Starfire (Erotic Romance) (Peaches Monroe) (36 page)

“She was!” I snickered. “Before that, she kept calling him apple dumpling and slow-dance-grinding to Bon Jovi ballads.” I blinked innocently at Mitchell. “We would have stopped her, but you seemed into it.”

Mitchell threw his hands in the air. “I’m cured! I’m totally straight now! I like vagina!”

Shayla and I both clapped and cheered.

He grabbed the garbage pail and swept the empty mini-bottles from the top of the dresser into the plastic bin.

“Those were all open when we got here,” I said. “Right, Shayla?”

She nodded solemnly.

The funny thing about the lipstick on Mitchell’s penis was that he actually did it to himself. He woke up and caught me putting lipstick on his mouth, and confiscated it.

We went back to Cougar Town, where he did actually dance with an older woman. Actually, he danced with several, and they adored him.

Chantalle drove us back to the hotel room, then left us to continue the party. Mitchell drank most of the mini-bottles, then told us he was going to play a joke on Mitchell. (Yes, he referred to himself by name.)

The fact he’d done it to himself only made the lipstick prank funnier.

“He’s crazy,” Shayla whispered to me. “Can we keep him?”

“Yes, let’s keep him.”

Mitchell set his suitcase on the dresser and unzipped it to reveal very orderly contents.

“You’re taking me for breakfast at that chocolate fountain place,” he said. “Then we all go to our dress and suit fitting appointment.”

Shayla and I agreed to the plan and did our best to get up and make ourselves presentable while wearing the previous night’s clothes. We pinkie-swore to never drink again.

~

The three of us went to brunch at Pancake International, which gave me a moment of
déjà vu
. Shayla and I had gone there with Golden just a few weeks earlier, and sat at the same table with the mis-matched wooden chairs. Mitchell is a similar height to Golden, and has curly blond hair as well, so it was funny, but the good kind of funny. 

The waitress even said, “You three again!”

This visit, however, Adrian wouldn’t be flirting with me by text message. Our whole fling had started and ended since the last time I had the Elvis in Paris (crepes with peanut butter and bacon.)

I pulled out my phone and looked over the last messages from Adrian. We hadn’t spoken since our walk around the pond on Monday. I composed a dozen messages, but couldn’t hit the send button.

Shayla grabbed my phone from my hands and tossed in in my purse. “Busted,” she said.

“Fine, I’ll cover the tip,” I said.

Mitchell raised his eyebrows appreciatively. “I get it! That’s a good trick. I should use that on my friends. They’re always texting when we hang out.” He chuckled. “They should be punished.”

Shayla waggled her eyebrows. “You always hurt the ones you love.”

“Aw, I miss you guys already,” Mitchell said. “I’ll have to catch a lift up in Dalton’s plane next time he comes to Washington.”

Shayla leaned over and kissed him on the side of the cheek. “I always want what I can’t have. Mitchell, are you sure you don’t have a straight side? We could get married.”

“Double wedding?” I offered. “We’ve got plenty of food.”

Mitchell laughed, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment, or maybe happiness.

~

We finished breakfast, and stepped out into the sunshine.

The sun glinted off an approaching convertible, cherry red, with the top down. At the wheel was Dottie Simpkins, a scarf wrapped around her pale pink hair. Sitting next to her was my neighbor, Mr. Galloway, waving to me. A rust-colored labradoodle sat in the back seat.

“Hello, Dottie! Hello, Mr. Galloway!” I called out, waving back.

Mitchell snorted with laughter. “I love this town.”

“We don’t all know each other,” Shayla said. “But sometimes it
does
feel like we’re the charming extras and backdrop to someone else’s movie.”

“That’s why Dalton was here filming,” Mitchell said.

Shayla got a grumpy look as we started walking down the street toward the seamstress.

After a few minutes of silence, Shayla said, “I’m trying to be a good sport about Dalton swooping in here and taking away the best thing about this town.”

“I can’t be your roommate forever,” I said.

She muttered something I couldn’t hear.

“Listen, I’m nervous, too,” I said. “I’ve never had a real relationship with a guy. Dalton is the first guy I’ve even slept with more than ten times.”

Mitchell snorted, then said, “Wait, sorry. You’re serious? You’ve never been in love before?”

I stopped walking and rubbed my stomach. We were still a few blocks from the seamstress. “I feel weird. Too much bacon. Everything’s jumping around inside me.”

Mitchell fixed me with a serious stare. “Peaches. That fluttering is love, not bacon.”

“Are you sure? It feels like bacon. Does love feel like bacon?”

Shayla nodded in agreement with Mitchell. “You usually eat all your bacon and some of mine, but you hardly touched your breakfast. The fluttering must be love.”

“I wish Dalton was better at expressing his feelings,” I said. “Then I could be sure.”

She grabbed my hand and shook it in the air between us. “Maybe if you wore your engagement ring, you’d be more sure. Stop being such a weirdo and let yourself fall. If I can let you go with a smile on my face, you’d better smile, too.”

“Oh, Shayla.” I stared into her golden brown eyes, glowing like embers. “Shit! I forgot to buy you fancy cheese! When I was in San Francisco. I’m a terrible friend. I’m going to be a terrible wife.”

“I don’t care about cheese,” she said. “I care about you, because you’re not a terrible friend. You’re a
great
friend.”

“I’ll still be a terrible wife.” 

“Probably,” she said, smirking. “But neither of us was the best at friends before we started hanging out. I remember calling you names because you wouldn’t go in the lake when it was full of tadpoles.”

“You were kind of a dick about it,” I said. “And when you were fourteen and hormonal, I thought it was over. I was pretty sure one of us might kill the other, but I hung in there.”

“We learned to be friends, together,” she said.

“I guess.”

“You’ll be a good wife. You’ll screw up plenty, but you’ll get the hang of it, eventually.”

Mitchell gave me a sweet smile of encouragement. “I think you’ll be amazing, right from day one, but I’m a better friend than Shayla.”

She laughed and pretended to push him over.

“Thanks for the pep talk, guys.”

Mitchell started jogging down the street. “Enough mush! We need to get fitted.”

Shayla grabbed my hand and tugged me toward our destination.

~

The dress designer, Nancy, had sent one of her own seamstresses up to do the final fitting and adjustments of the gown I chose. The woman was tall, thin, and familiar-looking. It turned out she was the sister of Gwendolyn, one of the assistants I’d met in LA. Her name was Ginnifer with a G.

“We’re ahead of schedule,” Ginnifer said. “Even if you’ve changed three sizes, we’ll be able to make the alterations, but by the look of you, you’re as perfect as the day you were first measured up.” She laughed. “Less than two weeks ago.”

Shayla and Mitchell went off with the other assistants, and I followed Ginnifer to the back room, so nobody else would see the dress ahead of time.

Everything appeared to be falling into place.

Standing next to me at the altar on Saturday would be Shayla, of course, and Mitchell. We’d already chosen a pale gray as our bridal party color, and Mitchell would look dashing in his gray suit with a pink tie. Shayla’s gray dress had a pink highlight across the bust. If I didn’t love my custom gown so much, I would have wanted to wear Shayla’s dress.

According to Vern, Dalton had expanded his side to include his cousin, Connor. His other attendant was his friend, Alexis. I hadn’t been a big fan of Alexis since she sold photos of me in my underwear to the tabloids, but she was like a sister to Dalton, so I would just try to get over bad first impressions. I had sprayed her with a garden hose on my front lawn, so we’d both done regrettable things.

“I love your curves,” Ginnifer said as I wriggled into the slip I’d be wearing under the dress.

I laughed. “Oh, please. You’re tall and slim, and you could probably model these gowns.”

She smiled and unzipped the bag for my dress. “I didn’t mean I envied you or don’t accept myself. Just that I admire every bride, in her beautiful pre-wedding glow. Bridal gowns are infused with magic, don’t you know? They allow us to see what’s always been there.”

“Oh.” I stared at my gown, flat from the bag.

“Do you see something?” she asked. “What do you think?”

“It looks flat,” I said. “Like it’s just waiting for some curves to fill it out.”

She beamed. “Exactly. Arms up. We’ll do the formal side first, the party side second.”

I raised my arms in the air and waited.

She took her time, moving slowly and deliberately, and then she gently swooshed the crinkling fabric over my head and smoothed it out.

With my eyes clenched shut, I waited as she fastened all the buttons at the back.

“May I?” She wiggled the clip holding my hair up in a messy bun.

“Sure.” I waited as she let down my hair and fixed it loosely around my bare shoulders.

“You can open your eyes now,” she said.

I hesitated.

If I opened my eyes and saw myself in the gown, I knew I would feel something. I didn’t know what that
something
would be, but it scared me. I was a cup about to overflow.

She whispered gentle encouragement, saying, “Open your eyes and see what your future husband will see.”

I opened my eyes.

The woman in front of me looked beautiful and confident. Her blue eyes sparkled. She still had plenty of fight, but she also looked ready to surrender.

No more holding back.

No more running away.

Just surrender.

~

After the fittings, Vern met with us to go over some things with the caterers. Everyone kept asking me how I felt about every little thing.

Did I want coconut flakes on the fruit skewers?

Yes, I thought I did, but when I agreed to the coconut flakes, I was informed that the chicken dish had coconut milk, so if a guest had allergies, that was two things they couldn’t eat, and
was I okay with that?

When I said to leave the coconut flakes off the fruit skewers, I got a ten-minute demonstration of banana chunks turning various colors based on adjoining fruits.

I thought the whole point of hiring caterers was to have them take care of things for you. Was this their way of making me feel I was getting Dalton’s money worth?

I would have to report all this to him when he arrived in town the next day.

As I moved down the list of catering choices and other tasks, I made another list in my head, of things I needed to say to Dalton before the wedding.

After much soul-searching, and fighting back tears when I saw myself in my beautiful gown, I’d figured out a few things.

I’d always admired how Dalton was able to commit completely to a role. Even though he had won my heart at first by saying lines someone else had written, I could feel how much he meant the words.

Love doesn’t always translate into perfect little speeches. What matters most is what you do. Even though I’d run away from Dalton so many times, he never gave up on us.

Now things were going to change.

After always telling myself to keep my eyes open, I was ready to close them and take a leap of faith.

Dalton needed to know that I wasn’t going to run anymore. He didn’t need to chase me, because I was his.

I loved him.

He’d captured my heart, and I didn’t even care that our wedding had been rushed for publicity, or that he had someone else writing his vows, as long as he meant every word.

As soon as he arrived in town Friday, I would make good on my threat. I would run right into his arms, and we’d both find out what kind of man he was.

CHAPTER 39

Friday.

One more sleep.

Assuming I’d even be able to sleep.

Friday afternoon, I was hanging out with my best friends at home, anxiously awaiting Dalton’s arrival.

I was practicing throwing the bouquet to Shayla when I got a phone call from Vern.

Shayla and Mitchell sat quietly, picking up on my nervousness.

Vern asked me a series of questions about the catering, and whether my mother had gotten her shoes dyed to match, but I could tell he was leading up to something.

“Vern, just tell me the bad news already,” I said.

“Mr. Deangelo has been delayed on set and won’t be flying in tonight,” he said.

“Dalton’s not flying in tonight,” I told my friends.

Shayla seemed concerned, but Mitchell looked devastated. He adored Dalton to the point of babbling incoherently in his presence, and now he seemed even more upset than I was.

That made me feel even more uneasy.

Vern had a few more details, and said Dalton would have phoned me himself, but he was on location where they had bad cell phone reception.

“Don’t they have some sort of schedule?” I asked. “They’ve been doing this show for years. You’d think they’d be more organized.”

Vern chuckled on the other end of the call. “I guess you’ve got a few things to learn about the life of an actor’s wife. Don’t worry about the rest of the wedding party. Connor and Alexis are on their way now in a rental car.”

“That wet blanket Connor got to leave on time? But Dalton’s the star of the show. Why does he have to work late?”

“We’ll fly in first thing in the morning. Don’t worry.”

“When people tell me not to worry, it only makes me worry harder.”

He chuckled again, which made it difficult for me to take out my anger on Vern.

“Which dress did you choose?” he asked.

“It’s a surprise.”

“The one with the cupcakes on the bosom?”

I snorted. “Not likely. Dalton’s afraid of carbohydrates. I wouldn’t want him to run away screaming.”