Page 16 of Maid of Dishonor
“He hit on you while being newly engaged to Maya. He’s cheated on her many times and then played it off like they had an open relationship. And let’s not forget the way he was touching you,” I point out.
“He’s horrible, definitely, but ‘nemesis’ implies a more personal rivalry—”
“Let me have this one, Sam,” I say, glaring at her.
“All right, all right,” she says, smiling and putting her hands up in surrender. “He’s your nemesis.”
“Great. Moving on.” I pause, then say, “Why do you think he agreed to marry her? I mean, based on everything we know—which is a decent amount—he doesn’t seem like the marrying type. Right?”
“Right,” Sam says slowly.
“Right. And again, I don’t know him in person, but from what Idoknow, he doesn’t seem like the kind to ‘do the honorable thing,’ so to speak.”
Sam shrugs. “Well, Maya is gorgeous, for one. She’s a total bombshell.”
I wrinkle my nose at hearing my baby cousin—my little sister, for all intents and purposes—described this way. “Are you serious?” I say.
Sam rolls her eyes and mutters something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like “such a guy.” Then, to me, she says, “Yes, I’m totally serious. She’s gorgeous. Like, prom queen, supermodel gorgeous. Plus she has the whole half-Caucasian, half-Filipino thing going on. Do you really not know this?”
Ew.
“Anyway,” Sam says, “Chad probably does care about her in his own way, even if it’s just that he always wants her right at his fingertips; they’ve been together for almost a year. Plus he strikes me as the kind to take the path of least resistance. She said she had to convince him. So I could see him just finally giving in, maybe?”
I shake my head musingly. “It still doesn’t make sense to me.” Then I sigh. “We need to stop this wedding.”
“How are we going to do that?” Sam says, her brow furrowed. “Because we also have to check out venues, find a caterer, and sample wedding cakes.”
I shrug. “Before any of that, we’ll just need to sit her down and tell her what happened at Joey’s. She’s stubborn, though. So we’ll probably have to try something else. We could trick him into showing his true colors? Get them in the same place at the same time so she can see him in action.”
“That…sounds complicated,” Sam says, looking skeptical. “And sort of like a spy movie or something. And look, Carter.” She takes a deep breath before going on. “I’m not sure how I feel about this. Maya needs us right now.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sheneedsus…to break off her wedding.”
“Don’t you think that’s a choice she should make for—” But she cuts off at the sound of loud knocking on the door that leads to the upstairs.
“Winifred,” she says, unfolding herself from the couch. She runs over to the sink and splashes water on her face, then ascends the stairs. I hear her talking to Winifred, who says,
“Is your young man here? I saw his car in the driveway.”
“He’s notmyyoung man, but yes,” Sam says.
“Bring him upstairs. I want to say hello.”
I swallow, and all thoughts of the wedding fly from my mind.
Because Sam’s landlady, Winifred, is a scary person.
Which is stupid, because I have her beat by a good foot and a half. She’s a crouched old woman with appalling hearing and a stern frown that she wields excessively.
Those aren’t the things that make her scary, though. What makes her scary is her eyes. They’re sharp and discerning, and whenever I look at her, I feel like she knows all my deepest, darkest secrets. So the fact that she “wants to say hello” to me is terrifying. Did I do something to her that I just don’t remember? Did I run over her cat or something? Does she even have a cat?
Note to self: find out if Winifred has a cat so that I’ll know not to run over it.
“So, Wini,” Sam says when we get up the stairs. “What’s up?” She speaks loudly so that Wini will be able to hear, and I have to bite back a smile.
“I need some help from your young man,” Winifred says, looking over Sam’s shoulder and pinning her stare on me. “In the living room.”
I find myself relaxing slightly. I was picturing some sort of human sacrifice situation, but I can help her move some furniture or change a lightbulb, no problem.
