La Vie en Rose {Life in Pink} (2 page)

“I can’t wait until my dress gets here!” Emma announced, clapping like an excited child. “I’m
dying
to try it on.”

Riley groaned. It was as though no one could see him at all. Screwing his eyes shut and jamming a pillow over his ear did nothing to drown out her voice.
So much for dream sex.

“You already tried it on,” Rarity said.

“That was in the store. Once I get it to the loft, I’ll be able to really appreciate it. Then, when you get your dress, we can try them on together. It’ll be so much fun!”

“Sounds mind-blowing.” Rarity’s sarcasm was so expected it didn’t phase Emma.

The doorbell buzzed and Emma screeched—literally screeched. “
It’s here!”
The chair skidded against the hardwood floors as she catapulted out of her seat.

Yeah, he wasn’t going back to sleep.

Groaning, he twisted and cracked open his lids as she sprinted down the hall toward the main entrance. Craning his neck in the direction of the chair, he peeked at Rarity, who wore a disinterested expression as she paged through a wedding magazine.

“There’s something wrong with her,” he grumbled.

“Yup,” she agreed.

“This isn’t going to stop until she gets married, is it?”

“Nope.”

“When’s the wedding again?”

“We have nine more months of this and the closer we get the worse she’s going to be.”

Shifting, he sat up and frowned at his sister. “You’re surprisingly calm.”

“She’s my closest friend and she really wants me to be a part of this. I can do the maid of honor thing as long as she doesn’t expect me to throw her some hideously pink party where girls drink cosmos and act like prissy hyenas, while being the pole for some male stripper to rub his scabies all over.”

She sighed and turned the page. “Plus, I smoked a fat joint the second she pulled out the wedding binder. You could probably cut my leg off right now and I wouldn’t put up much of a fight.”

“Nice.” He stared at the front door waiting for Emma to come racing inside at any second carrying the legendary dress. “She’s not gonna walk around in a wedding dress for the next nine months, is she?”

Rarity shut the magazine and tossed it on the table. “Don’t let her hear you call it a dress. It’s a
gown.
I’ve been corrected twice. And I have no idea. I wasn’t born with the bride gene. None of this shit makes sense to me.”

At least he wasn’t alone. Rubbing a hand over his jaw he yawned. “You’re bringing Lexi to the wedding?”

“Yup.”

He chuckled.

“What?”

“You realize Mom and Dad will probably be invited.”

“They won’t go,” Rarity said, matter-of-factly.

“What makes you so sure?”

It shouldn’t matter anyway. His sister was twenty-four years old. She and Lexi had been a couple for over a year. It was absurd to hide that she was gay from their parents. Who cared what they thought?

“It’s the Devonshire’s fortieth wedding anniversary. They’ll pick that over Emma’s wedding. You know how they feel about her.”

He grunted. His parents—mostly his mother—had always been weird about Emma. Though he and Rarity were nothing like the people that spawned them, they were still blood, so his and Rarity’s liberal attitudes were often overlooked, but that didn’t mean their parents would abide the same socialist standards from others.

Their parents were proud black card members of the upper crust society that summered in the Hamptons, went yachting on the weekends, and dined on ridiculously hard to pronounce small foods like
Foie Gras
.

Riley was once grounded and accused of being a ‘recalcitrant activist’ because his friend Jake came over in a PETA T-shirt and asked if he wanted to play Frisbee. To his mother’s way of thinking, that was a gross and barbaric display of uncouth trash.

He and Rarity were generationally wealthy trust fund babies. No matter how much they survived off their independently earned incomes,
Mumsy and Daddy
would always be there to bail them out if needed. It was their shared goal in life to
never
need their parents in such a way.

Their wealth should be comforting, but it felt more like a noose around Riley’s non-conformist neck. The entire white pants, polo-playing, fracking-investing group of peers was repellent to him.

Emma didn’t have a house in the Hamptons or an au pair as a child. She had parents that worked nine to five and wore—
gasp—
denim. Her association with the Lockhart’s was the result of her grandmother’s trust fund, which included scholarships to the same schools he and Rarity attended.

Once, while walking the topiary garden with his mother as she sipped a crushed Valium cocktail, she referred to Emma as ‘that new money filth having a bad influence on Rarity’. It was clear then that his mother would never approve of Emma, which quite possibly could have permanently cemented the girl into Rarity’s life.

Emma’s fiancé, Becket Grayson, wasn’t a guy he or Rarity would voluntarily hang out with, but he made Emma happy. The Graysons were paying for the wedding, of course, so it was nice she was finally getting a fantasy she never expected. That was why they let her carry on about linens and bows and whatever the hell a nosegay was. Because she was nice.

“What’s wrong?” Rarity’s voice broke the comfortable silence.

Riley glanced at the door and scowled. Emma stood, trembling. Big brown eyes, rimmed in red, shimmered under a sheet of unshed tears, as she stared at them.

“Did they send you the wrong dress?” he asked stupidly, then corrected, “Gown.”

He never saw her upset. It was filling him with all sorts of uncomfortable emotions, feelings he didn’t know the names of. He wanted her to stop being upset that instant so he could have his manly emotions back. Dear God, it was like staring at a helpless basket of kittens floating down the river.

“Emma, say something,” Rarity insisted.

“It wasn’t the delivery from the bridal boutique. It—” A stuttering breath intersected her words. “It was Becket.” The heel of her palm swatted away the tears as they quickly fell. “We—
oh God
—we broke up.”

Silence.

This was bad. How long was an appropriate length of time before someone could say something in situations like this? And why hadn’t he gone to his own room when he had the chance? Now he was stuck there, smack dab in the awkward—

“He
what
?” Rarity snapped.

Emma blinked, sending big crocodile drops unchecked down her round cheeks. “We aren’t getting married,” she croaked. “We’re through.” She spoke as though she was still convincing herself.

“What do you mean,
you’re through
? You just ordered ugly invitations with stupid anchors on them. Becket insisted on the anchors!”

Her head crooked as she blinked those big innocent eyes at his sister. “You thought my invitations were ugly?”

“
Who cares what I thought?
What happened?”

Shuffling to the living room without shutting the door, she delicately sat on the edge of the overstuffed chair. The picture of the carnation ball was still in her hand, drawing his attention to her enormous engagement ring as it winked in the sunlight.

“He was supposed to be in class,” she whispered.

Rarity scooted to the edge of the chair and removed the crumpled magazine page from her grip. “Toots, look at me.
What
happened?” she asked again, slowly.

Drawing in a shaky breath, Emma shook her head. “He said he couldn’t marry me. He said he’s...in love with someone else.”

“What?”

Emma sniffled. “Her name’s Goldie.”

Rarity drew back and made a face like she tasted vomit. “Goldie? What is she, a retriever? Who the hell has a name like Goldie?”

“Good question,
Rarity,”
he chimed in.
Goldie Hawn’s hot. Don’t mention that now.

His sister’s evil stare snapped to him. “Shut up, dick.”

Yeah, he’d better stay out of this. Figuring now was a good time to escape, he gripped the arm of the couch and—

“How could he do this to me? I’m so humiliated!” Emma burst into tears again.

Riley dropped his head to the back of the couch and shut his eyes. This was going to take a while.

****

S
ix horribly uncomfortable days later things hadn’t improved. Emma had planted herself on the couch and only got up to use the bathroom, but never for bathing. Riley never saw her eat, but someone took his ice cream, a conundrum that had consumed him. Her hair had inflated to three times its usual size and her eyes were vacant pools of pink.

There could only be one explanation for such a drastic change. She was in some sort of zombie chrysalis stage and he was scared.

“Shouldn’t we do something?” he whispered anxiously to Rarity as he lurked in the hall by her bedroom, never completely taking his eyes off what used to be Emma.

His sister shrugged as she folded a shirt and placed it in a vintage Pendleton bag. “Maybe she just needs to feel this right now.”

“Who wants to feel something like that, Rarity? Rejection’s awful. And she’s hogging the couch. There’s snotty tissues all over the place and I’m pretty sure she ate my ice cream.”
I know she ate it.

Sending him a sidelong glance, she rolled her eyes and went back to packing. “Is this about your concern for Emma or the fact that she’s monopolizing the common area of the loft?”

“I’m concerned.”

“About your ice cream.” She closed her bag and tied a red flannel around her waist. “If it’s bothering you, say something to her.”

He frowned as she hefted the bag off the bed. “Where are you going?”

“I have a shoot this week.”

“A far away one? Where? How long will you be gone? What about Emma?”

“Calm down, Riley. I’m only going to Saratoga Springs. It’s the yearling auction.”

“You’re abandoning your best friend in her time of need to go take pictures of stuffy bluebloods throwing down millions at a
horse auction
?”

“It’s one of my best paying gigs. I can’t miss it. Emma knows that. I’ll be back in a week with my BFF-Got-Dumped checklist.”

His brows lifted. “Is there really a list for that?” It might be helpful.

“Shut up.”

He grabbed her arm as she shouldered her way out of the room. Sometimes having a sister short on feelings was an issue. “She’s upset, Rare. I don’t think you should leave her. She’s all drippy and making puppy sounds—I’m not versed in that language.”

She arched a brow. “And you think I am?” Peeking through the hall they stared at their sniveling roommate. She was sobbing into a tissue and hugging her wrinkled gown, which showed up an hour after the groom dumped her. Irony—the bitch—had impeccable timing.

His sister sighed. “Look, there’s nothing I can do for her at this stage. When she gets to the angry stage I’ll jump in the game, but she’s days away from that, maybe weeks. She’s going to be sad, Riley, and she’s going to cry. Emma dreamt about getting married since she was a little girl and Becket crushed her. Let her mourn.”

He shifted and scuffed his shoe over the wood floor. “Can I leave?”

“No, you can’t leave. Someone has to keep an eye on her!”

He scoffed. “You’re so full of shit, all your talk about grief and necessary feelings. You’re bailing, because you don’t want to see her this way. Well, she’s your best friend, Rarity. I’m just the roommate. It’s not my job to babysit—”

“No one said you have to babysit her. Just make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid, like contact Becket or beg him to come back. The man is scum.”

“Oh, like I’m qualified to stop her if she wants to call the guy.”

“Just run interference and stop being such a pansy. Now move, I have to be there by seven.”

“You’re a... pansy,” he muttered, unable to think of a better insult as she went to the kitchen and grabbed an apple from the bowl.

Rarity went to the couch and kissed Emma’s head. “This too shall pass, toots. I’ll be back in a week. Riley’s here if you need anything and I’ll have my phone on me. Don’t text him. Love you.”

Emma only nodded, made an ugly crying face, and a high pitch hum like a teapot. The door closed and they were alone. Great. Sticking to the perimeter of the loft, he crept to his room and quietly shut the door.

Riley avoided the common area as long as possible. Eventually Emma’s tiny whimpers stopped and she slept, some British romantic comedy playing softly in the background.

It was his night off and he didn’t have plans, but he couldn’t stay there. Her depression was suffocating him. Sneaking into the kitchen, he swiped his keys off the counter, the nearly silent drag of metal over granite having the effect of a tray of dishes toppling to the floor.

“Riley?”

He cursed his luck and rotated, pasting on a fake smile. “Hey, Em. How’s it going? I’m lovin’ the new do.”

Frowning, she lifted a hand to her hair and patted down the nest of blonde frizz. “Are you going out?”

“I...uh, yeah. Out.”

Her shoulders shook as the puppy whimpers started again. He drew back at the awful, high-pitched whines. It wasn’t a natural sound for a woman to make.

“O—kay,” she stuttered. “Ha—have fun.”

Oh, for the love of fuck. He tossed his keys on the counter and trudged to the couch. It would be cruel to leave her like that.

Sighing, he pushed her legs out of the way and dropped to the sofa. “Come on.” He held open his arms. “Let’s hug it out.”

Startlingly, she collapsed into his hold and proceeded to wail.

“There. There.” What did that even mean? There where? He dragged a hand down her back and inelegantly blew away the straggly snarl of hair sticking to his lip, as her arms wrapped around his waist and squeezed.

He couldn’t remember ever hugging Emma before. As Rarity’s best friend, she was in the no touch zone by default. It was strange touching her now. He never realized how short she actually was. Like really short. How did she drive? Or look a bank teller in the eye?

“Thanks for staying with me,” she whispered.