35. Deirdre
Deirdre
T he next two weeks pass in a busy blur.
My days are dominated by the usual sorts of things – school and wedding stuff with Valentina.
I attend my classes, sometimes with Elio, sometimes with Enzo if Elio has other business going on.
And I go to extravagant cake tastings and printer shops and dress fittings with my bridesmaids – Valentina, Lucia, Giulia, and Annabelle.
Enzo did a more thorough background check on Annabelle, and Elio allowed me to invite her into the group after all.
The days seem to pass faster and faster, like dominoes colliding against each other, picking up speed as they hurtle towards an inevitable destination.
And my nights?
My nights belong to Elio.
Every night, he claims me, burying himself in my mouth or my ass.
Even fucking my breasts, dragging his hot, veiny shaft between them until he explodes all over my throat.
As soon as it’s safe, he starts coming in my pussy again, and in a quiet voice I’m pretty sure he thinks that I don’t hear, he says it feels like coming home.
On the twenty-eighth, though, the routine changes. It’s the first night in ages that I haven’t slept beside Elio. I’m currently ensconced in the jaw-dropping bridal suite of the Royal Thompson Hotel, while Valentina, Lucia, Giulia, and Annabelle try to get me to have another glass of champagne.
“I can’t,” I laugh, my stomach flip-flopping in rebellion against that idea. I’m so fucking nervous, and the drinks I’ve already had haven’t done a thing to help.
“True. Probably better not to be hungover on the morning of your wedding,” Annabelle says, pulling the bottle away from Valentina who was trying to hold the spout over my head and dump the bubbles down my throat.
I shoot Annabelle a grateful glance, and Valentina groans, flopping onto the bed beside me.
“No fun,” she says, pouting, looking younger than she normally does with no makeup on and her blonde hair fanning out around her on the bed.
“No one said you had to stop drinking,” I say, poking her with my freshly polished toe. This whole day has been a series of treatments at the hotel’s spa with the other four – facials and waxing and smoothing of things that I didn’t even know needed to be smoothed.
“And you’ll get your chance soon enough,” Giulia says, grabbing the champagne bottle from where Annabelle put it down on the table beside the gigantic bed Valentina and I are on. “Have you and Dario set a date yet?”
“Ugh! Don’t remind me,” Valentina grumbles, sitting up. “No, there’s no date yet. And whenever there is a date, I don’t think I’m going to get any say in it. I’ll be informed of it. Same way I was about the engagement itself.”
“Well, I certainly know what that’s like,” I say, poking her with my toes again.
“Yeah, but you’re at least marrying somebody who cares about you,” Valentina sighs. “That boy is obsessed.”
“That man is not a boy,” Giulia snorts.
“Amen to that,” Annabelle says quietly, and Lucia laughs. An odd feeling of pride makes my belly warm. Pride that Elio is mine.
Never thought I’d see the day.
And tomorrow, I will marry him.
I glance at the clock, startled to see that it’s already 1am. Valentina follows my gaze and says, “Well, ladies? What do you think? Gotta let the bride get her beauty sleep.”
There’s a chorus of agreement, and a slightly tipsy-sounding complaint from Giulia, but ultimately everybody gets up to head to their own rooms.
“You’re good?” Annabelle says after the other three head out the door and into the hotel’s hallway. Enzo is stationed outside my door, and his gaze meets Annabelle’s for a moment before she turns her attention back to me. “You sure you don’t want someone to stay in here with you?”
It’s a kind offer, trying not to make me feel alone tonight. Maybe it’s the champagne or the impending wedding or the empty bed in the room, but loneliness suddenly stabs between my ribs.
Or maybe it’s the fact that Willow isn’t here when I always thought she would be.
And neither is Mom.
“It’s OK,” I tell her, proud of the fact that I don’t feel tears in my eyes even though there’s that familiar ache in my throat. “I’ll be alright on my own.”
I don’t tell her the other thing.
The thing about how I half-expect Elio to buck tradition and come to me tonight. And if he does, I don’t want to have to kick one of my sleepy friends out of my bed to make room for him.
Strangely, imagining him coming to this room tonight pulls out the knife of loneliness and patches up the wound.
A smile touches my lips, and it’s genuine.
Annabelle smiles back, gives me a hug, then hurries down the hall to her room.
I close my door and the last thing I see before it clicks shut is Enzo watching Annabelle walk away.
I turn around and flatten my back against the door, surveying the very large and now very empty room.
It’s by far the fanciest hotel I’ve ever been inside, and from what I understand, this is one of the best rooms, reserved for the bride the night before the wedding, and for the couple to stay together the night after.
The bed is huge, piled with pillows and gold-stitched bedding, and there’s a massive, spa-like bathtub in the centre of the bedroom, right in front of a crackling fireplace.
I’m exhausted, but I force myself to brush my teeth before I turn off the fire and the lights and crawl into the magnificent bed.
I’ve brought my Valentine’s Day gift from Elio, the platinum case with the photo of Mom and me.
In the gloom, I open it, holding it close beneath the covers, straining my eyes and wondering if Elio will come.
I fall asleep staring into my own past and dream of my future extending its hand towards me. Coaxing, waiting.
And that hand is gloved in black.