Downgrade My Ride? I'll Upgrade My Groom! novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Carsick
Niles gives the bridal Rolls-Royce and Liv's mother's gown to his carsick secretary, the SUV carrying Liv crashes, and she watches Bailey kiss her groom on a livestream, then calls Clay and tells him he has an hour.
The white Rolls-Royce was idling in my father's drive with the ribbons on the hood, and my groom was helping another woman into it.
I stood on the front steps in my slip and my veil.
My mother's gown was supposed to be in that car.
So were her pearls.
Bailey Copley ducked into the back seat with one hand pressed to her stomach.
She was Niles's assistant.
She was wearing pale pink, and she looked like she might faint.
"Niles," I said. "What is she doing?"
He shut her door gently.
Then he turned around and smiled at me.
"She gets carsick, Liv. You know that. She can't do forty minutes in the back of an SUV."
"It's my wedding car."
"It's a car."
Behind me, forty guests were coming out of the house for the photos.
My aunts. My father's partners. Half the Kenward marketing team, in sunglasses, holding champagne.
"My mother's dress is in the trunk," I said.
"It's riding with Bailey so it doesn't crease." He said it slowly, like I was being difficult on purpose. "You'll change at the church. Same as the plan."
"The plan was that I'd ride in it."
He came up two steps so we were eye to eye.
He smelled like the cologne I'd bought him for Christmas.
"Don't do this in front of people," he said quietly. "You're embarrassing yourself."
Then he raised his voice, warm and easy, for the crowd.
"My bride is a little nervous! Somebody get her a mimosa!"
People laughed.
The girl from our social team had her phone up.
So did the two guys from sales.
I could see my own face on her screen, small and pale under the tulle.
"Are you filming this?" I asked her.
She lowered it an inch.
She didn't stop.
A black SUV pulled up behind the Rolls.
It wasn't one of ours. It was the kind you call from an app at the airport.
The driver didn't get out.
"There's your ride," Niles said. "I'll see you at the altar, beautiful."
He kissed my cheek.
Then he got into the front of the Rolls-Royce, next to the chauffeur, and turned to say something to Bailey that made her laugh.
The Rolls pulled away with my mother's dress in it.
I looked for my father.
He was by the fountain with his phone to his ear, and he didn't look up.
I could have gone back inside.
I could have sat on my childhood bed and cried and let them all wait.
I got in the SUV.
It smelled like pine air freshener and old coffee.
My veil caught on the seat belt, and I had to hold it in my lap.
"Fourth Presbyterian," I said. "Michigan Avenue."
"I know where," the driver said.
He didn't take the expressway.
He took Sheridan Road, slow, stopping at every yellow light.
My phone kept buzzing.
The girl from social had posted already.
"When the secretary gets the Rolls and the bride gets the Uber," with a crying-laughing face.
Three hundred likes in nine minutes.
I typed a message to Niles.
"Tell her to get out at the church before I get there."
He read it.
He didn't answer.
We stopped at a red light in Evanston.
I heard the engine before I saw the van.
It came through the intersection on its own red and hit my door.
The window burst in.
The world turned sideways and white, and something cracked against my head.
When I opened my eyes, the SUV was half up on the curb.
There was glass in my lap and blood on my veil.
The driver's door was open.
The driver was gone.
So was the van.
A woman in running clothes was banging on my window, shouting if I was okay.
I couldn't find the word for yes.
My phone was on the floor, face up, still lit.
Somebody from my office had started a livestream from the church.
"The bride's not here yet lol," the caption said. "Wait. WAIT."
I watched the doors at the back of the church swing open.
The organ started.
Bailey Copley came down the aisle in my mother's gown.
Ivory silk, the sleeves my mother had worn in 1994, the waist I'd had taken in twice.
My mother's pearls swung in her ears.
She walked slowly.
At the altar Niles lifted her veil.
He looked at her like he'd been waiting all morning.
Then he kissed her, and three hundred people applauded.
The comments were scrolling too fast to read.
A message dropped down over the video.
Niles.
"Bailey's filling in so the guests aren't wasted. We'll sign privately next week. Don't make a scene."
I sat in broken glass in my slip and read it twice.
He hadn't asked if I was alive.
My hands were shaking, but they knew the number.
He picked up on the first ring.
"Liv? Where are you?"
"Clay."
There was a pause.
I heard his car keys.
"Tell me where you are."
"Sheridan Road. Evanston. There was a van."
"I'm coming."
"Wait." I pressed my veil against my eyebrow to stop the blood. "At my engagement party. You said if I ever changed my mind, you'd marry me the same afternoon."
The silence on the line went long.
"Did you mean it?" I asked.
"Every word."
I looked at my phone, where Bailey was still kissing my groom in my mother's dress.
"Then bring your ID," I said. "You have an hour."
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