“I’m sorry,” Taylen breathes. “It was supposed to be a room with two queen beds, but they messed up. Unfortunately, they’re booked solid, so they can’t do anything.”
I feel so bone-meltingly exhausted all of a sudden that I can barely stand up. I wave a feeble hand through the air. “It’s alright. Jeffers will sleep between us anyway.”
Taylen grunts. “I’d be happy to spoon your dog.”
“I think you might be the only one in the world besides me who might mean that.”
“Oh, I mean it. That way, if there’s a weird smell in the night, at least I can blame it on him.”
“Me too.”
We stare at each other for a second, and then we both burst out laughing, the tension about the big bed—the one bed—bleeding away. What does one bed really matter? We’re best friends. I’ve seen Taylen’s mighty fine booty more times than I can count, and I think it’s tight enough that a quarter might actually bounce off of it. These are just things, facts, and uh, yeah, I’m trying to make a point. I know Tay is hot. He’s built like a semi-truck, a thousand-year-old redwood tree, the big golden sun, and a granite boulder had too much fun one night and somehow all chipped in to produce a human child.
What? Sounds unbelievable?
Well, stranger things have happened.
“I’ll go get our bags,” Taylen says, glancing down at Jeffers. “Don’t let him slobber on my side.”
“I’ll make absolutely sure he slimes your pillows while you’re gone, but then I’ll turn them around so you’d never know.”
He grins at me, shakes his head, and walks off to the truck, which is parked about fifteen feet from the door since that was the closest parking spot we could get.
No matter what, I’m still glad I’m here and that I’m not Henry Stinkybottom Jr’s wife, which is, by the way, a name Taylen came up for him. Tay never liked Henry. In fact, Tay thought Henry was a stodgy, stuck up, stick up his ass, self-righteous piece of shit. He once told me all that, in no uncertain terms, so I’m not just putting words in his mouth.
After Taylen brings in my mound of luggage, he brings in one single duffel for himself, but he doesn’t give me a hard time about not packing light. I know I’m only going to be away for a week, but I packed in case my parents never wanted to see me again. I don’t think it’s a real possibility, but I wasn’t entirely sure. If anything, they might not want to see me for a good while, no matter how clingy they were before.
Before I jilted their golden boy at the altar.
And before my grandmother shaved her legs for what was supposed to be the socialite wedding of the century.
“This is going to be in all the magazines and papers,” I groan. My legs suddenly feel weak, and I stumble over to the side of the bed and let them give way. The mattress is hard and creaky, and it acts a little bit like a trampoline, so I nearly stand back up again before I come back down.
“Not the ones my granny owns,” Tay says kindly, trying to reassure me. He picks up one of my bags and grunts. “What the hell is in here? Bricks?”
“Two hundred grand in cash,” I mumble morosely.
“What the….” He doesn’t finish the statement.
I shrug. Jeffers sinks onto the low pile carpet and stares up at me mournfully with his big brown eyes. His jowls part a minute later, and he starts panting and drooling again. He resembles a small horse, even in this spacious room.
“You know I had to take all the money out of my account. My parents would have somehow gotten to it otherwise. I’m sure of it.”
“There are things called opening another bank account.”
“I was busy. I had dress fittings and cake tasting, and I was trying to scheme my way out of this with you.”
“Okay, so you literally have a black bag with two hundred grand in it like in some movie.”
I nod. “I also canceled all my credit cards, and my parents will likely freeze all my other assets since they’re jointly in their names. I wanted to be prepared. It took me months to get all that cash out of various places. It wasn’t easy, especially since I couldn’t take money from anything we jointly shared because it would have tipped them off.”
Taylen heaves another bag onto the bed. “Please tell me this one has your clothes.”
“You know it does. You got it out for me at the gas station.” I changed there, leaving the wedding dress hanging in the bathroom stall for whoever might want such a monstrosity. It was ridiculously expensive, so maybe I’m paying it forward. Someone could always find it, sell it, and cash it in that way.