Love at First Sight

by Mia Ford

“We better get back in a minute, rescue the twins from Al and Katherine.”

  “Oh yeah… I know they’re supposed to be friends now, but I don’t buy it. We don’t want the twins learning to fight from them, I’m sure we’re going to have enough of that through our lives.”

  “So true. We don’t want that just yet…”

  32

  Tamara

  “This is so nice, I’m so glad you brought me here.” Katherine rolls her head back and relaxes fully. “What a classic idea for a bachelorette party, I agree with you now. Parties are just too crazy. We’re totally too old for this now, aren’t we? A nice relaxing day by the pool is so much nicer. I’m freaking loving life right now.”

  “I just didn’t want to leave the twins for too long, and with Al taking Logan God knows where, it seemed like the perfect thing to do.” I smirk at my friend. “Plus, I get the amazing sight of you looking like a creature from the blue lagoon. I have to say, that green stuff is super sexy smeared all over your face. That’s very calming!”

  “Mick all you want, but it feels amazing.” She blanches as she sees me reach for my cell phone. “But don’t take any pictures of me! I don’t want to be reminded of how I look later on.”

  “No, no, I’m not going to take a picture,” I chuckle. “I don’t want the memory either. I just want to see if the sitter has called in.” I see her give me a look. “I know the kids are fine but I still want to know for sure.”

  “Nothing?” she asks me with a smile. “Good, because I told that girl not to bother you unless it was desperate. You’re getting married soon, you need to relax. I bet the wedding plans are really stressing you out.”

  “Truth be told, Logan has taken control of most of it. He’s done it all for me. I’ve pretty much only had to sort out my dress. Thank you for coming with me to pick that, by the way, I wasn’t sure I’d find one to suit me now.”

  “Oh, come off it.” Katherine rolls her eyes. “You act like your body has changed since having babies. It’s pretty much exactly the same! If I saw you walking down the street without your pram, I never would know.”

  She’s lying, of course my body is different now, but the compliment feels nice. I don’t mind the few tiger stripes sliding across my torso, I’m not too concerned about the slight roundness to me now, the differences don’t bother me because they gave me my babies. I just don’t quite know how to dress for it now.

  “Well, thankfully the mermaid style works quite well so I’m much less nervous about the big day. It’s good that it’s only going to be small affair anyway. I’d be freaking out right now about the idea of a crowd.”

  That’s something we decided on together, to just keep the guests to the bare minimum so it isn’t a big deal. We don’t want our wedding to be about showing off our love to other people, it’s just about us. There will be people in our wider circles coming to the reception afterwards, that’s going to be more of a massive party with all the people we work with and who we’ve connected with along the way, that part should be a lot of fun. Just as I want it. The romance for us, the party for everyone else. Who could complain about that?

  “Only two more days as well.” Katherine squeals with excitement. “Oh, I can’t wait now. It’s going to be such an amazing day. And the travel theme you have for your reception is amazing, I love it!”

  “You’re going to be there to hold my hand, aren’t you? I’m still going to need you. I’m not totally convinced that I’ll make it down the aisle without tripping up or something equally embarrassing…”

  “Is that your cell ringing?” Even Katherine looks panicked now. “Uh oh, what’s happening?”

  If the babysitter is only allowed to call me in the case of an emergency, then this must be bad. My heart leaps up into my throat and it balls up causing a blockage. I can hardly get any breath in.

  “Oh, wait… it’s Al.” Now I’m even ore confused. He told me not to contact him or Logan today because he had an amazing day planned for the bachelor party. “What’s he contacting me for?”

  Katherine looks as wide eyed and shocked as me. “I don’t know, but you better answer it quick.”

  “Yeah. Of course.” I hit the answer button. “Hello? Al, is everything alright?”

  “I… I…” The panic blasts through the phone and makes my blood run cold. “I don’t know how…”

  I sit up straighter, my spin bolts and freezes. “What’s going on, Al? Has something happened?”

  “I don’t know… I’m sorry, it all just… I didn’t mean…”

  “Didn’t mean what? Al, tell me what’s going on here?”

  “I just… I….”

  “Tell me already!” My fingers fist up in my hair with frustration. “This is driving me mad.”

  Hot tears ball up behind my eyes as my brain starts imagining the worst. He’s dead… he’s in hospital… he’s clinging to the edge of life… “Al, will you just tell me what’s going on already?”

  Katherine snatches the phone from me and I let her take it. She’ll be able to deal with this much better than me. “Give it up, Alistair,” she declares bossily. “What’s going on? If I find out that asshole has cheated on my best friend with a stripper, then heads are going to roll. Starting with yours.”

  Shit. I didn’t even consider that but now it’s all I can think about. Some sexy platinum blonde haired woman grinding on my man, promising him one amazing night of freedom before he’s tied down forever more. I can see his eyes wandering, the thought of being stuck in monotony crushing him, the temptation of one last delicious fling before he commits forever. It makes me feel sick, vomit threatens to spill out, I almost can’t take it…

  “Oh, shit.” Katherine’s stunned tone drags me from my worries. “Well, where the hell is he? I know he wouldn’t be lost if you knew where he was, you idiot. What I mean is where is the last place you saw him? Don’t start being stubborn now, we need to get this sorted. If you’ve called for help you damn well need it.”

  Lost… he’s lost. My husband to be is missing, two days before our wedding. What a nightmare.

  “Okay, don’t panic, Alistair, we’ll be there in a moment.” Katherine jumps up and indicates for me to do the same which I do. “We’ll find him. It’s going to be okay.” She hangs up the phone and gives me a desperate look. “Fuck. Alistair has somehow managed to lose Logan. We need to get going.”

  The tears start falling, I lose all control of myself. “What are we going to do?”

  “This is hopeless.” I pout out my bottom lip in distress. “I’m starting to think that maybe he’s just gone.”

  Katherine wraps me up in a hug and darts a nasty glance towards Al. “This isn’t what’s happened here. He would never leave you. Logan loves you and those kids, he would never leave. He’s been lost.”

  “It isn’t my fault!” Al whines. “We were playing laser tag, it was all going well and I went to find him once the game was done and he’d vanished. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  “And you asked everyone who worked at the laser tag place? He definitely isn’t there?”

  “He’s not. I don’t know what happened to him. This is a nightmare.”

  “Right.” Katherine nods in a firm way, taking control of the situation… thank goodness. I need her to because I have no idea what to do with all of this. “Well we need to work out where he might have gone. I’m not saying that he is, but if he was having a bit of a freak out when it comes to commitment, where would he go?”

  I groan loudly, now wishing that he was just cheating on me with a stripper. That would be so much easier than this because at least I’d know where the father of my children is! Now he could be anywhere in this city, in this whole damn world, and I don’t know. Since he isn’t answering his cell phone, there’s just no hope.

  “I suppose he could have gone to his office,” Al offers. “I know he likes it there, or maybe he’s gone home.”

  “No.” I shake my head rapidly. “I checked. I c
alled the babysitter and he’s not there. I told her to contact me if he arrives. He isn’t there, there’s no chance. He must be somewhere else. Should we check the office?”

  “I’ll call the front desk of the building. Someone might have seen him.”

  While Al turns his back to me to make the call, I give Katherine a desperate look. I never expected to have this nightmare right before my wedding day. It was supposed to be all stress free. Logan has made sure of that, until now. He’s made me so damn calm and now he’s freaked me out more than anything else.

  “We’ll find him,” Katherine tries to reassure me. “I promise you that much, we’ll find him.”

  I don’t know if she’s right though, and that scares me. “This just isn’t like him at all. He’s not the sort of person to run off, he wasn’t even keen on us not speaking to each other all day. This is just weird.”

  “Try to… to take the fact that this is out of character as a good thing.” She doesn’t sound as sure as her words. “There must be a reason that this has happened. Maybe he’s… sorting something out for you.”

  “He isn’t there.” Al comes back to us. “But the guy on the desk had a really good idea. We should track his cell phone. I know he isn’t answering it but he must have a location thing to help us find him.”

  That makes my eyes almost ping out of my head. “Oh my God, how did I not think of that? It’s genius. We set up an app just like that for while we were away so we couldn’t lose one another while in a different country.”

  My shaking fingers grab onto my phone and I scroll through until I reach the app. My whole body trembles with nerves and excitement, this might work. It has to, I don’t know what I’ll do otherwise.

  “Is it coming up? Have you got a clue yet?” I don’t answer Katherine, I just keep looking. “Shall we get a cab?”

  I tap my toes angrily while I wait for it to load. Why is it taking forever for it to come to life? Every time I need my phone to do something quickly, it doesn’t. I might have to get a new hand set soon…

  “Oh my God.” My heart stops dead as I see the truth, the breath stops in my throat. I feel like all my insides are shriveling up to the point where they don’t work anymore. “Oh my God, guys…” I dart my eyes between Katherine and Al, silently begging them to tell me that this is all a dream. A nightmare. “He’s in the hospital.”

  All my worst fears come to life, stripping my body of everything. A blackness swirls around me, I feel so dizzy I could easily fall. I have to cling onto Katherine to keep me standing. Her hand curls supportively around my arm but my weak knees still don’t want to lock into place. It’s like I’m made of jelly.

  “How can he be in the hospital? How can I not know?” Al sounds so stressed now. “That’s not possible.”

  “Shut up making it all about you. We need to just make this right now. We need to get to the hospital now.”

  Their argumentative words spin around my brain, I can barely hear any of them, all I can think about is the man I love in the hospital, all alone on a bed somewhere in varying states of illness.

  “I need to get to him,” I rasp out, trying to stop the yelling. “Please, take me there now.”

  33

  Logan

  “Look, guys, I honestly don’t need to be here.” I try to leap down off the bed but the doctors won’t let me move. “I’m fine, honestly. I don’t need to stay. I have to find my friend because he’s waiting for me.”

  “You came in here with memory issues. That’s something we take very seriously.”

  I almost laugh at the irony of this. “Trust me, I know about memory issues and this isn’t that. My fiancée has suffered from amnesia and I know this isn’t that. I think I was just disoriented that’s all. Please, let me go.”

  “No, you’re going to have to be examined by a neurologist before we let you anyway.”

  I throw my hands up in despair. This is not how I wanted my bachelor party to go. One minute I was playing laser tag, the next I’m out the back with someone who I assumed was an employee of the place, but now I’m not so sure, telling me that I’d fallen badly, bumped my head and needed to go to hospital. Because I was so out of it at the time I just went along with it, but now I regret it because I’m stuck here in hell.

  “Well, can I have my cell phone so I can at least call someone to come and get me? I was with my friend and he’ll be looking for me. Probably panicking because he doesn’t know where I am…”

  “I will get the doctor to come and speak to you soon, then we start calling people and sorting it out.”

  “Urgh.” I huff with frustration. This is so freaking annoying. This isn’t helping me at all. “For goodness sake!”

  I roll my eyes wishing that me and Al had been on the same team for laser tag. This never would have happened then. He wouldn’t have been somewhere else across that giant hall, he probably would have been the one to find me when I fell. Now I don’t even know where my cell is to call him. They are taking this much too seriously.

  The doctor slides out of the room and leaves me in a bitter and twisted puddle. I’m going to have to make a break for it, this is pointless. I know that I’m okay, I’m perfectly aware that I’m fine, I just need to get out. Even if that means leaving my phone behind, I don’t care. I want to get back to Al, to my party, I want to get back to celebrating my upcoming marriage. Soon, I’m going to have everything that I want.

  I practically tiptoe towards the door and I open it slowly. This is crazy, it’s like being in the middle of an action movie where I’m trying to find the cure to some virus unleashed or something equally wild. My heart thumps as I lean out and dart my eyes down the hallway. There isn’t anyone in sight so I take the next step and leave.

  I’m like a criminal wandering down towards the reception area, I feel like all eyes are on me and someone could jump out at me to pin me down at any time. I stuff my hands awkwardly into my pockets and keep my eyes fixed on my feet. The typical bleeping and whirring of a hospital surrounds me everywhere.

  “He is here.” I hear a familiar shrill voice echoing through the hallway. “He has to be. That’s his cell phone.”

  “Katherine?” I don’t want to get my hopes too high, I suppose it could just be someone who sounds like her, but I feel my spirits lift regardless. I pick up speed until I bolt around the corner. “Oh my God, it is you!”

  Tamara breaks out from behind Katherine and she tearfully flings her arms around me. “Are you okay?” she mumbles into my chest. “I’ve been so worried about you. Al said he lost you and I freaked.”

  I laugh mirthlessly at the thought of them all racing around to find me. “Ironically, I was brought here because I had a bump on the head and because I was disoriented they think I might have memory issues.”

  “What?” I should have planned for her to freak out about that. Tamara yanks backwards and she grips onto my face, staring at my eyes as if she’s looking for something there. “Are you sure that you don’t? I didn’t really realize it for a while, I just thought my brain was a bit fuzzy, it wasn’t until afterwards…”

  “It isn’t that,” I reassure her. “You fell down a big load of stairs. I just had a bump. It’s fine. Trust me, I shouldn’t have even come to the hospital. I wouldn’t have if someone hadn’t advised it…”

  “Someone who?” I shrug. “Well they must’ve been worried about you.”

  “Will you relax? I’m fine. All I want to do is get out of here now, I’m sick of hospitals.”

  “Do you want to get back to your bachelor party?” Al gives me a guilty look. “I feel like I’ve ruined it now.”

  “You haven’t ruined it. Not at all. It was awesome… but I don’t know if I can hack going for drinks. My head is hurt.” I look around at the people surrounding me. “Shall we do something the four of us instead?”

  “Yeah.” He looks surprisingly relieved. “That sounds great, actually. Let’s do that.”

  “I want to keep an eye on you any
way,” Tamara shoots back firmly. “I’m not convinced…”

  Oh God, the last thing I wanted to do was cause Tamara any stress before the wedding, I’ve been trying to keep the hell away from anything that will upset her, and now I’ve done something terrible to cause her endless anxiety. This is a bloody nightmare. How the hell am I going to fix it?

  “Right, well let me retrieve my cell phone then we can escape.”

  “Your phone is what saved you,” Tamara warns me. “We found it using that app.”

  “Ah! Well, I always recommend it to my clients anyway, but now I’ve got a story to accompany it. It is a useful thing. Let’s just hope that we don’t ever have to use it again!”

  It takes a while but I finally manage to get my phone back and discharge myself. I don’t think the doctor is too pleased about me leaving but he doesn’t have any choice. I’m off, it’s pointless.

  “I cannot believe you tried to give yourself amnesia,” Katherine jokes while punching me in the arm as we finally make our escape. “As if we haven’t had enough drama in our lives when it comes to that.”

  I shoot her a look. “Now you know better than anyone I’d never do that. I can’t believe they’d even think that was it. Honestly.” I shake my head in dismay. “I told them right away that I was fine.”

  “If you wanted attention, mate, you should have jus asked for it!” Al joins in. “Such a drama queen.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s all it was. I just didn’t think I was getting enough focus so I knocked my own head.”

  “I always knew you were like that, now I have full evidence. You’re a pain in the ass.”

  Tamara grips tightly onto my hand in a possessive manner. She doesn’t join in the joking and I can tell be the translucent color of her skin that she won’t be in the joking mood all night long. There’s only one thing for it.

  “I think that we should go back to ours, let the sitter free, she’s probably been there for longer than we planned anyway, and we should just have a night in there. Have a few drinks, that sort of thing.”

  “Yeah. Sounds good to me,” Katherine replies. “I’m tired now anyway. We should get a take away.”