16
16
THE COUNTDOWN
T he official countdown to the charade had begun. I was already packed for my honeymoon. BC firmly packed in my pink toiletry case. Jess’s LBD had been fitted this morning. Mikey’s satin pillow would be arriving this afternoon for the ceremonious tying of the rings. My father and Andrew were flying in tonight.
Ranger was onto me. Or at least onto the fact that something was wrong. I didn’t let him know I was onto him. Confronting him would only conjure the beast again. Like my domineering father before him, when confronted with wrongdoing, his best defense would be a hard, fast offense. He’d only turn it around on me, like a confiscated gun I’d pulled. He’d call me out for questioning his motives, claim I was ungrateful, then storm out. Probably triple my workload just to shut me up. And it’s not like he ever said he was in love with me. “Close enough,” he’d allowed, which meant not really. He was doing this for Mikey, and to assuage his guilt for the shoddy way he treated me, for no good reason. He really thought he was being a hero here. My protector. I wondered why he bothered with the whole seduction scene.
Why not just give it to me straight?
Oh. For the gifted child. He knew I would never agree to that kind of arrangement, so he was tricking me into it. Quite a gender role reversal really. Almost funny, if it wasn’t so the opposite of that. Bartering my exclusion from Missions for a gifted child. Did he think that was even-Steven? I would never let The Academy sink their poison claws into my child. Something about that reminded me of Pete’s famous last words category. A shutter, long like a centipede, crawled down my spine.
A yipping and yapping at the door brought me round from my reverie. The yapping was followed by delighted little boy laughter, and a low rumble that moved my stomach in a weird way. Dirty paws, too big for its owner, came barreling into the room with all the energy and vigor of youth. The joyful enthusiasm in which I was greeted seemed excessive juxtaposed next to my dour mood. The sleek, black ball of canine energy tried to jump on my bed but failed to get his hind legs up, landing clumsily on his side with a startled yelp.
I reached down to pet him. Grateful licks washed the salt from my palm.
“Katie!” Mikey tumbled in and threw himself down on the floor with his new best friend. “Ranguh said he came up with a bettuh name for him than Blackie. Wanna hear it?”
“Sure.” I tried and failed to sound upbeat.
Ranger filled the doorway with a smile splitting his lips and dimples splitting his cheeks. I spared a sidelong glance before slipping to the floor to accept some sloppy licks to my face. I inhaled the sweet puppy breath and sighed. Ordinarily, Ranger would’ve come in like he owned the place and rolled around on the floor with us laughing. We were in a weird place—both pretending nothing was wrong. He was mad that I was mad, even though I was pretending I wasn’t and he was too.
“Go ahead . . . tell her, Mac.” Ranger’s voice sounded commercial-quality excited.
“Shadow!” Mikey exclaimed. “Hey, Shadow!” His voice pitched up as he tried it out on the puppy, who just turned to lick him in the face. This immediate gratification elicited delighted laughter. “See!” Mikey turned to me for confirmation. “He wikes it!”
I smiled. “It’s a great name for him cause he’s black like a shadow.”
“Yeah, and Ranguh said now I’m gonna have my own shadow following me around all the time.” A lot of pride went into that statement.
I swallowed and spared another glance at the hulking figure in the doorway, creating his own black shadow. That was a good name. Ranger had remembered me saying that Shadow used to be Mikey’s nickname from my father because he used to follow Andrew around all the time.
Mikey twisted his head up to see my face. “So, you weally like it?”
“I love it . . . and you!” I pulled him up for an upside-down Spidey kiss. “It’s perfect.”
“Well, I do try.” This quasi-humorously from the doorway. A loaded statement followed by a loaded look.
I graced my fiancé a shadow of a smile before returning my attention to the puppy. He looked . . . hurt. Well good. I was hurt too. And it wasn’t from the sharp teeth gnawing on my hand.
Ranger stood studying me thoughtfully, as one does a particularly irksome problem you should but can’t quite seem to solve. Meanwhile, my brother and I petted his wedding gift. It was thoughtful of him. The perfect gift. The perfect name. The perfect place to start.
He was still doing it.
Ranger ambled in and lowered himself onto my bed, soon to be my former bed. My fiancé had finally gotten down to the brass tacks of informing me of our impending cohabitation. My stomach lurched. Ranger leaned down to pet the puppy, restraining it as he tried to jump back on the bed.
“German Shepherds make great pets,” he said to fill the silence. “They’re my favorite breed: loyal, smart, great-looking animals. Loving. But if someone is attacking their family, they turn vicious.”
“Ow!” Mikey got a sharp nip on his finger and stuck it under his arm for safekeeping. “Will he bite me?”
“Nope . . .” Ranger’s eyes found mine. “At least not on purpose. And not if you treat him right. If you do, he’ll always be your loyal companion.”
Okay, maybe not just filling the silence then.
I exhaled some hurt and confusion and rose to my feet. “I’m, um . . . going for a jog.” I went to the closet to fetch my trainers.
“Are you excited to see your brother tomorrow?” trailed after me.
I pretended I wasn’t sure if he was addressing me or Mikey or both. I let Mikey take one for the Connelly team. It was a stupid question anyhow—air-filler.
“Yeah! I can hardly wait!” Mikey threw his arms around Ranger, his face so bright they should bottle his happiness.
Ranger swung his block head my way. “How about you, big sister?”
“Of course,” I replied, collecting my earbuds from the desk drawer.
“I arranged for you to spend the whole day with just Andrew. I have Smitty taking your father on the ‘extended version of The Academy tour,’” he air-quoted.
I stopped tying my laces long enough to nod and smile. “Perfect. Thanks for that . . . I appreciate it.”
He nodded. “I aim to please.” This elicited bupkis from his fiancée, so he tried a smile, but it was strained.
I busied myself winding my hair into a ponytail. “Okay then. I guess I’ll see you guys later.” I dropped a kiss on Mikey’s head and patted Shadow who trotted with me to the door.”
“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Ranger tried to sounded playfully hurt but ended up with really hurt.
Mikey’s head went up, a dog sniffing the air for danger.
I lifted my lips. “Of course.” I trotted over to peck his scruffy cheek, something I used to love to rub my palm over. Before I could get away, Ranger nabbed me and pulled me into his arms, fastening his lips to mine in a lingering kiss that had things stirring in my chest. A few tears sparkled my eyes. I scrambled to get up before he could see them, but he held me tight.
“Ew!” yelled a delighted Mikey.
“What?” Ranger said, breaking off the kiss. “Practice makes perfect. Right Katie-Kat?” He gave me his devilish-my-dimples-are-so-cute combo grin.
I gave him a tight smile.
“Tomorrow’s the big day,” he tried again. “Gotta be prepared.”
Fits of giggles followed by a Mikey arm punch followed this statement. I took the opportunity to escape, fitting my earbuds in as I fled the room. The second my feet hit flagstone I took off jogging. I had so much excess energy. Pound—anger. Pound—hurt. Pound—betrayal. Pound—confusion. I pounded away to some ear-splitting angry rap, half waving to half-ass friends. Someone pointed behind me with a big smile about the same time I realized someone was pounding after me.
Shoot.
I turned around to find a pissed-off Ranger jogging my way in his civilian uniform: jeans and a fitted black something . Today, it was T-shirt. It was strange how he looked to me now. He’d always been such a larger-than-life character in my mind. But now it’s almost as if I were seeing him from the wrong end of a telescope. Like he was at the other side of a long tunnel, distant and far away. And small, a word I never thought I’d use to describe him.
I stopped in my tracks, but continued jogging up and down in place while I waited.
He came in hot. “Didn’t you hear me calling your name?”
I plucked out an earbud. “Obviously not, or I would’ve stopped sooner.” The snippety tone was all wrong for a girl about to walk down the aisle in twenty-four hours. It was the tone of a disgruntled housewife stuck in a rut, with a worthless excuse for a husband, for many years. And no way out.
Ranger looked aggravated. And on the verge of a tantrum. Like his favorite toy no longer worked right. He gripped my shoulder, halting my tapping feet. I stared at him, waiting him out. He inhaled some air and “What the hell is wrong with you?” burst out.
I shrugged a shoulder. “Just tired.”
Ranger zipped past pissed straight to irate. “From what—sitting on your ass? You’ve had no training all week and all the wedding prep has been done for you.”
“At your insistence,” I reminded him, but he was right. I had pretty much been loafing around the past couple of days, dreading Saturday like it was doomsday, until I couldn’t take it anymore and either went for a run or a swim.
He stared me down with eyes that were beginning to grow cold on me. “I thought you wanted to do this.”
“I did. Do,” I auto-corrected. I swiped a hand over my face even though I wasn’t sweaty yet. “Just nervous,” I tried again.
This excuse was better. More palatable. He nodded, pulling me to him to lightly massage my shoulders. A one-two-move of his I was sure he’d pulled on truckloads of girls before.
“Wedding day jitters or wedding night jitters?” He leaned over and kissed behind my ear, sending a small shiver.
I broke away to face the mingling cadets, soaking up the afternoon sun. “Both I guess.” My voice had turned husky.
He wound me around to face him. I couldn’t look at him. All that earnest BS reflected from his famous blue eyes.
“We made the right decision here,” he assured me. “It’s going to be good for Mikey. It’s going to be good for me . . . and it’s going to be good for you .” He followed that up with a seductive smile to let na?ve me know there was a double entendre in there.
I swallowed back hurt, thinking of how he said it would be good for his career. I didn’t know what needed to be said that a head nod couldn’t take care of, so that’s what he got. A single incline of my head.
His brow furrowed. “This is a good partnership Katie-Kat. That’s what a marriage is.”
He was right. It would be good for Mikey. And it would be good to keep me out of Missions. So why was I so upset? Oh yeah, my girly sensibilities were hurt. “I do appreciate it,” I allowed.
But it felt like a knife through my soft stomach, exposing all my guts. Because I thought he’d been falling for me too. But all his kind gestures, every loving caress had ulterior motives. I thought he’d been happy when he was with me; it felt like he was. Now I thought he’d just been exuding the satisfied pleasure of things going his way. And now I was going to spend my honeymoon with a man who only saw me as a means to an end. No love attachment. A tactical move. I was a pawn in his game of chess with The Academy—not his queen.
I’d been saving myself for someone. Someone I loved. Now I realized I’d be giving it away to someone undeserving of me. I thought of all the terrible things he had done to hurt me. It made me feel sick I would be having sex with him, a guy who hated my mother so much he spent two years trying to make her daughter miserable as punishment. But even that wasn’t good enough. No. He was going to use her as an incubator for some gifted hybrid child to further himself at The Academy.
He watched my face, one hand clamped around my neck. I struggled to smile. Suddenly, I didn’t want to see his ruthless face again today. Or tomorrow. Actually, never sounded about right. And that’s about when I knew I needed to get myself together or else I’d never be able to fake or make my way through.
“You know,” I said, “tomorrow I can’t really see you.” My voice sounded hollow.
“Oh yeah.” Tight smile. “Why’s that exactly?”
“Because it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”
Ranger scrutinized my face with those glacier eyes, really staring into me. Things were moving around in there I didn’t even bother to interpret. I was done trying to figure him out. He sucked in his cheeks, his face hardening. He gave me a tight nod. “Well, we can’t have that. I’d better stay away then.”
I nodded back. “You better.”
“Well, in that case, I’m going to need the kind of kiss that will tide me over until out wedding.”
Something fluttered around inside my chest. I swallowed. “Okay.”
A tight smile lifted his lips while he waited. I obligingly tiptoed up, but my lips still couldn’t reach his, so I grasped him around his bull neck to bend him towards me. He made me actually pull before yielding to me. I pressed my lips to his, and he pulled me into him, so that I was pinned against his hard, unyielding chest. And then he crushed our lips together. A lot of pent-up anger was behind that kiss. A lot like our first one. I didn’t resist, didn’t particularly participate either.
We broke apart by him pushing me backwards, so that I stumbled a little without his arm holding me up. “Okay then. I’ll see you down the aisle.” He spun on his heel and stalked away.
I nodded to his retreating back.
I stayed staring like that until the tears transformed his hard outline into a smeary silhouette. Then I snapped my earbud back in and turned up the volume to a level The Academy would frown upon. I’d started out this journey with no destination in mind. Now, I hooked a hard right at the fork to head to the hospital wing. I’d already picked up my BC, but I needed to see a different kind of doctor for a different kind of drug. The doors swished open, and I was asked if I had an appointment by a generically pretty Academy reject, who now worked as a receptionist. And who took her job very seriously.
“I’m here to see Dr. Patel,” I stated.
“I don’t see that you’ve made an appointment,” she returned swiftly.
Her brisk professionalism would’ve intimidated me last year. “Tell him it’s Cadet Connelly. And that it’s an emergency.” I stared her down until she caved.
Ten minutes later, I was ushered in. I knew just what to say. I conveyed the depth of my anxiety facing my honeymoon on account of “The Incident.” Dr. Patel was very sympathetic.
Twenty minutes later, I left the pharmacy with a week’s supply of pills. I shook the Rx bottle. This should do the trick.