Unexpected Bride

by Abigail Graham

  "Wouldn't be much point in holding one here, dear," her father says in his usual flat, dismissive tone.

  He looks pointedly at Ryan, who doesn't seem to acknowledge that he exists.

  "I'd hoped you'd bring a companion," he says.

  Ryan shrugs.

  Karen mumbles something about the restaurant needing a stripper pole, but everyone pretends not to hear her. The way she plays with her fork, I'd think she's planning to slip it into her brother's eye. Not exactly friendly.

  Dinner is tense. After the staff take our orders, they bring out bottles of wine in those ice buckets and pour for us. I wait patiently, watching the Riesling fill my glass. I'm splitting a bottle with Karen, and I don't want to think about how much it costs.

  After a few sips, I glance around the table. There are conversations everywhere, and they don't include me. Ryan looks at me.

  "So, Julia," he says.

  I set my glass down.

  "So, Ryan."

  "I was a little rude before. I was just shocked that my sister has a friend."

  Karen scowls at him but says nothing. Her father gives me a curious, appraising look before turning away to something her mother is saying.

  "Well, we're close," I say. "We moved in together after school and she hired me for her business."

  He glances at her, then at me.

  "I remember who you are, Julia. I was teasing. Anyway, the way she talks, you deserve all the credit."

  "I just do graphic design work. Designers like me are a dime a dozen in Seattle."

  "I've never been there. What's it like?"

  "Quirky. It suits me."

  He smiles warmly. "I bet you fit right in, sitting cross-legged in a coffee shop sipping organic macchiatos while you tap tap away on your computer."

  I blink. How did he know that?

  "Well, I mostly use a tablet for the design work."

  "So you draw?"

  "I'm kind of an artist, yeah."

  "Would you draw me?"

  I blink a few times. "Uh, I guess?"

  He snorts. "Karen would love that. We can blow it up and she can hang it over her couch in the living room."

  Karen stops to glare at him, then goes back to her conversation with her mom.

  I feel a little used. Was that just to jab at her?

  I bite my lip, and he seems to be staring at my chin. Before I can say something, appetizers are served. I pull a few calamari rings onto my plate and try to disappear up my own butt, because everything about my existence is embarrassing.

  There are enough people here that I can fade into the background. That's always been easy when Karen is around. She's smart and beautiful and fit, and everyone naturally gravitates around her. She's the shining star, and I'm just a planet. A crappy little planet, like Pluto. Or Uranus. I feel like Uranus now.

  I glare at Ryan while he isn't looking, willing myself to stop crushing on him, but all I can think about is what the skin under the strong curve of his jaw would taste like if I licked it, how his arms would crush me against him and his heat would flow into me as I locked my legs around his waist.

  "Are you trying to kill your fork?" Todd says.

  I'm holding it in my trembling hand so hard it started to bend under pressure from my thumb. With a squeak I slap it on the table and fold my hands primly in my lap, waiting. Dinner is served not long after. Ryan sitting across from me has spun my brain in my head around so much I forgot what I ordered. Whatever it is, it's chicken and mushrooms over angel hair and looks pretty good.

  I'm not hungry. I toy with it, reaching for a knife.

  "What are you doing?" Ryan says.

  I freeze. "I was going to, um," I say, haltingly. "I was going to cut my..."

  He just stares at me.

  Ugh, I could curl up into a ball and disappear. I end up pushing around the noodles to pick at the meat. If I curl it up around the fork like you’re supposed to, I'll end up with a big blop of buttery sauce on my dress and have to walk around all night with a grease spot on my chest.

  After dinner, Karen announces that the boys and the girls are splitting up. The older guests gather around Karen's parents. She said they were going to a show or something, like magic or Cirque or something like that.

  The rest of us are splitting up for the bachelor and bachelorette parties. I drift over to the growing cluster of men. Not everyone is going; it looks like there will be about ten guys in all. Bruce, Todd, a bunch of other guys...and Ryan.

  He stares at me. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm going with the bachelor party."

  He takes my arm and leads me aside. I tense up at his touch. Just feeling his fingers on my skin is better than my old half-functional Hitachi. I'm glad I can't see my own face. I must be looking up at him like a total goober. My mouth clicks shut.

  "That's a bad idea."

  "Why?"

  "Do you know how these things work? You're going to be alone with ten drunk horny guys daring each other to be as disgusting as possible."

  "Uh," I say, "shouldn't I be worried that my best friend is marrying one of those guys?"

  He huffs. "She put you up to this, didn't she? Don't deny it, I can see it on your face. You're not a liar, Julia."

  The way he says that part is oddly distant, almost detached. Something flutters through my chest and I grin stupidly until he rolls his eyes.

  "Just go back and go have a pumpkin spice latté or whatever it is you all do when we're not around."

  I yank my arm out of his grip.

  "I can take care of myself. Nobody is going to mess with me."

  He snorts. "Are you really insisting on doing this?"

  "She did ask me," I admit.

  "If she asked you to jump off a bridge, would you do that?"

  I open my mouth, then close it. I, uh, don't know.

  The question is more than a little uncomfortable.

  "Christ, she could at least have let you wear pants. Okay, fine. Listen: You stick with me, got it? Stay close and don't leave my side no matter what happens. Even if these guys are fine, they'll probably want to go to some sleaze bar or strip club and I don't want you wandering off."

  I blink a few times, my heart swelling in my chest.

  He...cares?

  "Okay," I say.

  We walk back over to the group. Bruce gives me an odd look.

  "What's the broad doing here?" Todd says.

  "You were fine sitting next to the broad five minutes ago," I snarl.

  The others laugh at him, but Ryan glares. Bruce glances at him and smirks.

  "Easy, boys, she has a bodyguard. Karen tells me she was always a tomboy. Maybe she wants to have some fun at Rubies with us."

  I almost ask what that means, but we're already climbing into a shuttle bus. This one is a little different.

  It has a sound system, a disco ball, and a stripper pole. Little glittering reflections swirl everywhere and colored lights flash, nauseating me a little. The speakers begin playing loud music as I wedge myself in next to Ryan.

  The tight quarters press me into his side. I use the excuse the cramped seats provide to mold myself against his side. A dumb middle school part of my brain thinks that maybe he'll develop an interest in me if he feels my boob on his arm.

  I'm doomed.

  The shuttle pulls out into the slow, grinding traffic of the Las Vegas strip. Ryan shoves into the guy next to him to give me a bit more room, and I relax slightly. The energy in here is making me nervous. It's too hot and the noise from the speakers is making my teeth rattle. There's a cooler of drinks at the front, and the beers are already being passed out. Ryan takes one and twists the cap off with his bare hand. He offers it to me, but I shake my head.

  Finally, the shuttle rolls off the Strip and up to the front of a huge, Roman-themed casino. As we walk inside, a woman in a toga and body paint imitates a statue, standing so still that I yelp when she moves to take on a different pose. Passersby leave tips on the pedestal at he
r feet, so I pull a dollar out of my purse and lay it with the others before rushing up to catch Ryan.

  "Looks like they just want to gamble," he says softly to me.

  I'm starting to question Karen's judgment. I'm missing her bachelorette party for this. Anger bubbles up hot in my chest, and I push it down. The guys surround a craps table, shooing away the other gamblers by sheer presence except for one old man, a loose jogging suit hanging from his frame and the bill of a visor drawn low over his eyes. He doesn't seem to react as everyone piles in around them.

  Ryan guides me, not gently, to the end of the table, so I'm standing next to one of the guys who uses a stick to move the dice around; next to Ryan alone, and not wedged in between him and someone else.

  "I don't really have any money," I whisper to him, leaning close to his ear.

  As everyone tosses money on the table, Ryan pulls a sheaf of bills from his pocket and pushes it into my hand.

  "You play for me. I'll tell you how to bet. Throw that on the table and call for change."

  My eyes feel like they're going to pop right out of my head when I realize how much I'm holding. This would cover my apartment rent for a year. I do as he says anyway and watch the dealer stack a bunch of orange chips in front of me. My legs quiver when I read the writing on the back of one of them, indicating the value.

  The other guys are all playing with red and green chips. I don't know how much those are, but they weren't throwing out fat stacks.

  "Okay," Ryan says, leaning down so I can hear him. "This is a simple game. It starts with one of the players rolling the dice. If they roll a seven or eleven, the bet on the pass line, here, wins. If they roll a two, three, or twelve, the bet on the pass line loses. If he rolls any other number, that number becomes the point and the game then is to roll that number again before rolling a seven. Got it?"

  "Uh," I say.

  "It's easy when you see it in action."

  "Hey," the stickman says to me. "He teaching you to play?"

  "Yeah," I mutter, angry at my own shyness coming back out.

  "Oh, so we got a virgin here," he says, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Mortified, I can feel myself turning red and I want to turn and dart away from the table, money be damned. Until Ryan rests a comforting hand on my back, between my shoulder blades.

  "Don't worry, it means you're good luck. Take one chip and put it on the pass line, like I said."

  Swallowing hard, I follow his instructions. One by one, everyone else in the group waves off when offered the dice. Finally, the guy is pointing at me with his stick.

  Ryan pats my back and I nod.

  "Just don't use both hands," he whispers. "Pick them up and throw them hard, just don't think about it."

  Swallowing, I grab the little plastic cubes and hurl them down the table with all my might. They go skipping along, hit the far end, and curve up wildly into the air. One just disappears and the other bops one of the stick guys in the head before vanishing. He glares at me.

  "That was a little too hard," Ryan whispers. "Just try to hit the end of the table there, the little wall.”

  I nod, reassured as he...

  Oh my God, he's rubbing my back. His big strong hand is moving up and down my back and I'm pressed into his side and it would just take a minor motion to slip his arm around me and pull me close and I can smell him, and he smells like—

  "Miss, you going to roll or not?"

  I blink at the dealer, grab the dice, and throw them again. They spin wildly across the table before settling. My heart jumps into my throat. There's a car payment sitting on the table resting on that dice roll.

  "Eleven!" the stickman barks, "Eleven yo, pay the line!"

  "What's that mean?"

  "You won," Ryan says, grinning. "Take the chip."

  I clap my hands and bob up and down on the balls of my feet, suddenly excited. When the dice come back, I throw them again wildly. This time it's a four.

  Ryan has me separate out the chips I win from the ones I bet, slipping them into different slots on the bar that run around the table. I slump when I finally roll a seven, but he seems happy. I did all the things he told me to do and gave up on understanding what the don't come bar means or the difference between placing a four and buying a four or what in the utter hell "the high hop" is.

  It's fun. The energy and excitement is as much fun as the money, if not more.

  Well, it's almost as fun. That's a lot of money.

  "Take the chips, set them behind the line, and say, ‘color me up.’”

  I blink a few times.

  "Are we speaking English?"

  "We have to observe tradition," he shrugs.

  I guess asking that means they take the chips and consolidate them into larger denominations. It comes back as five big rectangles, lacquered blue. I saw those on the table but had no idea what they were for.

  "What are these?"

  "They're chips," he says. "They're just bigger. Here."

  He takes four of them out of my hand and leaves the one.

  "That one is yours. I wasn't playing."

  Swallowing hard, I turn over the strange mega-chip and read the denomination and almost fall over. I'm holding a lot of money. I'm not sure if I'm going to throw up or my bowels are going to turn to water first.

  As everyone peels away from the table, I follow Ryan and press close to him. Our group hovers around the table as everyone cashes in. I end up stuffing my purse so full of bills that I can barely close it and crush it against my hip as we walk.

  "You okay?" he says.

  "Just a little dizzy from all the excitement," I say.

  I climb aboard our shuttle and Ryan follows me, making sure no one can sit beside me but him. I haven't even been paying attention to Bruce, but there wasn't much he could get into in a casino anyway.

  "I guess we're going back now," I say.

  Ryan looks at me.

  "It's not even eight o'clock."

  Up front, Bruce is arguing.

  "Karen's friend is with us."

  "Oh come on, don't puss out," Todd whispers back, harshly.

  Do they seriously think I can't hear them?

  The shuttle starts moving down the strip. The traffic never seems to get any better or worse, just a perpetual barely more than running speed crawl with a stop at every single light. I yawn into my hand and shiver against Ryan.

  "We're not going back soon," he says. "Let me know if you get tired of this, or uncomfortable."

  I blink a few times.

  Karen insists her brother is a womanizing asshole, but he's being damned near chivalrous. I actually feel safe with him. So what's the problem?

  After at least a half hour crawling in traffic while everyone drinks copiously—except for Ryan, who just nurses the one beer—the shuttle finally turns off, heads down a side street, and rolls into a parking lot. A pumping bass rumble shudders under my feet, and there's neon everywhere.

  Oh great, a club. I hate clubbing. It's loud and annoying and people grope you on the dance floor and—

  Oh. It's one of those clubs.

  The name, Rubies, is pretty innocuous. To make it more obvious what the place is, they have a giant pink neon silhouette of a naked woman of illogical proportions on the roof. Think trucker mud flap. The special flourish that goes with the name is a pair of glowing, ruby-shaped lights where her nipples would be. Part of the sign blinks so it looks like she's throwing up her leg, and neon rectangles like money rain down on her from above.

  I swallow, hard.

  Ryan leans over.

  "I'll get you a cab. I'll even go with you if you want."

  My heart pounds. He offered to go back to the hotel with me. Does he mean like, drop me off, or go back to the hotel with me.

  Oh God, Julia. Don't be so stupid. He's not propositioning you. You're the help's kid, remember? And he doesn't want you to get into trouble. That's all this is.

  Besides, I promised Karen.

&n
bsp; "Nope, let's go."

  “Julia,” he starts.

  “I’m going,” I insist in a low hiss.

  Ryan and I are last in line. The bouncer at the door looks at me like I'm an alien. The girl at the door checking IDs looks at me with a smirk. She's in fishnets and a leotard that pushes her already impressive boobs almost all the way up to her chin, and a pang of discomfort and jealousy ripples through me.

  She looks at Ryan and flutters her big fake eyelashes, twists to flex her legs, and bounces her tits together with her arms. Hot rage flares in my chest and I feel my teeth pull back before I catch myself. She flinches but quickly resets into a vapid smile to greet whoever's next.

  Inside, the music is pounding. Todd, the little bastard who most likely organized this, is leading the way.

  Our party is going upstairs, I guess to a private room. There better not be any sex in the champagne room, or Karen is going to skin me.

  We pass the stage, and a woman in nothing but a silver thong and high heels that only make me think “broken ankle” looks down at me as she undulates, glitter strewn. I tense up and shiver.

  Ryan squeezes my shoulder.

  "I meant it. We can go."

  I shake myself, summon every ounce of willpower I've got, and head up the stairs.

  Chapter Two

  Ryan

  That little bastard. His name is Todd, I think. I could wring his neck for this, taking my brother-in-law-to-be to a fucking titty bar two days before his wedding. Yeah, sure, I've been to a few bachelor parties like this and I've woken up after a few of them with strange girls in my bed and spike heels in improbable places, but this isn't some senator's son I'm schmoozing with. This guy is marrying my sister. He better behave himself.

  Worse, I have her little friend tagging along with me. When she told me Julia would be here, I remembered Julia the way she was the last time I saw her—sixteen, skinny and gangly, with an overbite that made her look like a rabbit, cheap glasses, and pimples.

  I didn't even recognize her earlier. She went from narrow and awkward to lean and coltish, and she's strutting around in a cocktail dress showing off killer legs and an ass I could do things to all damn night. Then she keeps looking at me like I make the sun move.