Chapter Sixty-One
Delilah
A Few More Weeks Later
The Wedding of Destiny & the Chicken Man
As witnessed by Delilah Darling, warpainted maid of honor
I’ve never been a bridesmaid before. But even if I’d marched the taffeta gauntlet and cried into a mimosa while a woman named Brittany pledged herself to a polo-wearing Kyle, I don’t think anything could’ve prepared me for Destiny marrying the Chicken Man in a backyard ceremony that feels like it was planned by an asthmatic raccoon during a meth bender.
There are lawn chairs. There is glitter.
There is the undeniable scent of hot oil and prophecy.
And I, somehow, am the Bridesmaid of Honor.
I’m in a pink velvet dress that might’ve once been a curtain. My heart-shaped sunglasses double as a weapon. My lipstick is a battle cry. I’m wearing stilettos that say “SIN” on one heel and “SUGAR” on the other, and I’ve got glitter in places that glitter should not physically be.
The bride, my beloved holding-cell sister in crimes of passion and poultry, Destiny, has smoke in her eyes and vape in her lungs. Her veil is made of caution tape.
I walk her down the aisle. “You look hot as fuck,” I whisper. “Let’s do this.”
We strut past the audience like we’re storming the gates of Hell. The guests are a mixed bag of jail wives, art hoes, minor deities, one man in a chicken mascot suit, and the reincarnation of Venus herself, currently vaping near a sacrificial snack tray.
She flips off a crow mid-flight. It caws. She caws back.
Rhys the officiant, dressed like a funeral director forced to attend a Barbie-themed quinceanera, stands at the makeshift altar in all black. The pink boutonnière I stabbed into his lapel is hanging on for dear life, like his composure.
He clears his throat. Hard. Once. Twice. You can actually see his soul trying to leave his body through his temples. “We are gathered here today,” he says, “for reasons I still don’t fully understand.”
I bite my lip to keep from howling. Jett, the best man, doesn’t bother, he snorts and mutters “same” under his breath.
Rhys barrels forward. “Legally, I have to ask if anyone objects, but I’m going to skip that, because frankly, no one here gets a vote.”
Destiny winks at me. Chicken Man clucks solemnly.
And then it begins.
The groom, shirt open, feathers painted down his chest in glitter and body oil, smiles like a man who’s stared into the void and decided to fuck it.
“Destiny. Prophetess of the forbidden spit. I stand before you not as a man, but as a vessel. A featherless prophet. A humble disciple of the Coop.”
I swear to God, three pigeons land on the roof on cue.
“From the moment you baptized your coffee with bodily fluids and foresaw my erection in the foam, our yolks were whisked. You are the cracked shell to my leaking yolk.”
I am crying. I am leaking glitter tears. Someone gasps. I think it’s Jett.
“I vow to honor your chaos. To share my Bluetooth signal and to always keep the coop warm. To never microwave fish in our shared nest. When the chickens come to roost, and they will, I will fight beside you in the Great Peckening. Together, we will raise the next generation of prophecy. Little hatchlings of havoc and spite. You are my egg. My yolk. My forbidden feather. And I am yours, now and always, until the last cluck sounds and the coop returns to dust.”
Rhys closes his eyes briefly like he’s trying to astral project to a courtroom where this isn’t legally binding. “Benji. The ring.”
Benji is in a flower crown and suspenders, glowing like a Renaissance angel dipped in butter. He’s holding the rings in a repurposed KFC box, because symbolism.
Rhys sighs. You can hear his migraine start. He stares at it for one long moment. Then says, “Right. Sure,” and nods for them to proceed.
“With this ring,” Chicken Man intones, solemn as a preacher on shrooms, “I thee cluck. And I promise, on my robe, on my headset, on the sacred thigh meat of the ancestors, to love you until the coop collapses and the moon bleeds yolk.”
Destiny takes a long vape hit. Flicks a Pop-Tart crust into the ether. Then she stares into his soul like she’s either going to marry him or hex him into another realm.
“You showed up glistening like God’s favorite gravy.
You whispered things I didn’t understand, and I got wet anyway.
I vow to hex your enemies, worship your weird, and tongue-kiss you on every solstice.
Together, we’ll build a nest of emotional damage and birdseed.
We’ll raise hell and hens. We’ll astral project during orgies and fight the law with spells and poultry.
I vow to always bring the chaos and the titty snacks.
You’ll never be spiritually malnourished again.
You are my cult husband. My poultry prince. ”
Rhys is visibly sweating now.
“Benji,” he says again. “Other ring.”
Benji opens the bucket again like it’s the Ark of the Covenant.
Destiny plucks the ring from it and slides it on with manicured vengeance. “With this ring,” she says, “I vow: ‘til death, divorce, or demonic summoning do us part.”
There is silence.
And then Venus yells “Slay!” from the snack table.
Rhys exhales through his nose. “You may kiss your, uh. Poultry-anointed spouse.”
And they do.
And I, bridesmaid, goblin, gremlin, emotional support stalker, make full, aggressive chicken noises during the kiss.
Loud. Proud. Cluck cluck motherfucker.
Someone throws corn instead of rice. It’s fucking majestic.
And then Destiny pulls back, glowing with sweat and vape and divine feral glee. She raises her arms like a pagan Beyoncé and screams, “bouquet time, bitches.”
The guests scatter like rats and prophets, forming a loose semicircle of chaos and cracked acrylic nails.
A few of the jail wives form a protective wedge.
Venus casually floats three inches off the ground.
Benji holds up a chair like a shield. Rhys mutters something Latin under his breath and takes cover behind Jett, who hisses like a feral cat.
Destiny doesn’t toss the bouquet. She spins once. Twice. Cackles. Then she hurls it like a Molotov cocktail. It explodes mid-air in a glittery poof. Butterflies. Feathers. Possibly ghosts. The chicken mascot catches fire. Everyone screams.
And somehow, through sheer spite and divine alignment, it lands square in my arms.
Still smoking.
Destiny looks me dead in the eye and grins like she just birthed fate from her third eye.
“You’re next,” she says, and I swear to God the bouquet growls.
The air sparkles with vape smoke and divine spite.
And then Benji, Rhys, and Jett drop.
Not metaphorically.
They drop to one knee, like synchronized horny swans in heat. A holy trinity of chaos, lust, and terrible decision-making.
Benji drops first, like the six-foot-something human Labrador he is, knees thudding to the ground with a force that rattles the catering table. His curls are wild, eyes wilder, and he’s holding up a heart-shaped diamond the size of my trauma.
“Marry me,” he gasps like he forgot to breathe until just now. “Please. You’re everything. I’ll worship the ground you walk on. I’ll build you a house made of emotional safety and orgasms. Delilah. I am begging you. Let me love you forever.”
My brain bluescreens.
He’s so big. So sincere. So fucking serious. Like he doesn’t even see the flaming chicken mascot behind me or the blood-smeared wedding crasher passed out in the punch bowl. The only thing that matters in this moment is me. His girl. His whole world.
And I am not okay.
My uterus tries to crawl up into my lungs and start dry-humping my ribcage. My knees buckle. My pussy monologues. My heart hiccups, slaps me across the face, and starts packing a bag to move in with him permanently.
This man wants to build me a house. Of orgasms and emotional safety. Who the fuck says that? Who the fuck means that?
Benji. My hot, aggressively sweet, dick-sorcery forest creature of a man.
I want to jump him. I want to cry. I want to drag him into the wedding arch and defile the nearest flower arrangement while screaming ‘yes’ in seventeen languages, one of which I’m pretty sure is just moaning.
And he’s still looking at me like I hung the moon. Like he’d carry me across a field of emotional landmines barefoot just to hand me a donut and tell me I deserve better.
I am about to say yes.
“Absolutely not. You belong to me,” Rhys says, his voice a goddamn velvet guillotine.
I choke on my own breath.
His thumb brushes the velvet ring box like it’s my neck and he’s reminding me what I already wear there. What I begged for. What he let me have. What he owns.
“I’ll give you rules. I’ll give you purpose. I’ll give you a ring to match the collar you wear.” His smile is soft and devastating. “You’ve been mine since the first session. This is just the paperwork.”
My soul detaches from my body and immediately files for joint custody.
I am actively unwell. I am standing in the ruins of some smoldering romantic Armageddon and my legs are about to give out because he said it like a fact.
Not a question. Not a plea. Just a cold, calm declaration of ownership, like he’s filing me away under Property of Rhys, Do Not Touch Unless You Have a License and a Death Wish.
I have never wanted to be someone’s legal and spiritual possession so badly in my goddamn life.
It’s not the ring. It’s not even the words.
It’s the way he says “you belong to me” and I feel it like a leash around my soul.
A promise. A commandment. Something I’ve already obeyed a hundred times in my mind and now I get to do it in front of God, a notary, and the flaming poultry mascot in the distance.
I am going to say yes. Or I’m going to drop to my knees and beg him to say it again slower.
Either way, I’m ruined and collared and so fucking his.
“You’re both pathetic,” Jett snarls, and he’s suddenly pulling a box from his back pocket like he’s been planning this and also trying very hard not to care. Inside is a black diamond surrounded by pink stones.
“Delilah. I hate everything but you. Marry me. We’ll commit felonies, fuck in public, and never, ever talk about our feelings. I’ll fight every single one of your enemies in alphabetical order, and then we can make out on their graves.”
Everyone is screaming.
The chicken mascot is convulsing with spiritual ecstasy or maybe heat stroke.
The bouquet in my hands pulses like a cursed egg, humming with destiny and vape residue. And I, Delilah P. Darling, criminal, goblin, chaos bitch in heels, am being proposed to.
Simultaneously.
By a gentle giant, a feral beast with anger issues and fuck-me eyes, and my control freak therapist sir, who has absolutely lost control of the situation.
“We can’t all propose,” Rhys says. “There has to be order.”
“You literally just married a woman in a caution tape veil to a man who clucks in tongues,” I snap.
Destiny howls from the altar. “Let the divine hoe choose!”
“Choose?” I echo, staring down at them.
Benji’s eyes are wide and glistening.
Jett is scowling like he wants to fight and marry me in the same breath.
Rhys has his jaw clenched so tight I swear I hear a tooth crack.
And my heart is doing backflips in glitter heels.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“To who?” Jett snarls.
“Yes,” I say louder, louder, until it’s a scream. “Yes to all of you.”
There is a beat of stunned, horrified silence.
And then Destiny throws her vape in the air like it’s a bouquet round two and screeches, “poly harem blessing from the chicken gods! May your loves be filthy and your enemies cracked like eggs!”
Venus screams “slut power!” from the punch pool.
The crowd goes wild.
Benji’s crying, trying to lift me. Jett shoves him. Rhys gets trapped between my thighs and his ethics.
I am wearing a bouquet crown now. Someone shoves a chicken nugget into my cleavage like an offering.
The chicken mascot salutes me.
I have never known joy like this.
The reception buffet is delicious. Deviled eggs. Chicken fingers. Nuggets. A suspicious punch sloshes in a kiddie pool next to a pile of gummy worms.
The cake is shaped like handcuffs and bleeds red velvet when cut.
First dance? Toxic. They don’t slow dance. They grind. They mosh. They bless the dance floor with vape smoke and chicken grease.
Benji slow dances with Destiny’s grandma. He dips her. I swear she moans.
Rhys tries to hide behind the drink table until I yank him onto the dance floor by the wrist. He glares.
I grin. He twirls me once, stiffly, and tries to escape, but Jett cuts in like a fucking panther with tattoos.
I scream in delight. Benji grabs my hand, spins me too, and we all become a blur of glitter.
The wedding favors are contraband: spell jars, custom lighters, a Ziploc of gravel labeled “healing quartz,” and glitter that almost definitely has drugs in it. I pocket two and a lighter shaped like a dick.
As the sun sets, Destiny and the Chicken Man walk hand-in-hand into the forest.
They disappear into the trees like myth and madness.
The air smells of fried chicken and ozone.
Somewhere, a chicken screams.
And honestly?
That’s love.