Wedding Bells and Wall Street Bros

by Alina Jacobs

  Mark snorted. “I’m making it better.” He picked up a plate next to the tea sandwiches and deliberately placed one of each type on it.

  I crossed my arms.

  “Word to the wise?” he whispered in my ear as he ate one of the cucumber sandwiches with a snap of his teeth. “Don’t try to best me. I will ruin you.”

  12

  Mark

  I was riding high on my win at the bridal tea. After everyone had gotten plates piled high with barbecue, my brother Carter had led all the women in a rousing game of tea pong, which was basically beer pong with the imported tea.

  Brea had been like an incensed kitten, puffed up in anger. I made sure to stay out of the way of her claws.

  “This was such a great party!” Liz gushed after the last guests left. Then she looked guiltily at Brea. “What are we going to do with the leftovers?”

  “Grant and Carter will take care of it,” I said, gesturing. My brother and cousin had each taken a tier of tea sandwiches and were having an eating contest. Grant’s wife Kate was watching in horrified fascination.

  “Ready to throw in the towel?” I asked Brea, handing her a glass of champagne. “You know, part of war is admitting you lost.”

  “I’m still going to make you quit,” she said. “Just wait until the wedding dress fitting. You’re going to want to give yourself a lobotomy with one of my knitting needles.”

  “But only if you make it through the wedding website design,” I shot back.

  Brea was still irritated when she showed up at my company headquarters the next evening.

  “You know,” she said as she walked into my corner office, “if I hadn’t seen your list of terrible juvenile pickup lines, I would have said this was some off-putting attempt to seduce me.”

  “I don’t date women who take pictures of themselves wearing a sock covered in holes,” I retorted.

  “That was a work of art!” Brea fumed.

  “It was a sock.” I turned back to my computer. My time to shine.

  I had my code editor open, displaying all the various computer commands in various colors on a black background.

  “Pull up a seat,” I told Brea, patting the chair next to me.

  She perched on the edge gingerly. “I don’t know if all of this,” she waved her hand at the screen, “is really necessary. We could just do a website on The Knot.”

  I scoffed. “You’re planning the perfect wedding, and you want your friend to have the same website as every other bride in America?”

  “You can customize the ones on The Knot!” Brea said defensively.

  “Ha! That’s not custom. You’re just changing the colors. Liz has a list of features she wants on her website—she wants it interactive, she wants all the guests to have access to an app so they have the wedding events at their fingertips, and she wants it integrated into social media.”

  Brea pursed her lips.

  “Can you do all of that?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Already started,” I bragged. I loved to code. Normally I wrote programs for military drones. They had to be able to interface with satellites and the Air Force’s software. I also had my various stock-trading algorithms. A website though? That was a piece of cake. I could code it in my sleep.

  I tapped a button, and the website opened up on my second monitor. Then I navigated to the app I had made on my phone.

  Brea scrolled through it. I could tell she was trying very hard not to be impressed.

  “The colors are off.”

  “That’s why you’re here: to give it that feminine touch,” I said condescendingly.

  Brea punched me in the arm, and I laughed.

  “This website needs more of a feminine makeover than a light touch,” Brea said.

  “I can change any color you want.”

  “It’s not just the colors. I have photos, a logo, and borders I want on this website,” she said, handing me a printout.

  It should have been a simple matter of changing the theme. I fumed silently while Brea complained that this button was now too wide and could I make the corners a little less rounded.

  “So you want them square?” I said through gritted teeth.

  “No, I want an ever-so-slightly-rounded corner.”

  I increased it by a point.

  “Too much.”

  I adjusted the corner radius back down to exactly where it had been.

  “Now give it a slight drop shadow.”

  I added the line of code.

  Brea was hovering over my shoulder, her breath grazing the back of my neck whenever she spoke.

  “Mmm,” she said, staring at the buttons on the screen. “Use the script font.”

  I dutifully switched it, wishing I had never agreed to do the website.

  “Can you make the border even?”

  “It is even.”

  “It’s not.”

  She leaned over me, her soft tits pressing ever so slightly into my shoulder. Being that close to her was shocking. Can she not feel it, that we are touching? Maybe she can’t feel it through her bra. No, don’t think about her undergarments, Jesus Christ, dude.

  “See,” Brea was saying, “this side is narrower than the top and bottom. You keep working on it. I need some coffee.”

  “It’s the middle of the night!” I said in horror.

  “It’s never too late for coffee.”

  “Yes, it is,” I insisted. “Besides, the Gray Dove Bakery downstairs is closed.”

  “I know that, but you have a break room,” she insisted, picking up her bag.

  Maybe she’s just trying to make an easy escape, I hoped as I finished making the changes on the website code.

  Right as I saved it, there was an unholy shriek, and all the lights in the building went out.

  “What the fuck?”

  I ran out into the hallway. The emergency lights had kicked on from the battery backup.

  I found Brea in the break room, looking guiltily at a vintage 1950s coffee maker. The cord had metal coils around it and looked frayed.

  “Uh,” Brea said, “I don’t think your office likes my coffeepot.”

  The metal canister smoldered and popped. The acrid smell of smoke wafted through the hallways as the silver coffeepot burst into flames. Brea shrieked and pointed ineffectively while I ran and grabbed the fire extinguisher and sprayed foam over the counter, the fire alarm blaring.

  “You ruined my coffeepot!” Brea yelled at me.

  “You almost burned down my office!” I yelled over the alarm.

  Outside, fire trucks roared up to the tower. The coffeepot wasn’t smoking anymore. I looked up nervously at the sprinkler heads. If they went off, we would really have a problem.

  Brea was poking at the coffeepot when the firemen stomped up into the office.

  “It was just an accident,” I told them. “You didn’t need to come.”

  “This is the protocol.” One of the men shrugged. “Better than my last call, when a woman insisted that a stray dog she found was possessed with her dead husband’s ghost and demanded that we burn it.”

  Jack Frost, the building’s owner, came in on the heels of the firemen. His husky, Milo, padded along beside him.

  “Dude, I’m giving you a discount on rent, and you’re burning down my tower!”

  “You’re giving me a discount because mine was the only company that wanted to move into this tower,” I reminded Jack as the burly firemen gingerly extracted the coffeepot from the white mountain of fire extinguisher foam. The whole break room was ruined.

  Jack’s dog wagged his tail at Brea then stuffed his nose into her crotch. She immediately yelped.

  Jack swore and grasped the dog by the collar. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said.

  Jack had ice-blue eyes and platinum hair. I knew women went apeshit for him. Brea wasn’t much of an exception.

  “Oh, ha ha!” she giggled and blushed. “It’s okay. I like dogs.”

  “I’m sure Mark’s going to be
mad if Milo tries to steal his girlfriend,” Jack said with a wink.

  “I’m not—”

  “That isn’t—”

  We both spoke at the same time.

  “Oh,” Jack said.

  “I’m just here to help on a wedding website,” Brea explained in a rush.

  Jack’s eyes shifted to the clock on the wall.

  “This was the only time that would work, as we are both very busy,” I growled at him.

  “Very busy,” Brea added, nodding emphatically.

  Milo jumped on me, his big husky paws almost knocking me down. Then he went to sniff each of the firemen, tail wagging.

  “I’m not sure why he’s acting like this,” Jack apologized as one of the firemen handed him paperwork to sign. “He’s usually better trained.”

  The captain of the fire team barked some orders into his crackly radio then narrowed his eyes at a baby-faced rookie, who was the latest target of Milo’s infatuation. He was especially excited by the man’s helmet.

  “You!” the captain barked at the rookie. “You didn’t bring that ghost dog with you, did you? I told you to leave it in the truck.”

  A furry head with floppy ears poked out of the rookie’s helmet. Milo was ecstatic. He added his arroos to the still-blaring fire alarm.

  “Can someone shut that off?” the captain barked into the walkie-talkie on his chest.

  The alarm cut off. Brea bounced over to the rookie. He seemed way too excited to have the pretty seamstress next to him.

  “You have a puppy!” she said, delighted.

  Why do you even care? You can’t stand her.

  “Do you want to see?” the rookie offered.

  Brea lifted the puppy out of the hat, cradling the fluffy, chubby dog to her chest.

  “You cannot keep that animal,” the captain barked at the rookie as the other firefighters milled around. “He’s going straight to Animal Control in the morning.”

  “No,” Brea said in horror, “you can’t abandon him!”

  “Ma’am, you can have the puppy if you want.”

  Brea chewed on her lip. “I live in a small room in an even smaller apartment.”

  “I can’t take him,” Jack said. “My dog can’t handle it.” Milo was bouncing around Brea, trying to lick the puppy.

  They all turned to look at me.

  “I can’t take a dog.”

  “Just keep him for tonight!” Brea pleaded. “Maybe Evan and Ivy will want him.”

  “Great. All settled,” the captain said, waving his crew toward the door.

  “What? No it’s not! You need to take this dog with you!”

  But the firemen ignored me and filed out, carting their gear with them.

  Jack waved at me as he followed them. “I called maintenance to come take care of the foam.”

  Brea yawned. Then the puppy yawned.

  “I need some coffee,” Brea said, blinking.

  “Coffee?” I hissed at her. “My insurance better not go up because of you. Between you and this wedding, you’re costing me millions.”

  “Me!” Brea sputtered.

  The puppy looked up at me indignantly.

  “You and your ‘helping’ are costing me money! I am supposed to be sewing, but instead I have to micromanage your website design.”

  13

  Brea

  My alarm blared too early the next morning. I fumbled around in the dark to start my first in a long line of cups of coffee. Then I remembered that Mark’s office had ruined my coffeepot.

  “Honestly,” I complained as I dressed, “I’ve had that pot for years, ever since I rescued it from a dumpster, and that man with his fancy-pants office ruins it in one go.”

  There was a coffeepot in the Weddings in the City office. It would have to do. I yawned, trying to ignore the pounding caffeine-withdrawal headache as I stumbled around to wash my face in the tiny bathroom with the cracked mirror, pull on a somewhat professional outfit, and grab my overstuffed sewing bag.

  My dads were awake. Beau was wearing a turban and a muumuu and sailing around out in the living room, lovingly waking up each Roomba.

  “I think something’s wrong with Princess,” he said in concern, patting one Roomba wearing a leopard-print pink bow. “She’s a little slow to wake up.”

  I need to move.

  “You want some tea, Jellybean?” Todd offered, holding out a cup to me. I wrinkled my nose.

  “I need coffee in the morning.”

  “But coffee won’t tell you your fortune!” Beau exclaimed, swirling his tea around in his cup.

  “Does the tea give winning lottery numbers?” I asked. “Because that’s the only kind of fortune I want.”

  The train was pulling up right as I huffed into the station. My parents lived near the end of the line, so I was still able to get a seat.

  I should have just stopped to buy a coffee at the bodega around the corner, but I needed to cut back on my spending. I had just bought several yards of expensive wool I was going to use to make a Lady Sherlock outfit for the seamstress convention that fall.

  I scrolled through my phone as the train trundled through the tunnel. There were a number of messages from Liz and several of my other brides with thoughts and comments on their dress designs. There was also a message from my sister.

  Memphis Eve: I’m in New York for a TV casting call. Mom will be there. She wants to see you.

  Memphis Eve: Maybe you can introduce me to some of your rich clients.

  Memphis Eve: I don’t care if the men are engaged or not. I’m juggling three sugar daddies currently, but I’m looking for a long-term relationship now.

  I scowled at the phone. My sister was shallow and money and image obsessed. Her Instagram feed was image after image of some new diet product she was hawking or an overly Photoshopped pose of her in some skimpy outfit. She was constantly hounding me for free lingerie or to hook her up with a rich man. I didn’t want to respond, but family was family.

  Brea: Sure, let’s get together.

  That was going to require not just coffee but alcohol. I could handle my sister twice a year at most. Hopefully she wasn’t going to be in New York that long.

  I slipped on my earbuds. I had another thirty minutes of train ride before I could have my first cup of coffee. I drifted off on the sexy cloud of the deep voice of my favorite narrator.

  “He parted her thighs, the glistening slit beckoning him.”

  I could barely hear the audio.

  “Crap, I hope my headphones aren’t dying too,” I muttered as I cranked up the volume. I couldn’t afford new headphones right now. I was trying to save to move out into my own apartment. It would take approximately twenty-five years and a global apocalypse to bring real estate prices down, but a girl could dream.

  I cranked up the volume some more, pulled out a chocolate-caramel-chunk granola bar, and took a bite.

  “He rammed his thick cock into her. She moaned as his large billionaire hands at the end of his seven-foot frame wrapped in her hair, holding her still as he spilled his billion-dollar load inside her.”

  “‘I’m going to make you pregnant with my billionaire alien babies,’ he roared as he came.”

  Well that was weird. What book had I actually downloaded?

  Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I shrieked and jumped, my flailing hand hitting a man in the face.

  I looked up to see Mark rubbing his jaw and wearing a strangled expression.

  “Brea…” he began.

  “What is wrong with you? You can’t just surprise people!” I snapped, taking out my earbud.

  “Uh, you uh…” He pointed.

  “Yes, when a woman has her headphones in on the train, that means she does not want to be disturbed,” I snapped at him. “It’s rude and sexist.”

  “Er—yes but—”

  “Chapter three!” my phone shrieked.

  Oh fuck.

  I looked around in horror. Surely that could not be my phone. My phone was sa
fely connected to my headphones.

  “He bit her tits with his perfect teeth as he flipped her over to plunder her hot pussy with his throbbing cock, the veins on it spiraling like a staircase in his world-renowned billion-dollar house. His cock jumped, almost waving to her clit, as she—”

  “Crap! Crap!” I cursed. Several passengers laughed as I frantically turned the audiobook off.

  Mark raised an eyebrow. I was beet red.

  Stupid fucking phone! As soon as I get home, I’m putting you in a blender.

  “Excuse me,” I muttered to the ground, “this is my stop.”

  Mark stood up, letting me pass as I did the walk of shame through the train car. This was not my stop, but I was going to get out and wait for the next train so I didn’t die from embarrassment.

  Not only is this phone going into the blender, I’m buying an Android phone next, and the last moment on earth for my stupid, traitorous iPhone is going to consist of me waving my new phone maniacally and taunting the iPhone as the blender chips it into little traitorous bits.

  “I think something was wrong with that book.”

  I screamed and almost dropped my phone. Mark caught it and handed it to me. I snatched it out of his large hand.

  “Did you follow me?” I demanded.

  He pointed to the sign above us that had an arrow pointing to Frost Tower. “I work here,” he told me then jerked his chin to my phone. “I don’t think even Frost Tower, which is state of the art, cost anywhere close to a billion dollars. Knowing that information, how could a single house cost that much? Didn’t anyone do any research?”

  “It’s just fiction,” I mumbled, face hot. “I don’t normally listen to stuff like that. I had a coupon code.” I pretended I was looking for something in my purse, hoping he would get the hint and leave.

  “Interesting.” Mark did not leave. He was waiting for something.

  “I’m just looking for something I might have left on the train,” I said, not moving. I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing I had disembarked due to embarrassment.