D is for Drunk (8 page)

“That’s what it’s all for,” Aidan said.

“A wedding?”

“One wedding,” he said. “I want one, and then forever. I want to be as happy as those two look.”

“And you think your checklists will get you there?”

“I have to be careful and find the right one,” he said. “I don’t want to make a mistake.”

Maybe it was the wine, but she felt a little touched by his words. “So, you’re searching for your perfect soulmate so you can live happily ever after?”

He leaned in so close she smelled his musky cologne. His deep blue eyes were serious when he spoke. “Isn’t everyone?”

“That seems a little Disney, doesn’t it?”

“No.”

Suddenly the groom was standing right in front of them.

“It’s our day,” he said. “You have to dance.”

She swallowed the rest of her wine in one gulp. “With who?”

“With your handsome boyfriend, of course.” The groom grabbed each of them by the shoulder and pushed them toward each other.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said.

“You never know,” said the groom, and kept up his pressure on her shoulder.

Aidan’s mouth quirked into a grin. “I think we’d better give him a dance.”

He held one hand up and the other out at his waist. A ballroom dance pose. She had trained in a lot of dances, most actresses had, but she was surprised Aidan had.

She stepped into his arms, and they were off, whirling around the floor.

“You’re really good,” she said.

“Don’t sound so surprised. It’s practically insulting.”

“Is this part of your dating campaign? Dancing to impress?”

“Did you just call me impressive?”

“It must be the wine.” Actually, she did feel light-headed. “I think you’d better drive.”

Aidan missed a step, stumbled, and caught himself. “Did you just tell me to drive?”

“I did.”

“Me? The man who drives slower than your grandma?”

“Shut up.” She rested her head against his shoulder. Dancing with Aidan wasn’t so bad, so long as he didn’t open his big fat mouth.

Angry voices outside interrupted the song. Aidan dropped her hands and made for the door. He was always heading into trouble. She followed right after, still feeling light-headed. Did that wine have more alcohol than regular wine?

A black-and-white police car blocked the drive, and a policeman in blue with nice black hair hulked next to a burly Narek Grigoryan. Milena fluttered behind him, holding onto his elbow as if she worried he’d haul off and hit the cop. Aidan was halfway over there already. She slowed down. It clearly wasn’t an emergency.

“You can’t come up here with your sirens!” Mr. Grigoryan said. “It’s a wedding. You’re ruining their special day.”

“I understand that, sir, but we got a noise complaint, and we had to check it out.”

Mr. Grigoryan pointed a stubby finger to the south. “It’s from Marcel Befort, isn’t it?”

“I can’t really say, sir.”

“He wants to drive me out of business. He wants us to starve in the streets like dogs.”

They could probably stay off the streets for a good long time just by selling their gold-plated faucets. Still, it wasn’t fair to the couple having the wedding. And the music wasn’t that loud. She looked across the valley to the Befort’s vineyard. She bet they could barely hear the music from there.

Aidan had reached Mr. Grigoryan.

“He’s a bastard!” Mr. Grigoryan was clearly warming up. “He throws weddings too, and we don’t complain. Not a single time. This is harassment.”

“The music is a little loud, sir. Could you turn it down a little?” The cop pinched his finger and thumb so only an inch separated them, the universal sign for a little. He had a slight Hispanic accent.

“It’s a band.” Mr. Grigoryan stamped his foot. “A band cannot be turned down like a teenage boy’s stereo. He wants to ruin us. He will pay for that.”

“Issuing threats isn’t going to help your case.” The policeman looked ready to pop.

Milena plucked at her husband’s elbow.

“Narek,” she said, but he glared at her, and she shut up.

Sofia spoke, “Officer? The closest neighbor is pretty far away. I wonder if you’d mind driving over there and seeing if you can hear the music from there? I’d hate to have these nice folks’ wedding ruined by some kind of silly neighborhood argument.”

“It’s not silly,” Grigoryan bellowed. “The arrogant bastard wants to ruin me!”

The policeman moved toward Grigoryan, but Aidan stepped between them and put an arm around Grigoryan’s broad shoulders.

Sofia trotted out her best smile.

“Please,” she said. “Pretty please?”

The policeman finally looked at her. “You’re Sofia Salgado!”

Aidan rolled his eyes, but he turned Grigoryan away from the cop and walked him back toward the party, speaking in a low, reassuring voice. Good. The further away Grigoryan was, the better. Milena trailed along behind them, casting glances over her shoulder at Sofia and the officer.

“That’s me,” Sofia said.

“My kids loved
The Half Pint Detective
!” he said. “Especially the one with the dog.”

There had been a lot of episodes with dogs. Half Pint was hired to find lost dogs and cats a lot. Hard to believe she did that in real life now. “Weren’t those dogs so cute?”

He looked past her at the wedding hall.

“Would you like me to sign something, for your daughters?” she asked.

He was calming down. The music was quieter than before, a lovely classical piece she didn’t recognize. If Aidan could keep Grigoryan away, everything would be fine.

“Thank you,” the officer said. “That would be nice. For Mindy and Cindy.”

Behind his head, she saw Grigoryan coming out of the hall. She scribbled an autograph on the policeman’s ticket book as fast as she could. Aidan came out after Grigoryan, carrying a piece of cake. He’d let himself be distracted by wedding cake. Understandable, but lame. She planted a kiss next to her signature.

“Thank you, officer,” she said. “Tell Mindy and Cindy hi for me!”

Aidan grabbed Grigoryan’s elbow, but Grigoryan shook him off and kept on coming. When he reached them, he shouted. “And another thing!”

Sofia enveloped the angry Armenian’s barrel-chested torso in a giant hug.

“What a lovely wedding!” she said loudly.

Clearly confused, Grigoryan froze.

She pulled him in close. In an undertone, she told him, “He’s going over to cite Befort for making a false call. You don’t want to get in the way of that, do you?”

Sure, it was a lie, but if it kept things from exploding, what harm was there in it?

CHAPTER 12

T  
hey were finally on their way home. But since Aidan was driving they were now rolling down the hill about as fast as a senior citizen jogging.

“Hurry,” she said. “I need to drop you at the office before I head out for the show.”

“We’re not stopping at the office.”

She didn’t like the sound of this. “Why?”

“I’m taking you to Burbank. I checked the traffic on my phone before we left, and there’s no time to go back to the office.”

“Are you crashing my date?”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a date, and Emily and the kids were coming along, too.”

“I did not.”

“It was in that text you showed me, the one with Action Jaxon with his shirt off.”

She regretted showing him that stupid text. She called up her own traffic app. He was right.

“See?” he said. “I’m right, as usual.”

“I wouldn’t call that usual.” She sighed. “Pull over.”

“Pull over?”

“We’ll never get there on time with you behind the wheel. We won’t make it off this hill.”

But Aidan hadn’t pulled over, and so they had arrived ten minutes late. Emily, Tex, and the kids waved from the front entrance. Violet scuffed red cowboy boots against the ground, and Van sported a black cowboy hat. Emily’s calico summer dress flowed when she moved. Where had she found calico? Tex had come in jeans and a cowboy shirt with pearl snaps down the front.

“You guys look like you strolled off the set of
Gunsmoke
,” Aidan said.

“We dressed up, Maloney Junior.” Violet scuffed her boots against the ground. “It’s called a theme.”

“Sorry I didn’t have time to stop off at home for my cowboy clothes,” Sofia said. “And thanks for dropping me off, Aidan. Tex can give me a ride home.”

“Well, I was really hoping I could see the show,” Aidan said.

“It’s probably sold out,” Sofia said. “I had trouble getting tickets last night.”

“Mr. Ford left two tickets for you, Auntie Sofia,” said Van. “You could give one to Maloney Junior.”

She looked at Emily, hoping for a rescue.

“I used one of those tickets for us,” Emily said. “So there isn’t really an extra.”

Emily was a good liar when she applied herself.

“I have two,” said Tex. “You can be my date.”

She threaded her arm through Aidan’s and marched for the entrance.

“Sorry,” said Emily.

“Why are you sorry?” Violet asked. “Because Sofia forgot her outfit?”

“Because of that.” Emily started toward the entrance.

With any luck, Tex’s seats weren’t next to theirs.

They hurried inside the tent toward their seats. Ponies romped around the ring with children standing on their backs. The kids didn’t look much older than Violet.

“I want to do that,” she said. “Mom?”

Emily flinched, but pretended she hadn’t heard. “We’re A27 through A30. You go first and clear a way, Sofia. I’ll follow up and sweep.”

Emily always went last so she could keep an eye on the kids. They had to keep the rugrats flanked.

Sofia said ‘excuse me’ twenty-six times until she got to their seats. And there, right next to her seat, sat Aidan.

“I got popcorn,” he said. “For the kids.”

CHAPTER 13

T  
he show was similar to
Cirque d’Soleil
, but with horses. The lighting and music were entrancing, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the performers. Violet and Van sat still as statues, staring at the stage in wonder. They didn’t even finish Aidan’s popcorn.

Riders and horses moved in complicated dances around the ring. The performers were constantly standing, jumping, and tumbling on and off the horses. It made her dizzy to watch.

Then Jaxon entered. He rode two horses at once, with a foot on the back of each. No wonder he didn’t have trouble balancing on a surfboard. Loose green pants flowed around his legs. His bare chest glistened with sweat or oil. His hair was dark brown when it was dry, and it streamed behind him as the horse galloped into the ring. As cute as he had been in his wetsuit, he looked much better out of it.

Emily put her finger to her lips and then onto her leg, making a sizzling sound. Yeah, he was that hot.

“Are you OK, Mom?” Violet asked.

“Shh,” said Emily. “This is the best part.”

“Is that Auntie Sofia’s new boyfriend?” Van pointed at Jaxon.

“Maybe,” Sofia said. “Just maybe.”

Aidan hummed the song, “macho, macho man.” A hit from the Village People.

Jaxon and the horses galloped straight toward Sofia and her party. Violet and Van shrank back in their seats, because it looked as if the horses wouldn’t stop. Aidan tensed up next to her.

But the horses glided to a stop a few feet away from Sofia. Jaxon smiled the same way he had on the board that morning and murmured something. Each horse dropped its outside leg in front, rested its weight on the inside knee, and bowed to her. Jaxon ducked his head and swung his arm to the side.

The crowd erupted in applause, and Sofia blushed. She didn’t blush often, but when she did she went tomato-red.

Aidan leaned to the side, probably to say something dumb, and Jaxon looked between them. His green-brown eyes asked a simple question.

Tex grabbed hold of Aidan’s head and pulled it back toward her, shaking her head. “They’re not together,” Tex said loudly. “At all. He’s with me.”

Sofia buried her face in her hands. If she hadn’t been embarrassed before, she certainly was now. She peeked between her fingers.

Jaxon winked, murmured something else, and the horses stood and cantered off to the side.

Fanning herself with one hand, Tex leaned across Aidan to talk to Sofia. “That may be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s just a cowboy,” Aidan said.

“He is more Khal Drogo than cow-boy,” Emily said. “Wow.”

Sofia was still watching him on the back of those horses. He slipped from one horse to the other, then disappeared entirely behind the back of one horse, coming up as sinuously as a snake, jumping lightly to the first horse and doing a handstand on its coal-black back. Jaxon’s muscles flexed as he slid from the handstand until he was lying flat across the horse’s back. Then he stood and murmured again. The two horses moved into close formation, and he mounted their backs again.

A dark-clad figure skipped in from the sidelines and threw Jaxon a flaming torch.

“That kid gets to play with fire!” Violet pointed to the child throwing the flaming torches. The kid looked about eight, a little older than Violet.

The youngster threw Jaxon another torch.

“That kid probably never accidentally burnt down his father’s toolshed,” Emily said.

“You don’t know,” Violet whispered. “Maybe he burned down ten toolsheds. On purpose.”

“Shh!” Van put his finger to his lips. “We don’t want Auntie Sofia’s new boyfriend to fall down because we’re too loud.”

Jaxon didn’t look likely to fall down. He looked completely in charge.

While the horses galloped in a tight circle inside the ring, Jaxon juggled the torches, hurling them high into the air and catching them before tossing them back to the assistant, smiling one more time at Sofia, and cantering out of the ring.

Tex looked at Sofia and gave her a thumb’s up. “This is why swimming is good for you.”