Dictatorship of the Dress (9780698168305)

by Topper, Jessica

  Funny, I finally felt like I had come to my senses.

  “This ends now. You had no right to change the date without consulting me first.”

  “Enough with the dramatics. I get it. You don’t want to marry me in June. We’ll move it. Point made,” she snapped at me.

  “No, you don’t get it! I don’t want to marry you. Not in June. Not in July. Not two years from now. Not anytime.”

  I felt like I was reading from the Dr. Seuss book Laney had quoted to the little girl at Jughead’s Diner. Not in June, not on the moon, not in socks, not in a box. Never, never!

  “I’m done, Sloane.”

  There was a pause. Who was being dramatic now?

  “You can’t do this to me!”

  “Me, me, me!” I seethed. “Just because marriage starts with an m and ends with an e, it’s not all about you!”

  “Well, the word mistake does, too, but you can’t blame me for the one you’re making, mister. Just wait until my father—”

  My cab careened past Ruel’s and the other cars idling along the curb for departures and swung into the first free space. I had caught up with Laney. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Have a nice life, Sloane.”

  In Reverse

  The car had barely had a chance to grace the curb before I was popping the locks and yanking on the door handle. A gust of wind practically took me, and the car door, with it as I struggled to exit.

  “Damn it, Laney!”

  Noah’s yellow cab had bypassed us and parked up ahead. My feet felt rooted to the frozen concrete as I watched him, his long arms waving like an air traffic controller’s over the crowd of people’s heads. With his open overcoat flapping behind him like a superhero’s cape, he raced toward the Town Car, dodging the maze of luggage at curbside check-in and shooing an eager skycap out of his way.

  “Why the hell did you just cut and run?” he demanded, pushing the car door shut so nothing was in between us. Except, of course, the last twenty-four hours.

  “I guess that’s just what I do! I don’t go down with the ship!” I hollered.

  “You didn’t even give me a chance!” He slammed his palm down hard on the roof of the Town Car. “Because if you had, you would have heard me on the phone, telling Sloane it’s over.”

  “Seriously?” I squeaked. Is he saying what I think he’s saying?

  “Do you think you’ve cornered the market on epiphanies?”

  He stood in front of me, chest heaving, eyes ablaze. There was that vulnerability and that passion that had stopped me in my tracks soon after meeting him. And now it was directed at me. It was because of me.

  “I had that whole cab ride to stew over”—he panted—“not kissing you when I had the chance. But I had to end it with her first.”

  He stepped into my airspace, and winter melted away as his hands found my cheeks.

  “All my life, I’ve been hardwired to do the next logical thing,” he said softly, pushing my windblown hair off my face and weaving his fingers through it. “You were so not part of the equation.”

  He dropped his forehead gently against mine and closed his eyes. A speck of a snowflake dotted his perfect lashes where they fanned out above his cheekbone, and dissolved in an instant. I threaded my arms between his open wool coat and his suit jacket, pulling myself into his solid warmth.

  “Do—I—compute?” I asked in my best robot voice. Not exactly a come-hither, sex kitten move, but it made his chest rumble with laughter against mine.

  “Yes, you factor in perfectly.”

  I lifted my forehead from his, and we were practically nose to nose. “Well, hurry up and kiss me, because the meter’s running.”

  He caught my top lip between both of his, and a ragged sigh escaped me as his fingers lingered on my jawbone, gently coaxing me closer. It was a sweet gesture, made even sweeter by the cocoa on his breath. I closed my eyes and felt the busy airport terminal drop away behind us, just like the world had seemed to disappear from the reflection in the Bean.

  Our lips fully met in perfect unison, creating heat and awareness. The kiss had boldness in its buildup, and an intensity that we never would’ve been able to muster during that first missed opportunity on the airplane. His tongue hit the tip of mine and I felt warmth roll down to my toes, hitting all my pleasure points along the way.

  “Get a room!” some guy muttered as he brushed past us. I could feel Noah’s mouth, still pressed hard against mine, as it broadened into a grin.

  “We had a perfectly good room, didn’t we?” I murmured, giving Noah’s lower lip a gentle tug with mine. His groan buzzed against my mouth, making me hot despite the single-digit Chicago windchill.

  “You said you pay me double now, miss?”

  Ruel brought us back to reality . . . except Ruel was not Ruel. He was some Jamaican guy with dreads pulled back in a thick ponytail. He looked like a younger Bobby McFerrin. And he was standing expectantly next to the car I had vacated.

  “What the—where’s Ruel?” Noah demanded. “Pop the trunk.”

  “Easy, man. I don’t know any Ruel. And there certainly ain’t no Ruel in my damn trunk, you hear? I get a fare, I get them there. Get it?”

  He gave the trunk a pop with his fist, like something the Fonz would do.

  Oh, this is not happening. No, no, no. Show me something, anything.

  Even a body back there would have been preferable to an empty trunk.

  “You were parked on South Columbus, where it meets Congress, right? That’s exactly where I texted Ruel to meet us.”

  The cogs in Noah’s brain were turning, trying to bring reason into play. Me, I had no cogs. No paddle, either, and I was up shit creek. I just kept staring into the empty trunk, hoping it was another one of Noah’s magic tricks.

  Shit, shit, shit. I wanted to rewind back to the morning, even if it meant sacrificing that first incredible kiss. I just wanted—no, I needed—the dress back safe in my hands.

  “Ruel a dog?” the guy asked. “Your kid? Be more specific, man.”

  “GoToHail!”

  Noah’s response wasn’t exactly understood or welcomed. The guy made a face like he smelled something foul.

  “No, you go to hell! What’s this kind of crazy shit? Your girl jump in my car. I drive her with my gas. She even say she pay me double, and you tell me—”

  “Hail, hail, not hell. GoToHail; it’s a car service app.”

  I thought back to my rushed getaway. I hadn’t noticed any other black Lincoln Town Cars. And I hadn’t let the driver get a word in edgewise before throwing up that partition panel.

  My mother’s words chanted in my head. Whatever you do, do not let them check it, Laney. Do not hand it off.

  The airport should’ve been the least of her worries. Letting me loose in a strange city, well . . .

  Laney the Wonder Fuckup strikes again.

  “Here, here, I’m sorry.” I offered up the bills, just about the last I had on me, from my purse. This seemed to make the driver happy. At least I could do one thing right.

  Noah had his phone jammed to one ear and a finger in the other to shut out the noise. I watched his face for any sign of relief or hope.

  “I tried Ruel at the number he texted me from originally when he accepted the GoToHail request,” he said. “No answer. I am going to track the car down a different way.”

  “No more flashing red dot?” I asked, ever hopeful. Ever delusional, more like it.

  He held up the phone display for me to see. “He’s off the grid.”

  “But he had five stars!” I wailed, butting my head against Noah’s shoulder.

  He leaned over and kissed the crown of my head. “I know. We’ll find him. Don’t worry.”

  His screen display said 2:47. Our flights didn’t leave for another two hours, but the window quickly sh
rank when you factored in security checkpoints and boarding time.

  “We’re going to miss our flights and it’s all my fault,” I whispered.

  “First things first.” His fingers flew over the tiny touch screen. Funny how his typing speed varied from device to device. Placing it back up to his ear, I heard him say as he turned away, “Hey, Kiwi. It’s Noah.”

  A traffic cop was monitoring the drop-off line, waving cars on if they stood too long. Dreadlock Guy got in his car to leave, but not before rolling down his passenger-side window and beckoning me over. “What you leave behind?” he wanted to know, his Jamaican accent lilting.

  “Wedding dress.” It came out barely above a whisper. “And his computer. And luggage.”

  He shook his head with a smile, his dreaded ponytail smacking each shoulder, back and forth. “Clothing is easily replaced. Computers, you can back up the data. Insurance covers what you lose.”

  I looked at him expectantly, figuring that at any moment, he’d utter “Don’t worry, be happy.” Say it and I’ll pull you out your car window by your dreads and put the hurt on you.

  “But a kiss like that, miss—” He clucked his tongue. “Irreplaceable. Don’t let that go the other way.”

  It took me a moment to process his last words, as they came out “gowdee otterway.” But as he put the car in reverse and backed up in order to swing around the shuttle parked in front of him, it sank in.

  “Laney, quick. Grab a pen.”

  Noah was beckoning me over. Digging through my bag, I triumphantly produced one and handed it over. As I tried to find an empty page in my sketchpad for him to write on, he didn’t wait for me; instead, he began inking numbers and letters right onto his palm.

  “Great, I owe you big-time when I get back,” he said to whoever was on the other end of the phone. With a name like Kiwi, I tried not to think of how cute and juicy she might be.

  At least she wasn’t a day-old Danish.

  Hey, no jealousy, Laney Jane. This guy just broke up with his fiancée so he could kiss you.

  After hanging up, he turned to me. “My company back in New York was able to get the VIN and license plate number. They traced the car to the Central Auto Pound.”

  “Well, Bobby just left, so we’ll have to get cab,” I said.

  “Bobby?”

  “Long story,” I supplied. “Can we skip GoToHail and just grab an old-fashioned, take-your-life-in-your-hands yellow taxi?” I had had my fill of black Lincoln Town Cars for the day.

  “Where to, bub?” asked the pug-faced driver, as we hopped into a recently vacated cab.

  “City pound on East Wacker,” Noah replied.

  The driver gave a bark of a laugh. “Oh, I know the place. You want under Lower Wacker, actually. I’ll getcha there, bub. Not to worry.”

  “How many layers does this city have?” I whispered to Noah as we careened down the ramp toward the highway. “That sounds like it’s in the bowels of Middle-earth.”

  “It probably is,” Noah said grimly.

  “I swear this wasn’t a ruse to spend more time with you,” I joked lamely. “If that were the case, I would’ve picked a much more romantic place than the city pound.”

  “Yeah, you really know how to show a guy a good time.”

  Squeezing my knee, he admitted, “I really do want to spend more time with you. Any way I can get it. I, um . . . I canceled my own flight reservation earlier and rebooked, so I could have those extra hours with you.”

  “Seriously? That is, like, the most messed-up, but sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.” I giggled. “Thanks, Vegas.”

  “My pleasure, Hawaii.”

  Two Hearts Pound as One

  “So there’s your East Wacker Drive,” our cabbie announced, gesturing toward a street we weren’t even on, “and down there’s your Lower Wacker Drive. And we’re going under that.”

  He seemed far too pleased with himself, and soon I understood why, as he took the car through twists and turns with the calm, collected coolness of a Jedi master. There was no way we would’ve found the place ourselves, even with Noah’s GPS superpowers.

  The pound was exactly what my mind had pictured: dimly lit and dank, with rows of darkened cars sitting dejectedly, waiting for their owners to spring them.

  “This was definitely not a stop on the Noah Ridgewood ten-dollar tour itinerary,” he murmured, holding the door of the double-wide trailer for me. “Here we go.”

  “For the dress,” I said, taking a deep breath.

  Noah approached a woman who appeared to be sleeping at her desk. Like, literally sitting upright in her chair with her eyes closed and fooling nobody.

  “We’re looking for a black Lincoln Town Car that probably came in within the last hour.”

  She had either been awake after all or was sleepwalking, because she got up and grabbed paperwork for us to fill out. Noah slapped down his license and credit card, and I read his palm to fill in the necessary information on the papers.

  “You aren’t Ruel Da Silva,” she said to him, before turning to me. “And you don’t look like a Ruel Da Silva. We can only release the car to the registered driver.”

  “Actually, we don’t want the car,” I explained. “We just want what’s in the trunk.”

  She was totally wide awake now and giving me the stink-eye once-over like I was some drug mule. “Bring Ruel Da Silva of KTL Limo down here and then we’ll talk.”

  “Can I speak with your supervisor?” Noah asked, sweet as pie. I think I even heard a hint of Noavis in his voice.

  She lumbered away. Noah and I exchanged a look. “I’m going to get KTL Limo on the phone,” he said. “Perhaps they can be of help.”

  Sleeping Beauty had fetched another woman, who seemed even more annoyed that we had interrupted her alone time than the first one.

  “We can only release the car to the registered driver,” she droned, as Noah opened his mouth to speak.

  “I’ve got the limo company on the phone right now. The driver was admitted to the emergency room,” Noah said, handing the phone to the supervisor.

  “Ruel’s in the hospital?”

  That was the last thing I would’ve expected to hear. It gave me pause, especially after our other driver’s divine words of wisdom. And here I was, worrying about a couple of yards of fabric. “What happened?”

  “His dispatcher didn’t know,” Noah admitted.

  Supey handed him back his phone. She also pushed his license and credit card back across the desk toward him, as if she were ruler of a land that didn’t accept such items as proof or currency. The phone call hadn’t made a lick of difference, apparently.

  I noticed she had a thick band of yellow gold around her pudgy ring finger, as well as a tiny chip of an engagement ring. It reminded me of April, the June bride, back at the check-in desk at LaGuardia.

  Time to be an oversharer.

  “Maybe this just wasn’t how it was meant to be,” I said to Noah, and I bit the inside of my cheek until tears came. Tugging on his jacket, I added, “Maybe eloping was a crazy idea.”

  Noah developed that deer-in-headlights look again. Could I blame him? A half hour earlier, he had still been engaged to Bridezilla. Now he was fake-eloping with me, Mothra.

  “But I know . . . I know you had your heart set on it?” he floundered.

  Definitely glee club, not drama club material.

  “My dress.” I turned to the women, my throat thick with emotion. “My wedding dress is in the trunk of that car.”

  Supey looked me up and down, from Bozo shoes to panda hat. At least Noah, in his suit, looked a little more the part.

  “Getting married, huh?” she asked, leaning in on her elbows. “So how’d he propose?”

  I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely interested or just trying to call our bluff.

>   “It was so romantic,” I started, stalling for time by rubbing Allen’s class ring like it was Aladdin’s lamp.

  “I went to Cartier,” Noah cut in, “and ordered a setting exactly like the one her grandmother had.”

  He zipped through his phone’s photo gallery and flashed them a close-up shot of the ring I had previously seen when I spied on the picture of him and Sloane in his iPhotos. It looked museumworthy, the stone large enough to rival the Hope Diamond. Supey and her buddy Sleeping Beauty flicked a glance at my army jacket. My demeanor screamed Carhartt much more than Cartier, but I went with it.

  “It wasn’t ready in time for the big day when he wanted to propose,” I added quickly. “So he ended up using his class ring. I loved it so much, I told him to cancel the Cartier order and use the money to start a college fund for our baby.” I rubbed my stomach and thought longingly about my Eighteen-Wheeler breakfast from Jughead’s. Those were some good eggs.

  Noah was getting into the part now. “So I dragged her to Buckingham Fountain,” he began, “even though it was Valentine’s Day and she had probably hoped for a carriage ride, or dinner at the Signature Room at the 95th—”

  “He’s crazy. I could eat Slim Jims and Pop-Tarts for dinner and be perfectly content,” I told the women. “As long as I’m in his company, who cares about fancy dinners?”

  They were both leaning on the desk now, in rapt attention.

  “I thought I had planned for everything, down to the time of the sunset. But the one thing I forgot to check was—”

  “The fountain itself. And wouldn’t you know, it was closed for the season!” I finished triumphantly.

  Supey slapped her thigh and hooted. “Everyone knows that they turn the water off for the season!” Her underling just shook her head and tsk-tsked.

  “So there I was, in an utter panic,” Noah said. I couldn’t help noticing his brows were knitted in what looked like a genuinely painful reminiscence. “I thought for sure she was going to be angry. And disappointed.”