Chapter 17 #2
I get dressed and smooth my hair back into its bun with a little water on my fingertips while I brush my teeth.
When I come out of the bathroom, Beau hands me a bag with a couple of those Gatorades we didn’t need.
“Make sure she drinks at least one of these. But only give her a sip like every five minutes to start or she’ll just throw it up.
And try to get her to eat something with salt. ”
“Thanks,” I say, standing on my toes to kiss him.
The kiss turns hot and heavy quickly, and he puts his hands on my hips and pushes me away from him, insisting that I go help my sister. I give him my best pouty face, and he chuckles. “Whoever thought that I’d be the responsible one?”
“Certainly not me,” I say as I head out the door with the Gatorade.
My sister is radiant as she stands at our dinner table, clasping Joe’s hand in one of hers, and holding her champagne flute with the other. Her engagement ring and wedding band sparkle under the light of the chandelier hanging above us.
“We’d like to thank you guys for being here,” Sydney says. “We know we gave you less than a week’s notice, and you dropped everything to join us.”
I glance over my shoulder at Beau when he leans into me and whispers “I dropped everything to be here for you” so quietly I almost can’t hear him.
A shiver runs down my spine as his breath caresses the nape of my neck.
His arm is draped around the back of my chair, and as his fingertips run along my shoulder blade, I have to force myself to refocus on Sydney and Joe—it would be too easy to get lost in Beau’s attention.
“I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my sister.” She looks at me, her blue eyes repentant. “Without you, I’d still be lying on that bathroom floor.”
Everyone laughs, even Sydney, and Joe squeezes her hand, telling her, “Eventually, I would have convinced you to get up.”
I spent this morning on the bathroom floor with Sydney, giving her tiny sips of Gatorade until she stopped throwing up.
I pinched off pieces of a salt bagel I’d sent Joe out to find and fed those to her until her stomach stopped flipping over.
I bent over the bathtub washing her hair for her because she felt disgusting but was too weak to take a shower by herself.
I made Joe go find greasy hash browns, and salty potato chips, and I got her to eat those this afternoon.
I walked her around her hotel suite, bearing most of her weight, until she could manage on her own.
I feel like I’ve been physically beat up. The lack of sleep combined with caring for someone so hungover has every muscle in my body aching.
“You’d do the same for me,” I say, and hold my glass up to clink it with hers.
I barely got her to our hair and makeup appointments on time this afternoon.
There, the hairdresser took one look at her, grabbed a clear plastic cup with a lid out of a mini-fridge, stuck a straw in it, handed it to her, and said, “Drink this. You’ll feel a thousand times better.
” It looked like someone had pureed a watermelon and eggplant together—purple and lumpy, grainy and runny at the same time.
Sydney was a trooper, she plugged her nose and drank the whole thing, and by the time her hair was done, she was a new person.
I have no idea what was in that concoction because the hairdresser declared it a “trade secret” that she kept on hand for brides and bridesmaids who’d indulged too much, but whatever it was, it was a fucking miracle.
I would have gotten Sydney to this wedding if it killed me, and it probably would have if it weren’t for that miraculous drink.
Joe says a few words about his brother, and about how he wishes their parents could have been there. Watching him and Luke, and the obvious brotherly love they share, I am so happy for Sydney that she found a guy like Joe and is creating her own family.
After she kisses him, they sit down, and Sydney spins around and wraps her arms around me so tight I can hardly breathe. “We did it,” she whispers. “Fuck the curse.”
I squeeze her back. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the only sane person in a family of ridiculous women who are all convinced they’re cursed.
Sure, Sydney wasn’t pregnant before the wedding like every other Lemieux woman in recent history, but she actually tied the knot nonetheless.
That just proves that there is no curse.
“You proved them all wrong, and I’m so glad I could be here for it, sis. ”
We enjoy a relaxing dinner, where the food just keeps coming.
Everything feels a little less crazy tonight, which I guess is the difference between Vegas on a Saturday night and a Sunday.
We’re waiting for dessert and I’m snuggled into Beau, hardly able to keep my eyes open. Last night and today wiped me out.
“Hey,” Beau says, when I yawn for the umpteenth time. “Let me go get you something with caffeine.”
The minute he’s away from the table, Georgia and Sydney are squealing. “So I guess something did happen between you two, after all?” Sydney asks.
It never occurred to me to say something about it to her while she was so sick, and it also never occurred to me to try to hide it at their wedding ceremony or since.
I just nod in response, not trusting myself to say anything lest I say too much in front of Joe and Luke.
They pry me for details but I’m a vault, and they give up when Beau returns with a Red Bull and vodka.
“You’re never going to forgive yourself if you sleep through your sister’s wedding celebration,” he whispers in my ear once he’s seated.
I squeeze his thigh and thank him, and then my phone is buzzing on the table. I pick it up to find another photo of Winston from Heather. “We should take another sad-faced selfie,” he suggests, “since last night’s was so popular.”
“It was?” I’d actually forgotten about that photo amid everything else going on last night and today.
Beau updates me on the photo’s stats as of the last time he checked.
“You sure you want to get Winston’s followers all worked up again?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m positive. It’s even more fun now that something actually is going on.
” He brushes a kiss across my temple and asks Sydney to take our photo.
And even though this one is staged, the sad face I’m making is all too real.
Because in a week Beau will be gone, and Winston will probably follow shortly thereafter.
Everything that’s making me so happy right now has a quickly approaching expiration date.
It’s late when we make it back to the room, and we’re both buzzing with anticipation.
It feels like it’s been forever since Beau was inside me, even though it’s barely been nineteen hours.
Not that I’m counting, or anything. But the way we were dancing tonight has had my mind solidly on getting him naked, and based on all the dirty things he whispered in my ear while our bodies were pressed together on the dance floor, I know his mind is in the same place.
“Wow,” I say when Beau opens the door to our room.
Across the room is a spectacular nighttime view of Vegas, like something you’d see on a postcard.
“I don’t even remember noticing how beautiful this view was last night or the night before.
” I walk across the room to the wall of windows.
During the day this view is nice, but at night with the lights of the nearby hotels, the wide swath of the Bellagio fountains, and the lit up Eiffel Tower, with the High Roller in the distance, it’s pretty spectacular.
“The curtains were closed last night,” Beau says as he comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. Like every time he’s been behind me tonight, I tilt my hips back and rub my ass along his thick erection.
Him always being hard for me makes me feel powerful in a way I’m not used to.
I look up at him over my shoulder and do it again until he leans down and trails kisses along my jaw.
When I sigh his name and lean back into him, he trails his hands up over my abdomen to my breasts, cupping them in his hands.
I can feel my nipples pebble beneath the fabric and I hope he can feel them too.
We stay there for a minute, just gazing out at the amazing night time view, with him stroking my breasts and whispering in my ear, nodding toward the High Roller.
“Was it really only yesterday afternoon we were on that?” he asks.
“Umm hmm. Feels like we’ve come a long way since then.”
I squeeze my thighs together as he describes all the plans he has for my body tonight, and when I can’t take it anymore, I turn toward him and lean up to kiss him, my fingers working the buttons of his dress shirt.
I have it off in record time, then I slide his white undershirt up and over his head.
My eyes glide over his chest and down his abdomen, and I lick my lips as my gaze lingers.
“I’m trying to memorize every muscle.” I look up at Beau, hoping he understands what I mean: this thing between us will be too short, and I don’t want to forget a single detail.
“They’re yours to look at whenever you want,” he says.