“No! Why? No!”
“Yes!” Mother’s eyes sparkle like the diamonds on my dress. “Let’s go.” She grabs my arm and pulls me away with her.
“Wait. Mom, wait! I don’t even have shoes on.”
“You don’t need them,” she says while pulling me toward the door with her iron grip.
I stumble a few times, but it doesn’t seem to stop her. Bea runs after us and tries to grab the hem of the dress in her hands, so I don’t fall face-first.
“Why don’t I need shoes, Mom?”
“We moved the wedding to the beach. It’s better for the pictures.” She chuckles. “Imagine the headlines: Wrongs keep the long-lived tradition going by allowing their daughter to get married on the beach.”
There’s so much wrong with her gleeful words, but I don’t have time to get into that because all I’m trying to do is not trip over my dress and keep my nose attached to my face.
Bea mumbles something behind me, clearly mad at Mom’s words.
When we get to the opening on the beach, the first thing I notice is the groom standing under a giant arc of white gardenias. Two small round tables on each side of it are covered in white candles and more flowers.
Wearing a black suit with a white shirt and black tie, Ezralooks anything but like a happy husband-to-be. With his nose deep into his phone, it feels like this wedding is the last place he wants to be. Noah’s standing by his side, whispering something to him with a hand on his shoulder. He has a black suit on as well, but no tie.
At some point, Ezra’s jaw squeezes shut, and he shakes his head. After that, Noah pulls away and stops talking.
There’re a few people I don’t know, some of them are photographers who will make sure the world will get a very unrealistic picture of the perfect ceremony. My father’s waiting for me at the beginning of the aisle.
When someone notices us, the music starts playing. A live band is performing the classic Wedding March, the music that’s supposed to bring excitement to everyone’s hearts.
Ezra brings his face up. His brows suddenly draw together, nearly forming one line.
31
Ezra
Even this hideous dress can’t change how beautiful Maeve is.
I’m not a fashion expert, but the thing she’s wearing is atrocious. Besides that, I don’t think she can breathe. I know her tits are juicy, but right now I think they’re too juicy. I mean, they are right next to her neck. And every single man in the vicinity is salivating over them.
I don’t like it. I licked them first. They are mine.
Her father offers her his elbow, and she grabs it, nearly tripping over the dress, which is clearly way too long for her.
They start walking. To be precise, they try walking, but the skirt of that dress is so wide they can’t fit together without them both tripping over it. Mr. Wrong takes a couple of steps to the side and stretches his arm to her. She tries to lean on him with no success, and I see the moment she gives up on the whole idea of fighting with the dress. Accepting his elbow with her one hand and trying to grab apart of her giant skirt with another, she ends up pulling feathers off it with every single try. By the time she manages to get a hold of the skirt, her cheeks are pink with anger.
The whole walk toward us is painful to watch. They trip, bicker, and then trip again. By the time they reach us, Maeve’s face is totally red. Large beads of sweat roll down her temple and then down her neck. Then they disappear right between two big globes pushed to the top. They are pushed so close together, the drops have to fight their way through.
With a wide, happy smile, her father passes her hand to me. I try taking it, but she stumbles again and rears back, trying to gain her balance. In the process, the dress moves one of the tables on the side. I rush to help her, but surprisingly she quickly finds herself on her own feet and squares her shoulders back as if preparing for the fight of her life.
“Dear guests,” the official starts. “We’ve gathered here?—”
A faint smell of smoke suddenly reaches my nose, but I disregard it. It intensifies a moment later.
“Shit!” I jump around Maeve because apparently her dress caught fire from one of the candles when she bumped into the table. “Fire!” In a second, I start throwing sand on the fire while it starts rapidly moving up the skirt of the dress toward her body.
She whips around on instinct, moving the fire far away from my attempts to stop.
“Don’t move, Maeve,” I order, throwing more sand on her.
“Shit!” Noah rushes in and joins me.
