by Sierra Rose
“I’m not sure yet.” She shrugged, dialing in her navigation to a nearby hotel. “Depends on how long it will take.”
I cast a nervous glance back at my two friends, keeping tabs on me from the patio. “How long what will take?”
“Oh honey,” she laughed as the car went flying backward. “I’m here to help you plan your wedding!”
Chapter 7
“This has gotten completely out of control!”
I narrowly avoided barreling straight through a kindergarten field trip. Their teacher pulled them to safety as I apologized profusely. Marcus followed along after me, smiling pleasantly and making my excuses.
“It’s all right kids,” he said comfortingly. “This is what happens when grownups drink too much coffee.” I continued walking down the dirt path, my mind flooded with thoughts.
We were at the park. Well, as close to a park as Los Angeles could come. It was a small, grassy clearing chock full of picnic tables, towering palm trees, and people discreetly edging each other out to claim their piece of the tiny nature preserve amidst the big city. My mother had gone straight back to the hotel to get some beauty sleep before our first “big day of planning.” Amanda had gone out for a date with Barry—promising that she was only a phone call away and that she’d be home right after their movie for moral support.
It was for the best. I needed some time with Marcus anyway. I hadn’t anticipated my mother moving in to help pick out tulips and doilies. We’d need to rethink our game plan.
“We will get through this,” Marcus assured me gently, guiding me to an astonishingly vacant picnic table right before it could get snatched up by a group of what looked like mimes.
I shot them a wary glance before shaking my head and rubbing my tired eyes. “You don’t know my mother. You have no idea what we’re in for.”
“I liked Sharon,” he said cheerfully. “She hugs well.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “She hugs well? What exactly does that mean?”
He shrugged and gazed out over the open field, smiling faintly at the rabid dogs dragging their owners through the grass as they chased after long-lost tennis balls. “She squeezed the life out of me—I loved it. She reminded me of my own mom.”
“Aww.”
I swung my hair down like a sheet between us, so I could watch him with relative anonymity. He was handling his hangover well. The eyes were slightly puffy but clear—the dark circles beneath them fading quickly back to his usual golden hue. He’d stuck to water at breakfast, as had the rest of us, but he didn’t display any of the normal “night after the party” tells. His hands were steady. The smile, genuine. Any and all wincing kept to a strict minimum.
Then again, that was his shtick. Marcus “handled” things. Who knew how he was really feeling? Was the smile genuine or had he grown up learning to pose?
We were sitting just twenty minutes from the facility where his mother had slowly wasted away. We’d just come from brunch with the unsuspecting “mother-in-law.”
But you’d never know it from his steady hands.
No, Marcus Taylor was not a man to show weakness. But perhaps it was possible to spot his damage through his strengths. I thought of the Diabetes Fundraiser Gala, secretly funding Westwood Hospice, even Mrs. Diaz’s funeral arrangements. For a man whose job it was to advertise and capitalize on every little thing, it was the things he kept quiet that I found most endearing. It was through those silent sacrifices that you saw the real Marcus Taylor.
And I had to admit…I was really liking him. A lot.
At the thought of the karaoke, I snorted in sudden laughter. He looked over at me in surprise, and I shook my head. “I can’t believe you did that last night. You were brilliant.”
He flashed a cocky grin. “Impressed, were you?”
“More than a little.”
“Well, I hope you enjoyed it.” He laughed and shook his head. “That was a one night only show. For your eyes only.”
I giggled as I pictured him grinding up against the mic stand. I highly doubted the little Korean club had ever seen such action. “Oh, honey, I’m afraid it wasn’t just my eyes that got a piece of you. I’d be highly surprised if your little performance wasn’t on YouTube already.”
For the first time, he looked vaguely alarmed, as if the thought had never even occurred to him. “No, it wouldn’t be…would it? Just for that? I didn’t think anyone recognized me.”
I laughed again. “Not because you’re Marcus Taylor.” Struck by a sudden suspicion, I went a bit further, testing my luck. “Because of the little striptease you did.”
His eyes blurred nervously as he tried to remember. “I never…no, I didn’t.” But even as he said the words, the color drained from his face, leaving him pale in the bright sun. “…did I?”
Ah—so the man of steel had a crack after all. No one can drink that much Jack Daniels and get away unscathed.
“Marcus…you weren’t wearing pants by the time you got off the stage. Don’t you…you don’t remember that?”
There was a split-second pause before the explosion.
“No!” He jumped off the bench and hovered in front of me, manically running his hands back through his hair. “What the hell are you talking about?!”
My face grew as pale as his as I dropped my eyes to my lap. “Oh my gosh,” I murmured, “I’m so sorry—I thought the whole thing was planned ahead of time with the club.”
“You thought what was planned ahead of time? What exactly happened last night, Rebecca?”
My eyes roved frantically back and forth between his. “Well, at first it was just a song. You started with, um, ‘The Pursuit of Happiness,’ I think. But after that bunch of sorority girls bought you a round or two of Jameson, you let loose with some Aerosmith.”
“…what?”
“Then came Nicki Minaj—”
“…I would never.”
“I think that’s when the pants came off. And damn, baby, you looked fine.” I bit my lip anxiously and grabbed both his hands. “Marcus, I never would have let you go through with it, but she said she was of age—”
“What? Who said!” He pulled his hands away in horror. “Fuck—you said this is probably already online?!”
“If the health inspector hadn’t burst in to shut it all down, there’s no telling how far you might have gone.”
“The health—” He sucked in a quick breath and ran his hands slowly over his face, his eyes clearing with dawning comprehension.
What? He wasn’t the only one who could act.
I burst out in a fit of giggles that escalated to shrill shrieks as he wrapped his arms around me.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I gasped, pushing at his arms and struggling for freedom. “But in all truth—there was a bit of gyrating up there on the stage. You could have a very successful career as a stripper.”
“I’ll let my people know,” he fumed, refusing to release me.
“Hey,” I squirmed around to face him, breathless and smiling, “you can’t kill me in a park. Other places—yes. A park—no. It’s basic criminology.”
“Fine.” With a wry grin, he suddenly loosened his arms. Without the support, I fell backward off the bench, landing with a disgruntled oof in the dirt. “Later then.”
I shot a furious hand into the air, demanding he help me up. But he ignored me, dusting himself off and heading nonchalantly back down the path.
“She said she was of age…” He shook his head with a chuckle.
We wandered for another hour or so, debating the best ways to handle the stresses and strains of both the media and my mother. It was a looping discussion that, in the end, landed us right where we’d started.
“Bex!”
I looked behind me just as I was tackled to the ground with the force of a rocket. All the breath shot out of my body with a defeated whoosh, but no sooner had I gotten my bearings than I was being spun through the air—twirling round and round.
“Max!�
�� I said with a huge smile.
There was a deep laugh as I was dropped to the ground. The world tilted for a second, but then I looked up in delight into the smiling face of my big brother.
“Max!” I cried, giving him a bear hug. “Marcus, this is my brother, Max.”
Max turned to Marcus, offering his hand. “Max White, nice to meet you.”
“Of course, Rebecca’s brother!” He shook his hand. “I’m Marcus Taylor. Really, the pleasure’s all mine.”
Max smiled politely, but the second they finished shaking, he jumped forward and sucker-punched my poor fake fiancé right in the stomach.
“Max!” I shrieked, rushing in as Marcus doubled over.
Max’s steady smile never faltered. “That’s for proposing to my little sister without running it by me first.”
“No,” Marcus waved me off as he straightened up with a gasp, “that’s fair.” He glanced over at Max again, wary, but with a glimmer of undeniable respect. “My apologies.”
Max shrugged. “We’re square.”
I would never understand the mystical world of men.
I glared at my brother, then touched Marcus’s back. “Are you okay, honey?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I deserved that.”
“I’m sorry, sis,” Max said.
“You can tell Marcus that.”
He looked at Marcus. “I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
“So what are you doing here?” I looked at my brother. “And how did you even know where to find me?”
“Amanda told me,” he said simply. “I called her when your phone sent me to voicemail.”
I glanced down at my muted cell, still full of my mom’s messages, as my face grew ominously dark. “Oh—well that’s because our dear mother is in town. Max, you would not believe the lunch we just had—”
His booming laugh cut me short. “Why do you think I timed my arrival when I did? I could do without the egg-white omelets and passive aggressive criticism, thanks.”
Marcus grinned. I could tell he was warming to him already.
“Well…” I wondered where to begin. Never once when I’d embarked upon this epic deception did I think I’d have to be deceiving my darling brother as well. “Well, then why are you even here at all?”
The words came out much sharper than I’d intended, and both Max and Marcus laughed.
“Welcoming as ever, Bex.” Max grinned. “I’ll have you know that our mother summoned me to town. Said I needed to be here for the ‘wedding wine-tasting.’ Said I was disowned if I missed it.”
“The what?” I blanched. “What…is that?”
“Well, Becca,” he shoved me playfully, “sometimes different wines taste different to different people. Because of this, before a big event, people will sample from several varieties to choose—”
“I know what it is, genius,” I said, smacking him. “Why on earth do you think we’re having one?”
He glanced quickly between Marcus and me as my now un-muted phone rang at full volume. Without having to look at the Caller ID, he raised his eyebrows.
“Do you want to be the one to tell mom no?”
Chapter 8
Let me tell you, there are few worse things to do with a hangover than go to a wine tasting. The place my mom picked was an exclusive club up in the hills behind Valencia. A place that, when I mentioned its name to Marcus, he gave a distracted nod and said, “Oh, yeah” so it must be good. The two of us were joined by Amanda and Max, and together, we made our way cautiously inside to see what trouble my mother could have possibly brewed up in the last two hours. As it turned out…there was a lot the woman could do when she put her mind to it.
“Darlings! There you are!”
The prospect of an impending wedding had changed my mother. Long gone was the busy, but laid-back woman who always stuck to the edge of a party and preferred to spend time alone. The Sharon Wood rushing toward me now was a one-woman wrecking ball, snapping her fingers and directing a swarm of waiters with the precision of an army general. I think she may have even developed a slight accent.
I cast a terrified sideways glance at Max, but he just closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Hey, Mom,” I said nervously when she reached me, staring past her to an elaborate table set with enough bottles of booze to sate Charles Bukowski. “Whatcha doing?”
“Well, it’s funny you should ask.” She steered both Marcus and me by the elbows to the table and manhandled us down with a cheery smile. “I was looking through some of those bridal magazines on the plane.” She turned with a conspiratorial whisper to Marcus. “Which just by itself is a miracle because you should have seen some of the misfits Becca brought home before she settled on you.”
I closed my eyes with a grimace. “Mom…”
“Anyway, I realized that planning a wedding is a bit like planning an invasion. There’s just so much to do—so many little details—you wouldn’t believe!”
I glanced around the table with a sinking feeling in my stomach. “This…certainly feels like an invasion…”
She was impervious to my sarcasm. “So I thought that while I was down here, we might as well knock one or two things off our list. And when I told the club it was for Marcus Taylor’s wedding,” she glanced at him indulgently, “well, they cleared the day for us. For a price, that is.”
Marcus blinked at her intense stare, not quite following, before standing up with a sudden smile. “Why don’t I take care of that?” I grabbed onto the side of his coat as he stood up, but he casually wrenched himself free. “I’ll just be a minute, pumpkin. You enjoy some time with your mom.”
I was going to kill him.
Luckily, Amanda and Max swooped into the rescue, each already clutching a large goblet full of something mind-numbing and red. While Max took one look at mom and started discreetly gulping his down, Amanda took one sip and turned a delicate shade of green, holding a hand gingerly to her stomach. Wine and yesterday’s tequila didn’t mix.
“Sit down! Sit down, you two!” Mom beckoned them to the table and started instantly scribbling notes on the different vintages as she waited impatiently for Marcus to return.
Max shook his head with a grin. “Oh—noticed us have you? Noticed your other child? Your first-born son? Just flown in from New York because his mother requested his presence?”
She didn’t lift her eyes from her notes—a frightening, manic glow lighting her face. “It’s good to see you, Max. Sit down and have a glass of that one—tell me what you think.”
He rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Sharon, your warmth astounds me.”
She looked up sharply when he called her by name. “You know I hate that, Maxwell, take care to mind your manners. Now—drink up! You’re here for a reason.”
“My sister’s getting married?”
“…sometime in the far-off future…” I tried to interject.
Mom was all business. “We need your expertise. I know how much you love to go to all those wine tastings.”
“If you want me to put my talents to good use, I will.”
“Tell me what you think of the Bordeaux.”
Amanda and I shared a quick look and buried our heads in an informational packet to keep from laughing. Mother had never approved of Max’s profession, despite the fact that his work was featured in some of the most prominent galleries in New York. In her mind, painter didn’t equate to grandchildren. And if she wasn’t going to get those, she might as well write off the whole lot of them as a bunch of mindless degenerates who got off huffing acrylics and glue.
“Fine,” Max replied with a strained calm. I had to commend him. He handled her with a patient grace she often times didn’t deserve. “The Bordeaux tastes like red wine.”
“Seriously,” Amanda muttered, her eyes widening as she read through the subtle differences in what we’d be sampling, “I can tell them apart by color, but that’s about it. Tell me, do we really want something to tast
e woodsy?” She pointed, and I leaned over with a frown.
“That’s usually paired with heavy meats and root vegetables.” Marcus returned to the table and sat down gracefully in his chair. “I don’t think either of those are something Becca would want.” He flashed me a sparkling grin. “Right, honey?”
I cleared my throat delicately. “Actually, when I pictured my wedding as a child, I always imagined root vegetables.”
Max snorted, and my mother kicked me under the table.
“Take this seriously,” she hissed. “A wedding like yours isn’t going to be a personal affair; it’s going to be a social event. Certain niceties have to be followed.”
“Which is why I appreciate you coming down, Sharon,” Marcus cut in neatly. “I know both Becca and I feel a little over our heads here. We’re not exactly…wedding people, if you know what I mean. We’re more excited about the marriage.” He laced his fingers through mine and placed our joint hands on the table. “I was actually thinking of hiring a professional event coordinator to handle the bulk of it…” My mother’s face paled in despair, and he was quick to elaborate. “…to help you with the logistics.”
She warmed immediately. “Oh, well that sounds lovely. It will be nice to have a bit of help. Someone to do the legwork so I can take more of a ‘big picture’ position.”
I bit the inside of my cheeks to keep from laughing. If I’d known she’d react like this, I would have gotten fake engaged much sooner. It was a freaking riot!
The rest of the tasting was an exercise in diversionary tactics. Every time my mother would come at me with a hard-hitting question, Marcus would find a way to refocus her on something else, dodging the more difficult subjects with strategic pauses and thoughtful delays. I imagined it was the same technique he used in board rooms and stockholders meetings. His ability to charmingly manipulate the room was truly astounding, and for the first time since this whole proposal thing happened, I felt like maybe—just maybe—we had a shot at pulling it off.
That is…until my prying mother made a fatal mistake.
It was a simple enough question, one that I should have anticipated and headed off at the pass. But I was busy focusing on not throwing up all the wine in light of my hangover, and it caught the both of us completely off guard.
