"Am I making a mistake?"
"Of course not."
"Cristina." Looking deep into her best friend's eyes, she took Cristina's hands in hers and clung to them, tugging her close. "Please."
"I love you like a sister, mami," Cristina vowed, her eyes misting as she squeezed Ali's fingers. "Like my very own flesh and blood. And if you were my sister, I would tell you the same thing. I know you love him, Ali, I do. I know it's hurting right now. I remember what you went through before, how bad it was. So I'm telling you, as a friend, as a sister, this is the best thing for you to do. A life with Alejandro is a death sentence. You care about Bobby and he loves you enough to forgive you and spend the rest of his life taking care of you. What else could you possibly ask for?"
Ali shook her head and forced a smile. “No, you’re right. It’s the smart choice. I’m lucky, just like you said. I just need a second alone.”
Cristina smoothed her coral-colored gown. “Just a minute,” she warned before walking through the door. Ali could hear Cristina speaking rapidly to the others, her stern tone ensuring the bride one peaceful moment before showtime.
Ali closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Thoughts of Alejandro pushed into her brain and she chased them out. It was like phantom pain, the way she felt his stubble scratching against her throat, the way she heard his deep voice murmuring in her ear. She even swore she could feel the vibration of the Harley’s rumble through the floorboards, and just the thought of never being on the back of his bike again sent her into a fresh wave of panic.
But there was no time for that. Cristina was back through the door, her bouquet in hand. She reached her other hand for Ali’s. “Come on, then, mi mejor amiga linda,” she said softly. “Let’s go give these people what they’ve been waiting for.”
The organs sounded and four hundred people stood from their seats, waiting for the future First Lady of Texas to make her way down the aisle.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
Another explosion of color fills the sky, and Ali gasps in my arms. The sizzle of the fireworks dying out almost drowns out her voice as she says, “This night is perfect.” She snuggles back against me and I squeeze her tighter, unable to believe my luck. Me. Her. Here together. She turns to kiss me and I take it slow, the feeling of her lips on mine still new enough to make me worry I’ll lose this at any moment. But it’s never just a kiss with us. In three seconds we’re both shaking and pulling apart to cool ourselves down. That’s how it is with us, every single time.
Some people don’t believe in love at first sight, but I fell in love at age fourteen. I haven’t been able to get Ali out of my head since the day I went to pick up my cousin Cristina from cheerleading practice and saw her there in the sunlight, her blonde hair like a halo, a smile on her face as bright as the sun. A whole field of pretty girls, and all I could see was Ali, untying her hair and shaking it so her curls fell everywhere. She was all tan legs and wild hair and that amazing, radiant smile, and my mind kept saying yes, yes, yes, let me just look at this girl all day.
The animal inside me marked her as mine the second I laid eyes on her four years ago, and he’s not quiet about what he wants to do to her. Ali shifts against me and it’s torture. We only just started dating and I’m taking it slow with her, but right now all I can think about is how the reflection of the colors in the sky would look on her bare skin. I want to be inside her when the blackness is broken with that beautiful light, and I want to hear her say my name as we move together under that canopy of colors.
I want to stretch this summer out forever. I couldn’t believe she let me kiss her at that graduation party last month, and I can’t believe I’ve been taking her out ever since. If I thought I had a chance with her I never would have agreed to go to San Antonio with the club so soon. Maybe I would’ve gone to college after all, given my mother that piece of paper she so desperately wants for me. Visited Ali at her school on weekends, asked her to marry me when I was close to graduating.
And then what? Bring her home to this forgotten town so we could be reminded every day that we don’t belong together? Try to make a new life together somewhere else, clinging to each other until our love and need choke us? No. Better that we have these two perfect months together and leave it at that.
The cracks and pops are getting closer together now, signaling the end, and Ali turns to me, her gray eyes serious. “Let’s go to The Ridge,” she says, and my mouth goes dry. I’ve been there countless times with girls whose smiles I barely remember, but I know that whatever happens tonight, I’ll remember it forever.
My brain runs wild with thoughts of what might happen tonight. Ali’s a virgin, and we haven’t done much more than kiss, but that’s not a kissing look I see in her eyes. She’s hungry. For me. “Let’s go,” I say, pulling her to her feet, and the way she wraps around me promises everything I’ve ever dreamed. Paradise.
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
Alejandro wove through traffic, oblivious to the angry horns blaring around him. The wedding venue was an hour from Arroyo Flats and he’d pushed the Fatboy to its limit almost the entire ride, rehearsing what he would say to Ali and still finding words inadequate. If her family hated me ten years ago when I was just a skinny teenage boy in love with a girl out of my league, he thought, Imagine how they’ll feel about me now—a tattooed outlaw biker crashing her six-figure wedding of four hundred people. It was almost comical.
But now he was in some sort of Little League gridlock, sandwiched in a sea of minivans and SUVs while a young female cop directed traffic into the massive athletic complex. With the brim of her hat down so far over her eyes and traffic at her back, she didn’t see him creeping down the shoulder, desperate for her to turn her head so he could make it across the intersection. Even if she radioed ahead, he’d be there before anyone caught up to him.
He hoped.
Look away, look away, he willed her, but she was alert and efficient, her left hand to the through traffic, her right hand waving the vehicles into the park. He knew he had just a few minutes to spare and he had to be first off the line to get there before the rest of the traffic bogged him down again.
Fuck it. He inched past the last SUV in line and gunned it. In his wake he heard the indignant shrill of her whistle, but he was too far gone to care. Let them come. If the Devil himself was on his tail he wouldn’t have slowed down.
He had a confession to make.
He had a woman to rescue.
And he had exactly six minutes.
***
Ali clung to her daddy’s arm and tried to focus. Her eyes were burning, and her heart was still pounding in her chest like a scared jackrabbit. Cristina was just in front of her, and Ali reached out, grabbing her friend’s arm. Cristina’s gaze showed panic as Ali hissed at her, “Give me the pills.”
Cristina shook her head and tried to pull away, but Ali clung to her. “Ali, no.”
“Give them to me now. You said they’d help and they’re not helping, so give me another.”
Her daddy leaned forward. “Girls, is there a problem?”
Two bridesmaids down the aisle; one more, then Cristina would go, and her one chance at surviving this ceremony and moving on to her boring, business-proposal life would be over. “Cristina, I swear to God, you don’t give me those pills this instant, I will tell every single person in this church about the time you ate crayons when you were high and crapped rainbow for a week. You know I’m not fooling, so hand them over.”
Cristina’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Ali, honey, are you sure—”
“I know what I’m doing, Cristina. Please. I can’t walk down the aisle like this, scared out of my mind. I just can’t. I’ll make a fool of myself.”
Cristina sighed, but she reached into the pocket of her gown and handed Ali the little bottle. “You can’t drink anything at the reception. One sip of champagne to toast him. Nothing else. Promise me.”
“I swear,” Ali said. Daddy clucked as Ali shook two
pills out of the bottle, threw them back dry, and then stuffed the little bottle into her bouquet. It was Cristina’s turn to walk down the aisle, and she was a vision—the perfect matron of honor, all grace but more subtle than the beauty of the bride who was to follow. In just a moment, the music would change, and Wagner would swell out from the organ, and she could begin counting down the minutes until she became Mrs. Robert Dawson.
The pills hit about halfway down the aisle. She stumbled slightly, suddenly dizzy. Daddy tightened his grip on her arm and steadied her. “What did she give you?” he hissed through his professional smile.
Ali responded with the same perfect Texas Rose smile that Mama had taught her when she was just a baby, the one that said everything was just fine now, nothing to fret over. “Just something to calm my nerves a bit, Daddy, I’m fine. I’ve got you and Bobby to hold me up.”
“Girl, don’t you dare make a fool of me today. I have supported you through an awful lot of nonsense, and I’d hate to see your mama upset on your wedding day.” His fingers tightened on her arm until she thought they might leave a bruise. She refused to let the smile budge, which was easy, since her head was now floating a good twelve inches off her shoulders.
“I’ll make you proud, Daddy,” she said, and his smile finally brightened again.
The handoff to Bobby went perfectly. She didn’t trip on the stairs; Daddy turned her veil back and kissed her cheek, then brought her hand to Bobby’s. “Take care of her, son,” Daddy said, and Bobby gave him a solid Robert Dawson nod that made Ali’s stomach twitch.
The preacher was off and running. She hadn’t been to church in ages, in part because of the way Reverend Davis tended to run on. And on. He was chattering now about marriage, and friendship, and godly love, and Ali found herself transfixed by a fly that had braved the hot Texas afternoon to buzz around the preacher’s head. He was valiantly ignoring it as it buzzed around his ear; it wouldn’t do to ruin Mr. Robert Dawson’s wedding by swatting at a fly.
Time did a funny little skip. She and Bobby were facing each other, holding their hands together, and he was gazing blandly into her eyes as he recited, after Reverend Davis: “I, Robert James Dawson, take you, Alaine Helene Owens, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward—for better or worse, for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish, from this day forward until death do us part.”
He was firm, in that classic Bobby way, and for a long moment, Ali clung to him with her whole heart. This was how it was supposed to be. She and Bobby, tight together, quietly married while Kip kept the spotlight on him. But as the preacher turned to her, her knees went a little week.
“Repeat after me,” he prompted, “I, Alaine Helene Owens…”
She opened her mouth, ready to say the words, ready to seal her fate, but instead of her name, what came out was “Bobby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Her hand clapped up over her mouth, trying to stuff the words back in.
His eyes widened for a moment, a long moment, and then he smiled his Robert Dawson grin and shook her hands gently back and forth, like she was a little girl. “Sugar, there’s nothing to be sorry for. Just repeat after the man, and I’ll kiss you, and everything’ll be just fine.”
She shook her head then. “I don’t think I can, Bobby. I said I could, but—” Her stomach twisted, and for a moment she thought she might be sick up there, in front of God and everybody. “I was right when I called it off the first time, Bobby. I can’t. We’re not the people we were when you proposed to me. I always told you. This isn’t the life I wanted. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Cristina’s hands were so tight on her bouquet that she looked like her fingers might pop. She has shaking her head back and forth, her eyes so pained that it made Ali’s soul ache. Cristina had told her over and over that Alejandro was wrong for her, and that Bobby was the way forward. That had been her way forward, after all—marrying a doctor and raising herself up. And decorating the governor’s mansion. That had been her dream. Just like being governor had been Kip’s dream.
Here she and Bobby were, living other people’s dreams, other people’s lives. And Bobby’s parents didn’t understand, her own parents didn’t understand, Cristina didn’t even understand. They all wanted what they thought was best, but no one had asked. Or if they had asked, they didn’t listen.
She wasn’t in love with Bobby. No matter what anyone said, she couldn’t marry someone she wasn’t in love with. She couldn’t live someone else’s life. She just couldn’t.
She raised her eyes to Bobby’s face. He looked quietly confused and hurt. She didn’t dare look out at Mama and Daddy, or Bobby’s parents. She didn’t dare look at anyone else. She could barely stand to look at herself. Her head was floating six inches off her shoulders, and her fingers felt like ice, her cheeks like they’d caught fire. She tried to pull her hands free of Bobby’s, but they weren’t going anywhere.
“If this is about that dirtbag,” Bobby said—no, he Robert Dawson now. That was the person leaning into her face and hissing his words at her—”Just say what the preacher tells you to, and we’ll work it out later.” He glared over his shoulder at Cristina. “What did you give her anyway?”
Cristina crossed her arms under her breasts and shook her head. “Bobby, she was crying, she needed to calm down—”
“Stop it,” Ali said, and her voice echoed through the church. She swallowed and toned her voice down just a little bit. “This isn’t about him. It never was about him. It was about you, and how you don’t listen to me anymore. And it’s about me, and how I want to live the rest of my life.” She jerked her hands one more time, got them free from Bobby. She tried to step away, but the floor was uneven, and Bobby caught her again before she could fall. His fingers wrapped around the same bruises Daddy had left, and his eyes were so fierce and so sad.
“Do not do this to me, Alaine,” he said. “Do not.”
“Why didn’t you ever say you were sorry, Bobby?” She looked deep into his eyes, seeking an answer that she was fairly sure she wouldn’t find.
His lips tightened, and she could see him choking back the words he wanted to use. “I stopped drinking.”
“But you never said you were sorry. Why didn’t you?”
“This isn’t the time, Ali. We can talk about this later.”
“When is the time? When you’re governor? When you run for president? When would be a good time for me to tell your mama about how you tried to rape me?”
The words came out in a torrent, and it wasn’t until they’d escaped that she realized she’d said them loud enough for everyone to hear. Bobby’s hand on her arm went soft, then, and she was able to pull back. She hated herself for doing it, for saying it out loud, but at the same time—God in heaven, it had felt good. It had felt beautiful.
“I’m sorry,” he said, when she was a few steps away.
She let the words fall into her heart and heal something that had been badly torn. She nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “That means rather a lot.” She was wobbling, her knees were trembling. She looked to Cristina again— No, there’d be no help there. She didn’t understand either. And in a way, Ali herself didn’t understand. She just knew that she was floating, flying, and she couldn’t pretend anymore. She was pretty sure that she was high, maybe really high, and there was a corner of her mind screaming that she was going to regret all of this later… but not now. Not right now. “Take care of yourself, Bobby,” Ali said. She turned and faced the church, her head held as high as she could without tripping over her feet—they were shockingly far away, how had they gotten so distant?—and started to walk. She knew better than to look at anyone’s face. If Cristina wasn’t on her side, no one was, and all there was to do was get out.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
She made it halfway down the aisle before her knees gave out. She caught herself on the pew, and tried to breathe.
No one was coming to her aid—this was not how Southern girls behaved. E
veryone in the church was staring at her except for Mama and Daddy, who had their faces upturned to the cross like this was tantamount to crucifixion for them. Her heart was slamming against her ribs, racing so fast that she could barely breathe. There was a very, very large part of Ali’s heart that wanted to laugh, and say it was all a joke. But every time she tried, she felt Bobby’s hands pawing at her, forcing him on her, and she stayed strong another moment.
“All right, here we go,” she heard, and then Karen—Karen, who’d been helping her with the project since the beginning—ducked under her arm and helped her back to her feet. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “But you’re committing social suicide here.”
Karen laughed quietly. “Oh, Ali, don’t you worry about me. I’m a big girl.”
“Thank you,” Ali said again, and she meant it more than she’d meant anything in her life.
Until the church doors burst open, and Alejandro Rojas stood before her. “What in the world are you doing here?” Yeah, that was pretty heartfelt. Definitely.
This Savage Love: A Bad Boy Romance Boxed Set Page 40
