I SEE CHEATERS! So Yeah, My Fiancé's Wedding Went Up In Flames! novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Something Borrowed

Lainey asks Cal to stand up for his brother anyway, lets Kelsey zip her gown, and watches on her phone as the groom and the bridesmaid slip into the wine room an hour before the vows.

"About two hours," I said.

Cal came in and shut the door behind him.

He was the bigger Sheridan brother, broad through the shoulders, with a short dark beard where Rafferty was all smooth blond.

He fought fires for the city. He looked at the screen, working out where it would spread.

He didn't ask to see it again. He'd seen enough from the door.

He picked up the guard's pen and clicked it, once, and set it down very carefully.

"I'll kill him," he said, very quietly.

"Please don't," my mother said. "I've got a wedding tomorrow."

Cal turned and looked at me for the first time.

"Why aren't you calling it off?"

I could have told him about the strings.

I didn't. I'd told one person, and look where it had gotten me.

"Because if I call it off tonight, he tells everyone I got cold feet," I said. "And Kelsey cries on his shoulder, and they're married by Christmas, and he still works in my mother's hotel."

"So what do you want?"

"I want you to stand up there tomorrow," I said. "Next to him, like nothing happened. And hand him the ring when it's time."

Cal stared at me for a long moment.

He had one string over his head, the same one he'd had for the three years I'd known him.

It was thin and dark brown, years old, and it always trailed off west, toward the window and away from all of us.

I'd never asked about it. Nobody in his family ever said his ex-wife's name.

"You want me to lie to my brother's face," he said.

"For one day. He's been lying to mine for longer."

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"I was going to make a speech," he said. "It had a joke about his hair."

"Keep the joke."

The corner of his mouth went up, almost a smile. It went away fast.

"Okay," he said. "I'll hand him the ring."

At noon on my wedding day, the bridal suite smelled like hairspray and coffee.

Sinead came in with a box of my own croissants from the bakery and a bottle of champagne under her arm.

I told her everything except the strings.

She sat down on the end of the bed in her robe and didn't say anything for ten whole seconds, which had never happened before.

Then she stood up.

"I'm going to rip every hair out of that bitch's head," she said. "And I'm going to frost his face."

"You're going to do my eyeliner," I said. "And then you're going to help me with something."

"Rob," she said. "Rob! I chanted for Rob!"

"We all chanted for Rob."

"I'm going to be sick." She sat back down. "I'm doing your eyeliner first."

At 12:10, Kelsey walked in with her hair already curled, carrying a tray of iced lattes.

"Morning, bride!" she sang.

Sinead's hand jerked, and the eyeliner went a quarter inch too far.

Kelsey's string was brighter than it had been last night. She'd seen him again this morning.

I said thank you for the latte.

At two, Kelsey zipped me into my dress.

It was ivory silk with thin straps and a low back, and I'd bought it with my own money from the bakery.

Her fingers were cold on my spine. She took her time with the zipper.

"You look beautiful," she said in my ear. "He's a lucky guy."

"He is," I said.

She pinned my veil into my curls, and I watched her do it in the mirror.

She did it well. She'd always been good with hair.

At three, the night guard texted me a link from his personal phone.

The wine room off the ballroom had a camera in the corner, over the racks. Mom had put it in after a case of Barolo walked out during a bar mitzvah.

The link opened the live feed. Sinead looked over my shoulder at a dim room full of bottles.

"What am I looking at?"

"The only room on the ground floor with a lock and no windows," I said.

At 4:05 p.m., fifty-five minutes before my ceremony, the wine room door opened.

Rafferty came in first in his tux, with a white rose pinned on his lapel.

Kelsey came in behind him in her champagne-colored bridesmaid's dress and locked the door.

Sinead grabbed my wrist.

Kelsey took a bottle from the ice bucket on the tasting table. It was one of the cases Mom had bought for our toast.

She poured two glasses.

Then she turned and looked up at the corner of the room, right into the camera.

And she raised her glass to it.

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