JULES
In my defense,I had a good reason for breaking a guy’s nose and inadvertently starting a club fight. The dickhead had grabbed Ava’s ass and started grinding on her even after she said no and tried to push him off. When my and Stella’s attempts at intervention also failed, I did what I had to do. I tapped his shoulder, waited for him to turn around, and sucker punched him in the face.
His friends had jumped into the fray, and, well, you can guess where it went from there.
In the US, the incident would’ve ended with us thrown out of the club, but Eldorra’s strict public disturbance laws landed all of us, Dickhead and friends included, in the lovely county jail.
“At least Br—our other friend wasn’t with us,” I said, opting for optimism. “That would’ve been a mess.”
Ava and Stella murmured in agreement.
Bridget was a common Eldorran name, but I erred on the side of caution in case the officer leading us toward the exit pieced two and two together. Then again, we’d had to provide our real names when we were booked. If anyone on staff paid attention to the tabloids, they would recognize us as Bridget’s bridesmaids, no matter how good a job the makeup artist had done in disguising us.
I adjusted my brunette wig. Between the wig, my colored contacts, and the makeup artist’s mind-blowing skills, I barely recognized myself ormy friends. It’d allowed us to enjoy the club in peace until Bridget left early because she had a morning interview with Vogue Eldorra. However, she’d insisted we stay and party given it was our last night of “freedom” before the wedding insanity.
At the time, it’d seemed like a good idea. Now, after three hours of detainment and the prospect of facing a furious Josh, it seemed like a monumental mistake.
Anxiety speared my stomach as we stepped into the reception area.
We’d used our one phone call on Josh, asking him to bail us out. Well, Ava had. She could’ve called Alex, but she was worried he’d freak out, so she’d phoned her brother instead while she figured out how to explain the situation to her boyfriend. Josh would also freak out, but to a lesser extent than Alex.
As it turned out, we needn’t have gone through the trouble.
Alex and Josh both waited in the exit area, their faces carved with tension.
“Are you okay?” Alex crossed the room in two long strides and gripped Ava’s arms. Worry blazed in his eyes as he searched her for injuries.
Luckily, other than my swollen knuckles, Dickhead’s broken nose, and a couple of bruised egos, we’d escaped unscathed.
“I’m fine,” Ava reassured him. “Really.”
Alex’s lips pressed together, but he didn’t say anything else as we exited the building and climbed into the town car waiting outside.
Thick silence muffled the luxurious interior while Ava, Stella, and I removed our disguises and wiped off our makeup using the baby wipes I’d stashed in my clutch. The makeup artist had contoured my nose into a different shape, added an alarmingly realistic mole on my upper lip, and drawn thicker, darker eyebrows that matched my wig. Watching the mask melt away in the car’s window reflection as I scrubbed a wipe over my face was a bit surreal.
Josh and Alex hadn’t said a word about our disguises when they saw us, and they didn’t say anything now as we took them off.
Alarm prickled my stomach. Usually, Josh would be the first to make a smartass comment, so his silence didn’t bode well.
Alex spoke again halfway to our hotel. “What,” he said, his voice so chilly it triggered a rash of goosebumps on my arms, “the hell happened?”
My friends and I exchanged glances. Ava gave Josh a brief rundown earlier, but he didn’t know the details, and we couldn’t tell Alex the truth.
“Some guy groped me, and I punched him,” I said, taking creative liberty with the truth. “It escalated from there. Who knew Eldorra had such strict laws about club fights?”
Ava cast a startled glance in my direction. She opened her mouth, but I frowned and flicked my eyes at Alex.
She closed her mouth, though she didn’t look happy about it. She knew as well as I did that if Alex found out some guy had groped her, he would commit murder, and we didn’t need that kind of bloodshed two days before Bridget’s wedding.
A shadow passed over Josh’s face at my reply, but he stayed silent.
“I see.” Alex’s expression was unreadable, but he smoothed a stray strand of hair out of Ava’s eye with more gentleness than I thought him capable of. “How does the other guy look?”
I cracked a smile. “I broke his nose.”
A hint of a smirk filled Alex’s mouth before it flattened again. “Good. I paid a significant sum of money to wipe those police charges off your records, so it better have been worth it.”
He pulled Ava closer to him and kissed the top of her head while she curled up against his side. He whispered something in her ear, and she murmured something back that eased the tension in his shoulders.
It was a casual, domestic scene. Nothing extraordinary. Yet it triggered a longing so fierce and unexpected I had to turn away.
I firmly believed people didn’t need a significant other to be happy. If someone wanted to be in a relationship, great. If they didn’t, also great. The same went for children, marriage, etc. There were no universal barometers for happiness. A person’s life could be just as fulfilling without a romantic partner as it was with one.
But there were times, like now, when I yearned to experience that kind of unconditional love. To have someone care for me through the good, the bad, and the inevitable mistakes I made.
What would it be like to be loved so deeply by someone I wouldn’t have to worry about every little move possibly driving them away?
“No, no, no!” My mom ripped the curling iron from my hand. “Look at this mess you made.” She gestured at the curls I’d spent the past hour perfecting. “Alastair will be here soon, and I look like I’m wearing a rat’s nest on my head. How many times do I have to teach you how to do this? What good is it having a daughter if you can’t do one simple thing right?”
My teeth dug into my bottom lip. “But I did it exactly like you—”
“Don’t talk back to me.” Adeline dropped the still-hot iron on the table and yanked a brush through her hair with sharp, hard strokes, undoing all my work. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? You want me to be ugly.” Her eyes welled with tears. “Now I have to fix your mess.”
My teeth dug harder into my lip until the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. She didn’t look like a mess at all. She looked beautiful, as always. My mom wasn’t as young as in the beauty pageant pictures she displayed all over the house, but her skin was still smooth and unlined. Her hair was a rich auburn, and her body was the envy of every woman in town.
Everyone said I looked like her, especially now that my skin had cleared and I’d finally graduated to a real bra. Boys were starting to pay attention to me, including Billy Welch, the cutest boy in my eighth-grade class.
I thought my mom would be happy I looked like her, but every time someone mentioned it, her face darkened, and she’d make an excuse to leave.
“Go. I don’t want to look at you anymore.” Adeline’s eyes raked over me from head to toe. Her anger multiplied until it became a tangible, snarling monster in the room. “Go!”
The tears finally spilled down my cheeks.