’ll be perpetually covered in gold glitter for the rest of the time I live here no matter how many times I vacuum. I should move out now and forfeit my security deposit.
I flop to the couch, half falling on Courtney who lets out a whoop of surprise and almost spills her filled-to-the-brim wineglass, which would be a double tragedy because she’s wearing cute jeans and sitting on my white couch. “Hey! Watch it!”
I steal her wine glass, upend it, and chug it down in one go like I’m a sorority girl with a curfew and a crush on the quarterback of the football team. I hold it up, barely a spot of red in the bottom. “Again.”
Courtney and Archie meet eyes over my head, worry and shock in both, I imagine. Violet swoops in from wherever she took my suitcase.
“One more, and then you’re cut off,” Violet declares as she grabs my glass, refills it, and then gives it back. I look at her wryly as she gets Courtney a fresh glass too.
“Okay, hit us with it,” Courtney demands, “so we know what we’re dealing with.
” She’s a planner, always has been and always will be.
By the time I get this story out, she’ll have it analyzed from every angle, thought of at least three different ways to handle it, mentally argued the pros and cons of each with herself, and then .
. . she’ll tell me what I need to do. Usually, it drives me nuts.
Right now, I would love for someone to tell me what the fuck just happened and why I feel like I left something vital in Aruba.
Like a foot. Or a hand. Or . . . my heart?
“Dream gig in paradise, you know that part. But the wedding planner was a total pain in the ass. Nothing was good enough and she kept calling me ‘flower girl’ and ‘Miss Andrews’.” I imitate Meredith’s snooty manner.
Courtney’s brows raise when she hears the tone, probably having gotten enough of that in her own life. Violet, being Violet, spits out, “Bitch.”
“Yeah. But despite her, the wedding was beautiful and the flowers were some of the best work I’ve ever done, which says something considering we lost all our flowers early in the week when the cooler broke.”
“The cooler broke?” Archie says in horror. “What about the flowers?”
I shake my head sadly. “Casualties of war.”
He tracks a finger down his cheek from his eye, mimicking a tear.
“Yeah, but the resort got it fixed and we got flower replacements from every resort and flower shop on the island, and we even had a boat bring us some special ones. It was stressful and not what Janey and I had spent months planning, but the arrangements were gorgeous in the end, and that’s what matters.
” I lift my wine glass in a silent toast and then drink again. This time, truly a sip, at least.
Violet leans forward and tilts the glass up, spilling another healthy swallow into my mouth. “You’re gonna need it.”
I choke a bit at the unexpected mouthful and Archie laughs. “Girl, you are too old to be gagging like that. Get it together.”
I sputter, but he’s moved on to his glitter-infested bingo card. “Ooh, I’m one away from a bingo! Look! I’ve got paradise, dream, flower, and bitch.”
His excitement instantly changes as he hums and shakes his head sadly, “Does it count if Violet said bitch, not Abi? Hmm.” He ponders to himself and then says, “I admit I thought the bitch square was going to be about Claire Johnson, though.”
He ducks his chin behind his ring- and tattoo-covered hand to stage-whisper, “She’s not really all feel-good, do-gooder, is she? It’s a social media front to cover her bridezilla, bitcherella true self. Gotta be.” He nods sagely, certain in his assessment.
“No, she’s actually that nice, from what I could tell.
And gorgeous, even out of makeup and hair.
And adorably in love. Cole got N’Sync to sing for her as a wedding surprise.
They were as cute as puppies—Claire and Cole, C2K, not N’Sync—all googly-eyed and all over each other while they sang off-key. It was . . .”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Archie hisses as I start to break down, tears spilling silently down my cheeks.
“My bad! I thought she was gonna say Claire was awful and I could get my ‘divorce waiting to happen’ square.” To Violet and Courtney, he apologizes by waving his hands around.
“I didn’t think she was gonna go all hormonal about the Social Media Darling and Mr. Khaki Pants. I mean, who’d think that?”
Violet growls. “Yeah, why in the world would someone else getting their happily ever after with the wedding of the year bother Abs? Oh, not to mention, she was reduced to faking a honeymoon to keep our childhood nemesis from gloating about her own honeymoon. Literally everyone around Abi is married but her . . . why would that possibly bother her, Archie?”
Time freezes as Violet’s blurted words sink into us all. Me especially.
The tears aren’t quiet this time. Nope, ugly sobs wreck me and I bury my head in my hands.
“Ah, fuck!” she snaps. “I’m sorry, honey! I’m so sleep-deprived my mouth-brain filter isn’t firing on all cylinders. Sorry!”
Archie whispers, “You have a filter? Ever?” He shrugs and examines his black-polished nails. “Huh, news to me.”
Courtney stands up and claps her hands. Boss Bitch is taking over this party.
“You . . . get her tissues. You . . . another refill. She’s earned it.
Abi . . . tell us everything about this fake honeymoon thing and Lorenzo.
All of it.” She takes my chin in her hand, lifting my eyes to hers. “All. Of. It, understood?”
She’s my younger sister, and we spent a lot of years in the same family without being as close as we should be.
The few years’ age difference had seemed massive when she was playing with dolls and I was playing in the dirt with the gardener, learning the Latin names of the plants and how to propagate species, or off with Violet, my sister from another mother.
And later, she’d been the straight-and-narrow to my twisted, devil-may-care ways, and I’d kept her as far out of my business as I could so Mom and Dad didn’t find out about the crazy shit Vi and I got up to.
Not that it was that crazy, but it’d seemed like it was at the time.
But as adults, Courtney and I have found our way to each other as sisters and as friends. She would do anything for me and always has my best interests at heart. Even when I fight her on it or don’t want her to get involved, she’s got my back and will do what’s needed.
I sigh. “Yeah, let’s do this. Might as well get it over with so you can tell me ‘I told you so’ and we can move on.”
My whole body feels tingly, full of jangly nerves and jittery confusion, so I get up, needing to pace for this. “I get there, and literally at check-in, I see Emily Jones.”
Violet makes a spitting noise, aiming toward the floor. I’m assuming it was spitless because she bought me this rug and loves it as much as I do.
“And there’s your ‘divorce waiting to happen’, Archie. She was whining about having to wait in line and wanted to cut in front of me. She realized it was me and was all fake ‘Abi!’ like we’re buds,” I say, going full Mean Girls dramatic.