by Nella Tyler
Dad sighed and rubbed his forehead with one hand. “Right, that. A horrible mess.”
I nodded. I loved Tyler, but this was a mess for sure. “I was wondering if you might trust the case to me.”
My father waved his hand dismissively. “Ah, I wouldn’t bother. The case was dead in the water anyway. It was better that Tyler was the one to deal with it—I don’t think you’d want that on your record.”
I couldn’t help but feel a ping of irritation to know for sure that Dad had thrown Tyler under the bus like this, especially if it was to protect me. Although, to be fair, I was the one who actually cared about his reputation in this office. “Well, it might be good to actually go to Houston and investigate the situation,” I offered. “Sometimes clients react well to face-to-face interactions, and it would at least show we cared.”
Dad frowned and tilted his head to the side slightly. “Hmmm. Perhaps. I could always send Tyler down… but he’ll probably blow off the appointment to go party.”
He would, and we both knew it.
“I could send you down there for a bit,” Dad said. “But I can’t lose you for an entire week again. I’ll need you to go down there, get business done, and come back.”
My heart almost exploded out of my chest. I had the chance, now, to see Briella again. “Of course. Thank you, it’ll be…. it’ll be good.” I almost wanted to tell him about Briella and impart some of my life to him. I knew better than to trust my father with personal problems, though. He didn’t want to bother with his kids’ emotions.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Dad mused. “You’ve got good instincts, Dexter. That will serve you well in the future.”
Chapter 24
Briella
The weekend without any clients felt painful. I wandered around my house and looked at apartments on my tablet without wanting to go out. Nina came by one afternoon to share some coffee and tell me about a one-night stand she’d had, and we both laughed at the irony that she hadn’t gotten laid in Florida but found someone back home. Today I had work, but not for a little while longer, and I made tea and eventually settled for curling up on the couch to watch some TV.
Before I could get bored with TV, my phone went off. When I saw that it was Dexter, I was all too eager to hit ‘Accept’ and pause the TV. “Hey!”
“Hey, Briella. How are you?”
His voice made me feel a little bit better. I smiled and settled into the couch a bit more. “I’m doing all right. I’m watching some ghost hunting show.”
“Ghostbusters?”
“No, like real ghost hunters.”
“Did they catch anything?”
“It’s not real!” I laughed. “I don’t know if they even believe it’s real. But I watch it anyway. I don’t have work for a few more hours. How have you been?”
“Busy,” he said. “I think they really missed me while I was gone for the week.”
“You’re a good worker,” I presumed. It was a safe assumption to make. When he put his mind to his work, he did very well, and I expected that his absence from a company would result in quite a problem. “In any case, I miss you more than they could.” I wished I hadn’t said that. It was horribly corny, for one, and for another, it was unlikely that I hadn’t just come off as desperately trying to get his attention back.
“I miss you, too,” he said. I was relieved he felt the same way. I wasn’t honestly sure why he’d called. He couldn’t get sex from me from where he was, so he had to care genuinely about me and want to stay in touch.
I’d set a terribly low bar for him in my mind. I shook my head and said, “I should let you get back to work.”
“Yeah, but I wanted to call and say hi. I might call you later, if that’s okay.”
“Of course.” I didn’t know when my clients would be done, but I usually finished up around evening. I thought about maybe talking to Nina about all of this and seeing what she thought.
We hung up, and I got ready for work. I didn’t really want to go deal with a set of newlyweds who wanted everything to be perfect. It was hard not to be resentful in my situation. And that was strange—when I’d been in a relationship with Jason, I wasn’t resentful. I was hopeful. Now, though, it felt like a knife to the face to hear people going on and on about their loved one, their dream wedding.
I still liked my job, though. I liked to plan and organize and make everything just right. Besides, I didn’t have the option to start hating my job now. I needed to get an apartment of my own, and none of the ones I had my eye on were anything close to what I could afford. I needed to save up for a few more months as it was; dropping my job and picking up a job at a grocery store would be a dead end for me.
I thought about getting something to eat on the way out since I was early, but I saw my dad’s car pull into the driveway. He walked in the door as I started to walk out, and I gave him a hug. “Hey, Dad!”
“Hey, sweetheart.” Dad returned my hug and set his briefcase down by the door. “What have you been up to today?”
“Just sitting around for the most part. I talked to Dexter.” I wasn’t ever sure what to disclose with Dad when it came to Dexter. I didn’t want to tell him too much and have him think that I was an idiot, but I couldn’t bear to tell him nothing.
“Oh, did you? How did that go?”
“Pretty well. It was a quick call, since he was at work. He said he’d call me back later,” I said. “I hope he does. I miss him.”
“I’m glad to see you excited about a boy again,” Dad said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m all worried like dads are supposed to be. But I know you learn from the things that happen to you.”
“I just don’t want you to think that I’m stupid for trusting anyone,” I admitted.
“Nonsense. I think it’s brave. And as long as he’s treating my Briella well, that’s all that matters to me,” Dad said. He kissed the top of my head and went on his way.
Delighted with my father’s acceptance of my situation and generally optimistic about the way my day had been going so far, I felt a little bit happier than I had when I woke up when I got in the car to go to work. I was meeting this particular couple in a café that they had met in, and when I arrived, I could tell that things were a little strange.
For starters, they didn’t seem to want to talk to one another.
“Hey, so were you thinking of an indoor or an outdoor venue?” I asked, sitting down with a notebook and my tablet when introductions had been made.
He glanced at her, and she shrugged. “It’s whatever. I mean, either works.”
He looked up and nodded. “Whichever, then.”
I couldn’t believe the apathy concerning the venue. I knew exactly where I wanted to get married, and it blew my mind to think that anyone could go to the effort to hire a wedding planner and then not care what they planned. It was a waste of money, honestly—but then, I wasn’t about to tell them that. “Right, so we can get you an outdoor venue, but it might be hot. It’s about to be summer, after all.”
“Indoor, then,” she said.
“Sure,” he echoed.
“Okay…” ‘Indoor’ didn’t really narrow it down. “Were you thinking about a chapel, a church, some kind of museum…?”
He looked back to her, and they both shrugged.
They didn’t seem to want to talk to each other. I had absolutely no place being anything of a marriage counselor, but I could sense tension here, and I knew a bit about diffusing tension from years of being friends with Nina.
“A lot of times, people worry about the photographability of certain places,” I said. “Those pictures will last forever, so it’s good to get a venue that provides good lighting.”
She perked up a little bit. “I hadn’t considered that.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, it’s one of the biggest days of your life. Maybe it’s stressful as hell, but if you don’t do everything you can to make it worth something, you’ll regret spending it stressed and upset.”
; He sighed. “We have been stressed. It’s all so expensive, you know? And we’re trying to get our lives started out.”
“That can be hard,” I agreed. I certainly understood the financial struggle. “It’s just good to remember that you’ve got each other. That’s why you’re getting married, yeah?”
She smiled up at him. “Yeah, that is. Doesn’t matter if his parents hate me.”
“They don’t hate you, Marcie. Oh, you’re joking.” He laughed, and the tension in the room started to lift a bit.
“All right, so are you looking for a church or somewhere else?”
“Churches are so cliché! I want a museum.”
“Marcie.”
The meeting went on like that for a while, and we got some real progress made. I delighted in the fact that I’d helped to relieve some of their stress. It could be painful, not knowing what was coming in the future. I didn’t know what my future held for me, either, but passivity wasn’t the answer. If I didn’t care, I’d make mistakes, or at least I’d look back and wished that I’d put more effort into things.
As I started going back to my car, I saw a man standing next to my car. I thought at first that it might be one of the clients, but they’d left a few moments ago. When I drew nearer, I could have sworn that it looked a little like Dexter.
It couldn’t be Dexter, though. Could it?
Chapter 25
Dexter
I saw Briella come out of the café and felt a little better. I hadn’t been sure I was at the right place, since I didn’t know what Briella’s car looked like, and I wasn’t about to go stalking her home to figure out when she left and when she’d be back. Nina told me that she’d met some clients at the café here, though, so this is where I’d chosen to wait.
She walked up to the car and my heart lifted. It felt so good to see her again, just to see her, and we hadn’t even said anything to one another. Her skin glowed in the afternoon sun, and her eyes lit up when she recognized me. I had been afraid that she might cringe, hide, run away, and wish that I hadn’t expected us to last. I’d still worried she wanted some sort of week-long fling, and that the phone calls were just out of pity.
Instead, she ran up to me and threw her arms around me. I caught her and held her close for a few seconds, pressing my lips to the top of her head. We were hardly in love, and I didn’t consider this relationship exclusive or serious—but then, I took it seriously. I didn’t know what I felt with Briella. That was part of the reason why she drove me so crazy.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Briella asked. Her smile told me that she wasn’t angry. “Also, hello.”
“Hello,” I returned, matching her smile with one of my own. I hadn’t smiled so genuinely in… since the last time I’d seen her. The stresses of corporate life felt like they might very melt off my skin in this place with her. “I came back on business. My brother fucked up some business agreement, and I thought I’d come to make sure everything went according to plan.”
She looked a little suspicious, and she raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t have anything at all to do with coming to see me?”
“Not a bit,” I teased back, and she looked delighted.
“How long do you have to talk?” she asked.
“I was going to see if you wouldn’t mind coming to dinner,” I said. “I know it’s short notice and you just got off work, but…”
“I would love dinner,” was the quick and eager reply. I grinned ear to ear.
When we got in her car, I could instantly feel how the roles had reversed. Where I’d shown her around in Florida and taken her nice places, I didn’t really know Houston very well, and couldn’t do the same kind of showboating that I’d done then. I was rather at her mercy to pick someplace she liked.
“What are you in the mood for?”
I had a few different answers for that, only a few of them appropriate, and I said, “Surprise me. I’m up for anything.”
She pursed her lips and sat back in her seat for a moment, thumbs tapping at the wheel. Then she sat up and said, “I know where we can go.”
Instead of being nervous at the potential of getting dumped somewhere, I knew that she had somewhere in mind.
We got to a pleasant, small restaurant on the outskirts of Houston. It wasn’t horribly upscale, but it wasn’t a sports bar, either. We didn’t have reservations, nor did we seem to need them; the hostess walked us to an available table without any wait time, and I found myself pleasantly surprised at how smoothly things were going.
And I couldn’t shake the fact that I’d actually managed to find her. I was actually seeing Briella here in Houston. I’d almost gotten accustomed to the idea of never seeing her again, and now, she sat across the table from me, smiling. If it weren’t for all the effort I’d gone to in order to get here, I’d think that fate had us inevitably linked or something.
“How has it been at work?” I asked.
Briella waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, you know. Same old. I had to give a pep talk to a couple today that didn’t seem to want to get married and didn’t care about their wedding at all.”
“Kinda strange to hire a wedding planner if you don’t care how it goes.”
“Right? It turned out they were worried about the cost.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“It was going to be hugely expensive, and they couldn’t see past that to have a good time,” Briella explained. “The way I see it, if it’s going to put you in huge amounts of debt no matter what you do, you might as well make a hell of a night out of it. And that’s what I’m there for. They’re going to have it in a museum.”
“A museum? I’ve never heard of anyone getting married in a museum.”
“The Fine Arts museum lets people do it. It’s not very expensive, either, if you hire your own caterer. And they have a friend who will do it for really cheap.” Briella smiled. “It all came together pretty quickly once they stopped being all upset about it.”
“Hard not to be,” I reasoned. “But I’m glad you could help them. They’re lucky they had you to give them a pep talk.”
“Oh, well, it’s my job.”
“No, your job is to organize weddings. You could have just marked down whatever you wanted and gone with that. You’d still get paid. But you’re considerate, and so you cared,” I said. I could only imagine how someone like my father would handle it. They’d take as much money from the client as they could and leave them even more in debt than they thought, all while thinking everything had been entirely necessary. Businesses could be real leeches on unsuspecting clients.
“Well, I don’t have anything to gain from being a vulture,” Briella pointed out. “I just plan the wedding. I don’t earn commission off cakes or catering or anything. So it doesn’t really matter if they choose the most upscale caterer or their friend’s barbecue joint.”
“You don’t make commission?”
“No, wedding planners usually don’t. We’ll just get a fee per appointment and service we arrange, plus extra if they want us at the wedding managing things on the day of, which is usually best. If anything is going to go wrong, it’ll go wrong the day of. If someone’s budget is short, though, I’ll usually just be on standby with my phone at home in case something goes wrong.” Briella took a drink of water.
“Do things often go wrong?”
Briella laughed. “Once I had a cake delivery for a bachelorette party show up to a wedding. It was a penis cake.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“Yeah. It was a nightmare. The mother of the bride was… nearly inconsolable. A few well-placed phone calls and the issue was all sorted, but Jesus, that was a hilarious call to get. ‘There’s a dick cake in my banquet hall!’”
I laughed heartily. The prospect of something like that happening, especially in the upper circles of society, was too funny to bear. I could only imagine someone like my father or a coworker getting something like that. “Where I’m from, that cake delivery man would
be ruined forever.”
“Not over one wrong delivery!”
“You bet. These people all think that they and their events are the most important things to ever happen,” I reminded her. “The delivery man might run a million perfect stops, but if he fucks up at their event, that’s the end of his career, if they’ve got any say in it.”
“Ruthless.”
“Evil,” I corrected. “I think it’s evil, anyway.”
“You’re not like them,” she observed. “How’d you end up different than them? You were born into wealth.”
A statement, not a question, and I wondered how she knew. I supposed it was pretty easy to find out anything about my past life with a quick internet search. “I don’t know. I think probably my brother. He always had a lot to say about the human condition and how people ought to behave. You’re not born into greatness, even if you are born into wealth. You still have to earn respect and not treat people like shit.”
“I always wondered why rich people tended to think of themselves as royalty,” Briella mused.
“Probably because they used to be considered royalty. In medieval England, anyway,” I thought aloud. “Wealth was supposed to come from God, so if you’re rich, it was because God made you rich. If you were poor, same thing. You deserved your class. Which is bullshit, of course, and we know that now.”
Briella looked at me over the top of her glass and smiled. “Maybe. I like the idea that I’ve gotten myself involved with royalty. Does that make me a horrible snob?”
I smiled and couldn’t help but feel a little bashful at her remark. I was far from royalty of any sort. My family wasn’t even in the top 10 richest families—top 50, sure, but still. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, never one to refuse to tease back. “But it would make you a princess.”
It was unbearably easy to talk to her. So much so that I dreaded having to talk to anyone else and pretend to enjoy the conversation. When we finished dinner, I walked her outside, and then realized that I needed to call a cab—I wasn’t used to having a car.
