by J. A. Huss
Nah. She has to be here somewhere.
“Hey,” Katja says, coming up to me as I make my way around the pool, heading towards Rory so I can say hi to my sisters, Sasha, Kate, and Wendy.
“Hey,” I say to Katja. I don’t know her very well. I wasn’t part of all that shit that went down with Oliver last year. I was too worried about making sure no one got wind of Rory and our little island paradise.
“Have you seen Oliver?” she asks.
“No, why?”
“I was just with him like twenty minutes ago when everyone got here, but now he’s disappeared.”
“I’m sure he’s here somewhere, Kat. Just lost in the crowd.”
“OK.” She sighs. “I’ll keep looking.”
Katja walks off, looking a little bit lost in the crowd of mostly strangers. She’s met the Shrikes—hell, she eats Sunday dinner over there every weekend back home. But it’s gotta be intimidating, right? All those people in one place. So tight. So close. So connected.
And she has no one but Oliver.
I feel bad for her.
I think Rory does too because she’s been going out of her way to make Kat happy, even altering her dress for her last-minute to make her wedding day perfect.
I look around for Oliver again because two Shrikes missing is probably not a good thing. I see Nolan and his mother talking with the Rockwells. Pastor Rockwell looks like he’s giving the infamous Mr. Romantic the third degree about his granddaughter, while Mrs. Rockwell holds Bronte and showers her with kisses. Poor Nolan. No one ever cuts that guy a break. Not even me.
I see Mysterious and Mariel. Kat’s over there now, probably asking the two of them if they’ve seen Oliver. Mysterious looks oddly… uncomfortable. He catches my eye and shakes his head like something’s about to go really wrong. I decide to head over there and investigate, when a hand slaps over my mouth and I’m pulled into the bushes.
“I need to have a word with you, Five Aston,” Oliver hisses in my ear as he throws me aside.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask, stumbling. When I turn around, straightening out my shirt, I find a very pissed-off Oliver Shrike and his equally terrifying sister, Ariel. They both stand, feet shoulder-width apart, arms crossed, and faces that tell me… yup. This is the freak-out I’ve been expecting all along.
“You stole my fucking sister,” Oliver says.
“Mine too,” Ariel adds.
“And if you think we’re gonna let you keep her prisoner out here in the middle of the ocean one more second, you’re sadly mistaken, brother.”
I actually laugh. “What the fuck are you talking about? Keep her prisoner?”
“Don’t play with us,” Ariel says. “We know you talked Rory into doing this. She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to be home with us. And that’s why she’s got her girls taking that test.”
“Our girls,” I correct her, my temper rising.
“She wants out, Five. And you won’t let her leave,” Oliver says.
“And we’re taking her with us,” Ariel snarls. “I don’t even think she should marry you tomorrow.”
“Whoa,” I say, hands up. “What the hell are you two talking about? Of course Rory wants to be here.”
“No,” Oliver says, shaking his head. “She doesn’t, Five. And it makes me sick to think you’ve been holding her here with my nieces all these years.”
I start to explain that’s not how it is when Ariel takes a swing at me and hits me right in the fucking eye.
“Bastard!” she yells.
And then Ollie is there, pulling her off me, and I elbow him—not entirely by accident—right in the lip.
“What the fuck, Ariel?” Rory is there, then when I look over my shoulder, everyone is there. Crowding in to see us. “What’s going on here?”
I dab a finger on my eye and find it already swelling up. “They think I’m keeping you prisoner out here,” I say.
“He’s not keeping me prisoner, Ollie,” Rory says. And then she glares at Ariel. “And I cannot believe you hit him in the eye the night before our wedding. What’s wrong with you two?”
“Us?” Ariel says. She’s flaming mad. No one wants to mess with Ariel Shrike when she’s angry.
Except Princess Shrike. Because she stands in front of me and points her finger at both their faces. “Let me make this very clear. I get that you’re my siblings, but this man,” she says, tugging on my arm, “and these girls,” she says, motioning to our princesses, “they’re my family now. And you do not get to come into my house and start shit with my family.”
“Do you really want to be here?” Oliver says. “Because if you ask me, a woman who wants to be here wouldn’t set up secret tests for her children so she can use school as a reason to get them off the island.”
The four of us just stand there looking at each other.
But it’s the silence that lingers in the aftermath of his accusation that kills me.
I turn to Rory. “Is that why you did it?” I ask. “To… escape?”
“No,” Rory says. “They have no idea what they’re talking about.”
“Then why did you keep it secret?” I ask. My heart might be breaking right now. If she’s felt this way… how long has she felt this way?
“Five…” She stops. Like she’s not sure what to say.
“Rory,” I say. “Do you think I’m keeping you prisoner?”
“Yes,” Oliver says.
But Rory turns on him, furious. “Shut your mouth, Oliver Shrike. Right now.” She’s pointing her finger at him and it’s shaking with anger. “You have no idea what we’ve dealt with over the past twenty years. None. Do you remember that day at Brown when you thought you saw me in a crowd?”
“That was you!” Ollie says. “I knew that was you!”
“Yes, it was me. I was there because we got word that something might be going down and you might be involved. And even though Five said no, I did it anyway. I risked my entire family to try to stop it. And do you know why I did that?”
Oliver shrugs. “Because you’re a fucking Shrike and you just take what you want?”
I hear her father laughing somewhere behind us.
“Yes,” Rory says. “That’s exactly why. And do you know what it taught me when all that bullshit was over?” This time she’s talking to Ariel, who just stands there and has the good sense to say nothing. You really do not want to mess with my wife when she’s mad. “It taught me,” Rory continues, “that this man,” she says, grabbing my arm in a tight hold, “knows what the fuck he’s talking about when it comes to keeping us safe. That’s why I’m here, Oliver. Not because someone is forcing me. So you’d better back the fuck off and keep your face out of my business.”
Everyone. Is. Silent.
And I have to cup a hand over my mouth to stop the laugh.
That’s when Rory turns on me. “And you,” she says, her shaking finger pointed in my direction now. “Paxton told me what you were planning. How could you even think of sabotaging those tests?”
I find Paxton in the crowd and glare at him.
“Don’t blame him,” Rory says. “He’s not the idiot who came up with that stupid idea. He’s the one who had the good sense not to go through with it.”
I look at Oliver, who is shaking his head at me. I appreciate the warning, but I don’t need it. I know Rory Shrike better than anyone on this planet and when she’s fed up, she’s fed up. We’re all on her shit list tonight.
“I just…” I sigh. Long and loud. “I just don’t want us to leave. I love it here. We’ve had a good, safe life, Rory.”
“Life isn’t always about being safe, Five.” Her voice is soft now. And she moves in close to me and takes my face in her hands. “I miss my family. I want to see my mountains again. I want to swim in my mom and dad’s pool and have sex with you in the grotto like we did that one day. I want to see the river again. Listen to it at night. And have coffee at the theater. I want to walk downtown and know that on ev
ery corner, there’s someone nearby I can trust. Talk to. Have fun with. Cry with. I need my people back, Five. And our girls going off to school isn’t an excuse to make you see things my way. It’s just… what’s best now.”
I deflate. Just… deflate. “I didn’t know,” I say, looking at Oliver and Ariel. “I didn’t know she wanted this so bad.”
“Five,” Rory says, still holding my face. “I haven’t been pretending to love it here. I do love it here. But I’m allowed to love more than one place in the world. We did it,” she says. “We won. And now we need to move on and win at something else.”
I’m just about to respond when the little piglet shoots out from the bushes squealing. The girls have him dressed up in a pink ruffle tutu, and everyone takes this moment to laugh at our perfectly timed comic relief.
“What the hell?” Rory says, looking at the ass-end of the piglet as it scurries away.
“I’ll have to tell you all about it later,” I say.
And that’s when we all turn our heads to stare at the jungle where the pig just emerged. There’s a thundering sound, like a herd of horses galloping across the prairie.
A pack of wild pigs bursts through the foliage and swine hell breaks loose.
“Run!” Nolan says. “Run!”
The whole crowd squeals with the pigs as they trample the party. Trays of seafood go flying as the pigs root through everything. Louise starts hurling mangos and bananas at them. Ethan jumps up on a table and begins throwing lobster claws, while Mathilda picks up the piglet and takes off. I’m dragging Rory to the other side of the pool to get away from the stampede, yelling “Get over here, you crazy shits!” to my kids.
Louise and Mathilda are wild with laughter and intent on protecting their new pet.
That’s when Nolan gets hit in the head with a mango, and I look just in time to see Louise laughing at her bad aim.
Then, as if things couldn’t get any wilder, a bunch of spotlights appear in the sky and the sound of helicopters fills our ears.
“What the hell is happening?” Rory yells over the spinning rotors.
I just shake my head. I have no clue.
Then a guy I’ve seen in movies, but never in person, bursts into the pool area, yelling, “Shit! Shit! Shit! Hide! It’s the paparazzi! They followed me here!”
The pigs, scared away by Louise and Ethan hurling food at them, or maybe the deafening sound of a swarm of helicopters as they circle around our island sanctuary, leave as quick as they came and…
Katja appears wearing a tattered wedding dress, a kitten hanging off it, crying her eyes out as she tries to swat it away. “The attacked me!” she wails. “They attacked me and they ruined my dress!”
Chapter Twenty-Six - MAC
Everything that happens next is a blur. Oliver rushes to Katja, trying to understand why she’s got a pack of kittens running around her feet. Mariel is yelling, “Who the hell invited you to this wedding?” to Charles Vance, who just stands there stunned in his ten-thousand-dollar suit with his hands up, like Mariel’s got a gun on him. The Shrike women all circle around Katja and Oliver, horrified expressions on their faces at the tattered remains of her dress. The piglet in a tutu goes wild, squealing loose from Louise’s arms, and then does a flip in the air and lands on his feet, scurrying away. All five children go racing after him, which results in an upended table of lobster as he scampers onto a chair, leaps for the table, and doesn’t quite make it. The next thing I hear is a splash, and when I turn my head, there’s Mrs. Rockwell in the pool, her dress floating up around her like an unfolding parachute.
I see this in perfect clarity, because overhead there are at least six helicopters circling with spotlights.
The paparazzi just got it all on video.
Five roars, “Who the fuck invited the movie star to my island?” And then he looks at Pax, and Pax puts his hands up, just like his father did. And then Pax just turns and runs, Five chasing after him into the jungle.
I look at Ellie. She’s doing her best to understand what happened too. And then she looks at me and we can’t help it. We laugh. We laugh like idiots.
Nolan hands baby Bronte to Ivy, who is trying to calm her father down, and then Nolan jumps into the pool to rescue his new mother-in-law. But at the same time, Mariel takes a swing at Charles, which hits him square in the jaw, and he goes stumbling backwards into the pool as well, crashing into Nolan’s mother, who crashes into Nolan, who sinks below the surface.
That’s when the herd of pigs reappears.
Everyone screams and runs. People are flying off in all directions as the pigs root around in the remnants of the seafood platter that is now on the pool deck.
Then I see West trying to drag Ethan off the back of the biggest pig, because he thinks he’s gonna ride it like a bull, and Tori is standing there, holding her hair with both hands, like this can’t be happening.
“This can’t be happening,” Ellie says.
“Oh, it’s happening,” I say. “And this is fucking spectacular.”
We laugh again, mostly because it’s just funny. But also because we’re just bystanders to the unfolding chaos.
Now the kittens are climbing up Oliver’s pant leg and he’s jumping around trying to shake them off, looking like a girl trying to swat off a spider. Then Ariel Shrike gets pelted in the stomach with a lobster claw, hurled by Mathilda who is chasing down a pig, and Ariel decides she’s had enough and tackles the pig and knocks it into the pool, totally ruining Nolan’s attempt to save his mother-in-law, and he goes under again.
Then all the pigs are in the pool. I’m not sure if they’ve got some kinda pact that if one pig goes in the water they all go in, but that’s what it looks like to me. Because the chaos settles down as all the pigs do the doggie paddle around Charles, and it looks a little bit like a synchronized swimming performance. Charles is now yelling back at Mariel. “You’re crazy!” he’s screaming.
That’s when the little tutu pig squeals. Everyone turns to look at the desert table where the piglet is happily grunting as he roots deep into the center of tonight’s cake, stuffing his little piggy face.
Ellie and I laugh again.
Because this whole thing is nuts.
“This is the best wedding ever,” Ellie sighs, grabbing onto my arm and leaning against me.
I hold her close as people come back to their senses. All the kittens are scooped up, the pigs are left alone to enjoy the pool, Mrs. Rockwell and Nolan’s mother get dragged out of the water. Mariel decides to help Charles escape his wet pig prison, and gives him a hand up. Veronica and her bombshell daughters usher Katja into the house to figure out what to do about the dress. Ford Aston comes out of the jungle leading Five with a strong grip on his arm, Paxton following at a safe distance, trying to stop the bleeding from his nose by holding the cuff of his suit coat against it. West and Tori have finally gotten Ethan to calm down, and Spencer Shrike has his granddaughters all herded under the palapa and is giving them a stern talking-to about wild pigs.
I look up at the helicopters and I can almost hear the paparazzi laughing. Then I glance over at Ellie and grin. “The most perfect wedding ever. And I guess Five is just gonna have to come clean with the world about his secret life out here in paradise. Because it’s totally gonna be on the news by tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven - NOLAN
By the time everything settles down it’s late. The pigs were shooed away, the food was cleaned up, and either the helicopters ran out of fuel or the paparazzi figured they got more than enough footage to satisfy the entire world for the next week, because they disappeared too.
Mariel and Charles came to some kind of agreement. My mother laughed the whole thing off like this is just what she expected to happen, while Ivy’s parents didn’t take it so well. I haven’t seen them since they disappeared back to their bungalow to change.
I’m pretty sure Pastor Rockwell hates my guts even more now.
Every Shrike woman is in Rory’s ho
use trying to fix Katja’s dress. Ivy wanted to help, and she did go over there, but she came back to our bungalow a little while ago because she said, “They’ve got this.”
I’m gonna assume those Shrike women know what they’re doing—because, well, they always seem to know what they’re doing—so we put Bronte down for sleep and now we’re just having a glass of wine to relax. Ivy’s got her feet in my lap and she’s talking about tomorrow. How everything went wrong tonight, so tomorrow will go off without a hitch.
But… we’re the Misters, so you never know. Today was a disaster as far as I’m concerned. All I wanted was some time alone with my wife and I feel like I spent this day with everyone but my wife. Now it’s almost midnight and she’s probably just ready for sleep.
There’s a knock at our door and Ivy jumps up, saying, “I’ll get it,” before I can even set my wine down. Great. There goes my last chance at some us time.
“Oh, look who it is!” Ivy exclaims. “Mac and Ellie! Come in!”
I get up to say hi, wondering why Ivy is so damn excited about seeing them at midnight. “Hey, what’s up?” I ask Mac. “Whadda day, huh?”
“Fuckin’ perfect day,” he says back.
“So, uh… what can we do for you?”
“Well,” Ellie says. “You can let us take it from here.”
“Take what from where?” I ask.
“Babysitting,” Ellie says, smiling up at Mac. “We’re here to babysit for you guys.”
“You know,” Ivy says. “So we can go have that date you promised me?”
“What?” I ask, unable to stop my smile.
“We’re going on a date today, Mr. Romantic. It’s not midnight yet, so as long as we leave in the next seven minutes, you’re gonna be able to keep that promise.”
“But I thought…” I nod my head at Ellie.
“Oh, please,” Ellie says. “I’m happy to watch Bronte. I just overreacted and Mac went overboard with that request. Any time you guys need a sitter, you call me first, understand?”
