SNEAK PEEK AT BOOK SIX IN THE LOVE BURNS SERIES | Hitched
SNEAK PEEK AT BOOK SIX IN THE LOVE BURNS SERIES
Hitched
Y ou’re going to hell Bethany. Straight up, Lucifer shoving pokers up your ass, hell.
“You had to go for the ball gown wedding dress, didn’t you?” Bethany tutted to herself.
To be fair, at the time, she had no idea she would be trying to cram four layers of tulle out the bathroom window. In hindsight, a simple A-line would have been more suitable for this kind of thing.
Are you seriously thinking about runaway bride attire right now?
She was. Anything was better than thinking about what she was actually doing.
Finally free of the much smaller than she thought, bathroom window, she felt her heels sink into the freshly cut grass.
“Okay. Now what? Call an Uber?” She muttered to herself as her eyes darted around the church yard. Thank God everyone was inside. Well. Almost everyone.
Shit!
Before she’d even had a chance to gather her dress and realize that her heart was in her throat, the man in the black fitted suit was walking toward her. Their gazes locked.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“What the hell are you doing?” The man hollered as he continued in her direction.
The nerve. He had no right to be angry.
“You’re still smoking?” Was her haughtily reply.
“What?”
“You’re still smoking?” She repeated. “Don’t you know those things will kill you?”
Way to pull off self-righteous mid-way through ditching your wedding, Bethany.
“That’s what you wanna to talk about right now?” He scoffed, coming to a halt just close enough to remind her of his familiar forest scent. “Not the fact that you just climbed out of that window behind you?” Benny pointed to the cloudy, rippled glass over her shoulder.
“Did you bring your truck?” she asked with a tilt of her head.
“What?”
“Your truck, Benny, did you bring it?” She let out an exasperated sigh.
His look was beyond suspicious, “of course I brought my truck, Beth, I didn’t fucking fly here.”
Fucking smartass. Some things never change.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Her hand was in his seconds later as she hurriedly dragged him across the abandoned courtyard.
Just when she didn’t think this day could get more fucked up, she was gathering four layers of tulle again and cramming it into her ex-boyfriend’s old pickup truck.
Fuck you too universe.
Benny climbed in next to her, not hiding the dirty looks he was casting as he started the old banger.
And it was an old banger. He’d been driving the faded red beast at least a decade.
She remembered when he’d first got it, the paint was still shiny then, and you could make out the two-tone design on the bench seat fabric, now, not so much.
Her eyes darted to the threadbare cloth, then to the cracked dashboard as the truck rumbled to life. “Nice to know your fear of commitment doesn’t extend to everything in your life.” She muttered under her breath.
Benny’s head snapped her way. Dark green eyes narrowing on her. “You got something you wanna say, B?”
“Oh I don’t know, maybe, hurry the hell up!” She impatiently huffed, her arms crossing over her chest. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of in a rush?”
She didn’t know why she was so mad at him. Actually, scrap that. She knew. She was annoyed he was there to witness the shitshow that is her life. Pissed he’d had the audacity to show up to her wedding. And to top it all off, she was angry as hell that he still looked so damn fine.
Nine years had been kind to Benny. His boyish features had matured. His toned body had turned muscular. His wild chestnut hair, tamed. Even the bump in his nose he’d got when someone slammed open the locker door next to him, looked rugged paired with day old stubble.
Men suck.
“I’m sorry I’m not living up to your getaway driver standards, B!” He snorted. “Maybe you want to explain to me what the fuck is going on?”
That’s definitely not something she wanted to do. At least they were moving.
“Or whereabouts I’m taking you?” He pressed when she remained quiet.
She didn’t have an answer for that either.
Running out on her wedding wasn’t on her list of things to do today.
Right now, she was supposed to be Mrs Douglas Wright.
But she couldn’t. Staring at her reflection in that bathroom mirror, it had hit her like a ton of bricks.
Her nausea wasn’t nerves. The tightness in her chest on the drive over wasn’t anticipation.
And the churn in her stomach certainly wasn’t butterflies.
The adrenaline was waning though, which meant she had to start feeling. It’s why her eyes fluttered shut at the first sign of stinging.
“B?” Benny called out.
Hello? I’m trying not to cry here!
Hearing her first love’s voice really wasn’t helping. It was no wonder the tears won.
“Hey?” Benny’s voice gentled. “NeNe, baby, you okay?”
The use of his nickname for her was enough to jolt her and possibly push her over the edge.
“No, I’m not okay. I just ran out on my wedding.
My FREAKING wedding!” Her voice might have risen.
“I have nowhere to go ‘cause my parents will be pissed as hell I’ve ran out on a wedding they paid for. I can’t go back to my apartment ‘cause the man I just left standing at the alter lives there. And if that’s not enough of a shit sandwich, I’m currently sitting in a big-ass white wedding dress in a truck I not only lost my virginity in, but with the man who fucking took it – with no money, no clothes and no idea what the hell I’m going to do. So no. I’m not o-fucking-kay.”
She threw her head back, loudly sighing as it met metal. She forgot there was no headrest. You don’t deserve a headrest. No. She didn’t. She needed to prepare for discomfort before her trip to hell.
You might have already arrived.
Unsurprisingly, her rant was met with silence, which she was taking as a good thing. It’s not like there was much to say. And she could use this time to figure out some sort of plan.