Chapter 10
Logan
Is Kyle a bastard, and an unredeemable cheater? Yes.
Is he about to make the biggest mistake of his life? Also yes.
"Look at that shit," I grumble to Kayla as we watch Madison and Kyle make their way across an artificial pond in a little white boat adorned with flowers.
“Just why?” she mutters, hiding under a pagoda-shaped parasol, to keep her pale skin safe from the sun. “That pond’s tiny. It would look nicer if they just walked into the room. At least he isn’t arriving by helicopter, I suppose.”
I groan and rub my face. "Is it inside after all? I thought it was gonna be outdoors, by the pseudo-Roman columns."
Kayla shrugs as we walk through the garden while everyone else prepares for the ceremony starting in a couple of hours. Or sleeps, which would be the sensible thing to do if I wasn’t feeling so uneasy about the whole event.
“I’m sure your sister will usher us to the right spot,” Kayla says with a smirk.
Ann is at the edge of the pond, helping Madison off the boat, and she’s wearing a headset to communicate with the staff of the hotel. Complete madness. And for what? Two people who don’t even like each other that much.
I wish I didn’t care, but I can’t stand the idea of this wedding proceeding.
“We only have a few hours to come up with something to ruin this whole thing or at least postpone it for a few days so they both have more time to think.”
Kayla frowns and turns toward me. Her hair is set with old-school curlers and covered by a colourful bandana that matches her yellow dress. If I didn’t know she’s technically still in the process of getting ready for the event, I wouldn’t have guessed.
“Um… why though? I know you hate cheaters, and so do I, but Madison isn’t a nice person either. You just told me she barely exchanged two words with you since your arrival. Maybe Kyle’s punishment is marrying her.” Kayla shrugs as if she doesn’t understand the seriousness of this situation.
“Please, let’s just focus on the task at hand. What if we sink the boat?” I ask, watching Kyle like a hawk when he steps onto the grass.
Holden is hovering there with his camera, but he’ll most likely follow the bride and groom, so the coast might be clear for a little boat sinking action.
“And what good would that do?” Kayla asks as we make our way through the vast grounds of the resort. “The ceremony will have already started by then. They’ll just change. If you’re so hard-pressed about this, maybe you should just talk to him.”
“I’ve talked to him, and he can’t see reason!
” I say, before taking a deep breath. “I hate that he pulled me into his cheating mess, but he’s a good guy at heart, just misguided.
He needs the time to rethink his actions.
You know, he has a dog. We could abduct it for a bit.
He wouldn’t go forward with the wedding until it’s found. ”
Kayla snorts. “Oh, I know Madison enough to tell you right now that she would make him wait at the altar, whether his dog was around or not.”
Anger bubbles up deep in my chest. “He wouldn’t go through with it. He seems to really care for that pooch. But I think it might be difficult to detain that beast without getting it out of the resort. And I’m not sure if Jekyll would go with us in the first place.”
“I love how it’s our scheme now,” Kayla points out, but she’s smiling.
Is it just me or is it even hotter today? I fan myself but it doesn’t help much. “You’re on this crazy train now, so no backing out.”
Kayla laughs. “I’m not going anywhere, I love this. Oh! I know. We could put laxatives in the pre-wedding champagne.”
I shake my head. “Too risky. Someone could be allergic.”
Kayla falters, twisting her mouth. “That’s no fun. Just imagine everyone shitting their pants while Madison screams in rage, showing her true colors to everyone? It would be a poetic end to this fairy tale.”
I frown. “What did she do to you?”
Kayla shrugs. “She was really passive-aggressive and mean about my divorce. I’d love to see her get a taste of her own medicine.
” She points to Kyle following Madison with one of those light-diffusing umbrellas photographers like to use.
“And look at him, how pathetic. He’s like a little baby duckling following mommy. ”
I scowl at her. “He’s not pathetic, just out of his depth.”
She cocks her head at me. “You keep defending him. If I didn’t know you better—”
“I didn’t fuck him again. He’s just… I talked to him, and it’s complicated. He doesn’t deserve to have to deal with Madison, and if this wedding fails, it will be for his own good.”
Kayla’s smile ghosts over her red lips. “You like him.”
I balk at this accusation. “No, I don’t.”
She breathes in a lungful of air and starts fanning herself.
“Oh my god! You really do like him. And it makes so much sense. You almost married Kayla, and now you’re so into Kyle you can’t bear to see him getting married to someone else.
Wow. I did not see this one coming. I guess we’ll have a poetic ending after all.
” She giggles. She actually giggles in my face.
“He’s a misguided gay boy who doesn’t know what he wants, a cheater, my cousin’s groom-to-be, and an all-around mess. Why on earth would I like him?”
Kayla points to the wedding party where Madison sits in the grass, Holden is taking photos, and Kyle has to contort his body to hold the umbrella at the right angle.
“I don’t know. That ass?”
I groan, unable to look away. “Either way, I’m not looking for a relationship. Especially not in Texas, and especially not with him.”
“But somehow you still think he’s the one more likely to suffer if they married, not Madison. Curious,” Kayla says with a mysterious smile and keeps strutting through the gardens.
I think back to that vulnerable, hurt look he was giving me yesterday over steak, and I can’t help but want to protect him from the turmoil that Madison would inevitably bring into his life. It could take him years to end the marriage and leave him even more lost in his sexuality.
“No, this is for Madison’s sake,” I say, but even I don’t believe this lie. “He will cheat again sooner or later. This is to save her, so let’s keep brainstorming.” I snap my fingers in frustration.
Kayla spins around to face me. “We could stain both of her dresses. I can tell you for a fact that she will not get married in just anything. It needs to be a pearl-white ball gown with a tulle skirt, she told that to anyone who would listen last night. But that will be an expensive way to stop your boy Kyle from getting hitched.”
I ignore her saying Kyle is mine and focus on the serious part. “Expensive for who? She can’t force me to pay for it if she doesn’t know I stained them.”
“Ooh… you want to sneak into the bridal suite? Living on the edge, Logan. It reminds me of that time we shoplifted four bottles of vodka back in high school.”
It had been a glorious day, even though it landed us both in detention.
“Ann should have the key.”
“She should,” Kayla agrees before opening her small, beaded purse to produce a key. “But I have one too. Madison fired her makeup artist yesterday and asked me to do her face instead.”
I look to the sky, and the sun smiles back at me.
“Let’s go while they’re here,” I say and lead the way toward the hotel with my heart in my throat. This has to work.
“There should be some wine in the bridal suite. She likes her reds a lot,” Kayla tells me, marching forward like a woman on a mission. I have to jog to catch up with her.
“Cameras?”
“They can’t be everywhere. Although I doubt they’ll look through footage in order to find out who spilled the wine on a dress. That’s just silly.”
“Kayla?”
She turns back with raised eyebrows but never stops walking. “Hm?”
“Are we the villains?”
Kayla frowns. “Nooo! We’re doing what’s right.
Kyle’s a cheater, and Madison is a privileged bridezilla with too much money to burn.
She’ll just ask Daddy for another dress.
Do you know she ordered the staff to remove the ducks from the pond because she feared they might poop on her? We are not the villains.”
I’m not so sure, but since none of us came up with a better idea, I try to look inconspicuous as we make our way through the hotel.
The bridal suite is at the very end of the hallway on the second floor, and I’m stressed out of my mind by the time we reach it.
But Kayla, who’s an approved guest, seems light on her feet and doesn’t even knock before opening the door.
She only calls out to check whether the coast is clear once she sticks her head in.
Madison and her bridesmaids are still out.
The two dresses are draped on dressmaker’s mannequins in the corner of the large room, next to a satin-upholstered daybed. Both are works of art, but Kyle’s future is more important. And if Madison knew why I was doing this, that it's for her own good, wouldn’t she be grateful?
“Okay, where’s the wine…” I mutter.
We start searching, but booze is nowhere to be seen.
Kayla groans in frustration as precious minutes pass. “Fuck. Maybe we could use the fountain pen?” she points to the desk, but we both freeze at the sound of fast approaching steps.
“Shit,” Kayla mutters before shoving me back, toward a white door. We burst into a large bathroom with a fancy claw-legged tub, and just as Kayla pushes the door almost shut, the door of the suite opens to a loud gaggle of women talking.
“I know, I’m so nervous I should start drinking the vintage soon,” Madison says, and while I can’t see her from where I’m scooting, I would recognize her high-pitched, somewhat nasal, voice anywhere.
“No, you can’t come! Wait downstairs, or maybe just start doing your makeup. I’ll call you,” she says to someone. “Holden will be doing a special pre-wedding photoshoot for me. No one disturb us, or I’ll lose my focus!”
I roll my eyes. Great, just great. I can only hope the photoshoot doesn’t include photos in the bathtub. I take in the large ensuite where we’ve hidden and note that it comes with an open balcony. If push comes to shove, we could hide there and wait until they’re done in the main room.
Kayla scowls at me from behind the tub, but we can either wait or give up and reveal our presence, acting as if we came by for some non-nefarious reason. I weigh both of those possibilities in my mind as the door of the suite clicks, but my thoughts come to an abrupt halt when Holden speaks.
“Thought we’d never get rid of them.”
Madison lets out a chuckle, and I hear a fast rustle of skirts. “Oh, please, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
“Pretty sure I’ve seen everything that counts.”
She giggles, and a piece of furniture scrapes across the floor in the main room. “Does that mean you don’t care to see it again?”
Kayla makes wide eyes at me, and I can’t believe my ears either when I hear what has to be a kiss.
“Oh, fuck, Madison… I want to see your pussy at least three times a day…” Holden says in a lower voice.
“That can be arranged. I’m in the city a lot,” she murmurs as furniture creaks under someone’s weight.
My head is throbbing with the heat of this discovery.
I guess we really aren’t the villains of this story after all. The bride and groom deserve each other. So much for Madison having a low libido.
I position my phone at the tiny opening left between the door and its frame, and the image of Holden leaning over Madison on the daybed leaves nothing to the imagination. She’s got her arms around his neck, they’re kissing, and his hand is already under her skirt.
I snap a few photos, unsure yet what exactly I should do with them, but I’m going numb.
The world is a place full of selfish assholes.
As much as I love Kayla, she did string me along, so did my most recent ex, and even the couple we’ve all gathered to celebrate lack the spines to be honest about their true intentions.
They are both just using one another to start a stable family that they can then step out of in secret, and have affairs while maintaining the palatable image of the perfect young couple.
I’m sure Kyle believes that he can stick by his wife and bury his true feelings so deep they’ll never resurface, but he’s lying to himself. And Madison? Selfish as she is, she doesn’t even need to do that. She gets everything she wants in life, and this wedding is no different.
I guess we don’t need to ruin her dresses, but all my scruples toward her evaporate. I was so angry when I found out Kyle made me complicit in his affair, but even that weight has now dropped from my shoulders.
If anything, it’s nice to be back in the comfort of my cynicism, as the development with Madison is confirming everything I believe about relationships. They’re filled with lies. If this is what Kyle wants to sign up for, it’s no longer my business to stop him.
Kayla covers her mouth when we hear Madison moan, and it’s painfully obvious that we can’t pretend our presence here is accidental anymore—we’ve seen and heard too much.
When my gaze drifts to the balcony, Kayla shakes her head, but I move outside anyway, because we’re only on the second floor, so there should be a safe way to escape unseen.
I flinch when music starts in the main room, but it should mask what little noise I make so I approach the stone balustrade and glance at the gardens. There’s a stretch of cut grass right below.
I feel like I’m in a disastrous spy movie, and the photos on my phone burn me through my pocket, but with no one in the gardens to spot us, I decide to move first.
“I’ll catch you,” I whisper to Kayla as I put my leg over the balustrade.
I’m tall, so while jumping down might leave my shins aching, lowering myself off the ledge first, isn’t all that hard. All the pull-ups I’ve done come in handy as I hold on to the balustrade, my legs dangling in the air.
And then I let go.
The fall is clumsy, but I’m fine. Nothing broken or twisted.
When I look up at Kayla, I notice she’s filming me and barely holding back her laughter.
I give her a sour expression and whisper, “very funny. Now you.”
She puts away her phone, and throws her heels to the grass first, but then she’s climbing to the outside of the balcony like a cat stepping on an unfamiliar texture. Now I wish I was filming her, because it’s pretty hilarious.
She eventually jumps straight onto me.
I clasp my hands on her waist, but my body has to absorb most of the force of her fall. She inhales when we stumble, but I manage to take a quick step back and keep us from descending into the grass.
We both relax at the same time before going rigid when someone claps.
“Love is in the air,” calls out an older lady with white hair, whom I’ve never seen in my life, so we both just give her an awkward wave.
Kayla picks up her heels. “You took the photos, right? What now?”
I nod grimly. “Leave it to me. I know what to do.”