Perfectly Played: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (Love & Alliteration Book 1) Page 5

Chapter Five

  Flora

  I grip the bars of the jail cell with frustration. The smell of stale beer and urine is making me nauseous.

  “Don’t touch, those bars are covered in germs,” M.K. hisses. She swipes at her nose. There’s blood on her hand.

  “Are you okay? Did someone hit you?”

  “Just a nosebleed,” M.K. confesses, wiping her hand on her skirt, now wrinkled beyond repair. “No one touched me, other than to push me out of the way. I didn’t even hit anyone. I have no idea why I’m here!” She raises her voice, but no one takes any notice.

  I pluck the short sleeve of my dress. “Use this instead.”

  “You can’t wipe blood on a white dress.” We turn to see two women seated on the bench at the back of the holding cell. One is a sleek blonde and the other a redhead with a tumble of crazy curls. “Here.” The redhead pulls a Kleenex out of the pocket of her pants.

  “Thanks.” M.K. presses the tissue to her nose.

  “I’m a mom. I always have Kleenex. And up until about a year ago, always a container of Cheerios. I wish I had some now because I’m so hungry.”

  I nod in agreement, turning my back to the germ-covered bars. “I couldn’t eat anything all day. I was supposed to get married.”

  Why did I tell them that? It’s not going to do any good.

  It can’t get any worse. During the fight at the strip club, I decked a woman, right in front of a police officer, which led to my arrest. M.K. tried to stop the police from taking me, so she got dragged along as well. I have no idea where Ruthie is, and no way of getting hold of her, since Ruthie left her cell phone back in the hotel.

  Do police stations still have pay phones? And if so, who am I supposed to call?

  For a moment, an image of Dean the baseball player flashes before my eyes. He seemed like a nice guy but nice enough to rescue a stranger from prison?

  “’Supposed’ to get married? Do tell. I need something to keep me from going insane in here.” The blonde glares at the woman crowded next to her like she’s silently insisting she move.

  The woman beside her isn’t listening. “Don’t you look at me like that! There’s room enough for your skinny white ass here, and if you don’t like it, feel free to get comfy on the floor with the rest of them.”

  “Brit,” the redhead warns.

  Brit harrumphs and flips her hair. “So what happened? He dump you?”

  “She walked out on him,” M.K. says proudly, giving me a high five. “So proud of you.”

  “You don’t seem overly thrilled,” the redhead says.

  I sigh. “It had to be done.”

  “So?” Brit demands. “Tell. I’m Brit, this is Casey, we’re all friends now. Dish.”

  Casey rolls her eyes. “Forgive my friend. I think she’s going into withdrawal from not having her phone. Twenty minutes without Facebook or Instagram and she starts bugging random strangers.”

  “I’m Flora, by the way. This is M.K. No longer random strangers.”

  “What’s M.K. stand for?” Brit asks.

  “It’s a long story.”

  Brit waves an arm, almost hitting the woman next to her. “Like we have anything else to do?”

  “My full name is Moira Margaret Donnelly,” M.K. begins. “They used to call me M&M, which was fine because kids with a speech impediment cannot say Moira and we had two of them in my school. This was fine until I was in grade six and we got another Moira in the class.”

  “Moira Michelle,” I offer. “Who also liked to be called M&M.”

  “What are the odds?” M.K. asks. “There was a fair bit of confusion for a few months, until Becky Dillon’s birthday party.”

  “That was fun,” I cut in, with a fond smile. “The last of the all-girl parties.”

  “She had a slumber party. I think it was movie number three of the night—

  “The Cutting Edge,” I finish.

  “Oh, my god, I love that movie! I had a secret crush on Doug Dorsey,” Brit confesses. “It’s not something I’m proud of.”

  “Anyway, back to my name.” M.K. says. “You know the actress who played Kate? Moira Kelly?”

  Brit and Casey nod in unison.

  “While we were watching the movie, Moira Michelle, who had also been invited, mentioned how much I looked like Kate in the movie.”

  Brit leans forward to scrutinize M.K. “I don’t see it.”

  “I think it had more to do with the fact that M.K. used to have eyebrows that were darker and a little…” I glance at M.K., waiting for permission to continue.

  “They looked like caterpillars crawling on my face,” M.K. says. “Horrible things. And my mother refused to let me pluck them until I was thirteen.”

  “And when she did, you practically took off everything!” I laugh at the memory, forgetting I had done some of the plucking.

  “Yes, bad eyebrows.” Brit gestures to move on with the story.

  “Long story short, the conclusion to that night was that I looked like Kate, and so I was renamed Moira Kate. M.K. Moira Michelle got to keep M&M, which I never forgave her for.”

  “They never really got along after that,” I add.

  “I didn’t even accept her friend request on Facebook,” M.K. says heatedly.

  “My name’s Desiree,” the woman beside Brit says suddenly.

  ~

  Not long after, an officer appears at the door of the cell and shakes his keys. “Everyone sobered up?”

  “I wasn’t drunk in the first place,” M.K. mutters under her breath.

  “This is all Morgan’s fault,” Brit says angrily, loud enough for most of the holding cell to hear. “She started this whole thing when she pulled the women off the stage.”

  We file out of the cell with heads down. Getting arrested in Las Vegas is on no one’s bucket list.

  “Nice chatting with you,” I call to Casey and Brit as they make a beeline to a tall blonde waiting with a tall, vaguely familiar man.

  “That’s Bron,” I whisper to M.K. who doesn’t give him a glance.

  “Clay must have taken off by now,” M.K. says forlornly as we head outside, the night air muggy but better than the sweat smell of the jail. “It’s after three.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say automatically as M.K. hails a cab.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “It’s no one’s fault, but I know you liked him.”

  “I did, and I’ll never see him again.”

  I don’t say much on the way back to the hotel, letting M.K. fret silently beside me.

  Dean

  I quietly close the door to the hotel room.

  It’s four thirty in the morning and there’s no way I’m getting any sleep tonight. Even if I can get my mind to stop whirling, there’s no chance I’m getting a moment’s quiet with Clay snoring like a freight train in the bed next to me.

  Evelyn was a quiet sleeper. She’s so small and kept to her side of the bed like there was a border wall between us, that some nights I barely noticed she was there.

  I wonder where she’s sleeping tonight? Did she even make it to Las Vegas? Is she in the hotel? Is she—?

  Stop thinking about Evelyn! I can bet money she’s not thinking of me.

  The street in front of the hotel is as busy at four thirty a.m. as it is in the middle of the day. I walked the infamous Strip earlier, from the Cosmopolitan Hotel to Circus Circus. Even though the bright lights and noise did nothing for my mood, it was my first trip to Vegas and I needed to see the sights. Especially since I wasn’t doing any of the stereotypical things a single guy does in Vegas.

  This time I walk the other way and find myself out front of the Bellagio. I watch the fountain for a while, hypnotized by the rhythmic flumes of water reaching higher and higher. I think of how many movies showed the fountain and can’t help but appreciate it.

  But I can’t stand here and watch it forever. The street is so bright that it’s hard to tell if the sun is rising. It will be soon. With morning
comes my flight home, so I’d better make the most of this short visit.

  The hollowness in my stomach reminds me that I never ate last night. Looking around to find possibilities, a sudden movement catches my eye. A woman is waving at me.

  I only recognize her because of her smile.

  The sleek blonde hair is gone, and a mass of curls frame her face. The makeup has been cleaned off, leaving big green eyes and a wide smiling mouth, with a dotting of freckles now covering her nose. They make her look younger and somewhat vulnerable.

  I push my way through the crowd to her. “Flora, right?”

  Her smile is a mile wide with a tiny gap between her two front teeth. “Dean. You’re kind of easy to recognize.”

  “I’d say the same but you look a little different.” The white wedding dress is gone. She’s wearing a Berkley sweatshirt with a pair of ripped jeans rolled up at the ankles, with purple Converse sneakers.

  “This is more me,” she says ruefully.

  “I like the more me. Cool shoes.” I stand staring at her until a memory pricks at me. “You stood up my friend.”

  Flora grimaces. “That couldn’t be helped. M.K. is miserable about it, by the way.”

  “Clay, too. Actually, he’s asleep right now, so I have no idea what he is. I’m sure he’s upset.”

  “You couldn’t sleep?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Me neither,” Flora admits.

  We stand in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing people to move around us like rocks in a river.

  “Do you know that’s where that guy shot all those people during the concert a couple years ago?” Flora asks, pointing to the Luxor.

  “Does it make you nervous to walk around here, knowing what happened?”

  She shakes her head. “Maybe it should, but I feel pretty comfortable walking around here, which is a good thing for a woman.”

  “Especially considering it’s the middle of the night.”

  “More like early morning. I think I’m more worried about someone stealing my bag than anything else.” I did notice she was holding her purse tightly. The Edie shoulder bag in dark red, from Coach.

  I bought the same bag for Evelyn last year, only in black. She’s in love with anything with the Coach label, calling the brand part of her ‘signature style.’

  “It’s a nice bag.”

  “You’re not going to steal it, are you? Because I may not look like much, but I will defend myself and my property.” She tries to smile menacingly but it only makes her looks more adorable.

  More adorable? How can I think anyone is adorable now? But she is…

  “Duly warned,” I say. “Look, I’m thinking of getting something to eat. Do you want something? Coffee? Food?” It’s her smile. Something about her smile with the tiny gap between her teeth. “If you want to be alone, that’s cool,” I quickly back pedal. “I’m sure your night’s been a lot like mine.”

  But to my surprise she nods. “Okay.”

  That’s not a rolling endorsement, but at least she agrees.

  I lead her to the IHOP I’d seen earlier. “Is this okay?”

  “You know, I’ve actually never been inside an International House of Pancakes,” she says as she opens the door for herself. She glances around with a smile. “It’s as iconic as I imagined.”

  “Do you have something against pancakes?”

  “They haven’t made it across the border. IHOP, not pancakes. We have pancakes, though. Of course we have pancakes and waffles and French toast… it’s always surprised me that we don’t have more breakfast places since we’re known for maple syrup. We have Denny’s and Perkins, and Sunset Grill is good and—good morning,” she says without taking a breath as a waiter, walking slowly on elderly legs, arrives to show us to a table.

  As Flora slides into a booth, I take in the flickering light overhead and the worn seats. Evelyn wouldn’t be caught dead in here.

  But this isn’t Evelyn.

  “So you’re a fellow Canuck,” I say after the waiter takes our order for coffee and orange juice.

  Flora smacks herself on the forehead. “Of course! You are too, and here I am going on about restaurants. Not that you’re automatically a Canadian if you play with the Blue Jays. But I remember that Josh Donaldson wanted to play for the Canadian National Team, and he was American. I always thought he looked like a Viking. He was on that show…” She trails off, noticing my smile widens with every word she says. “Sorry. I talk a lot when I’m nervous.”

  She reminds me of my sister. “I don’t say much at all, so talk away.”

  An awkward silence falls.

  “This is weird, isn’t it?” Flora says after examining everything on the table. “It’s not just me.”

  “It is strange,” I agree. “But that doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

  She looks at me from underneath thick lashes as she plays with her spoon. “No, not bad. But weird.” Setting the spoon down, she tugs the sleeve of her sweater down, and then pushes it up.

  “Very.” I watch her fidget, entranced by her movements. She’s pretty in a natural, low-maintenance kind of way, the kind of woman who doesn’t need forty minutes prep time before she can leave the house to go to Starbucks. Her mouth turns down, her eyes are big and green, and with makeup still smudged around them, I can’t tell if she’s twenty-five or thirty-five.

  The waiter returns with a tray of glasses that clink against each other as he walks. I’m tempted to jump up and take the tray from him, but don’t want to embarrass him. After he takes our order, silence falls again. I watch as Flora adds sugar to her coffee with a pensive expression on her face like she’s weighing her words.

  I wonder what he did to her.

  Instead of speaking, she starts playing with her spoon again and eventually drops it. It lands under the table with a clatter. “Crap.” She scrambles to reach it, at the same time as I lean down and pick it up.

  “Maybe we should get you another one,” I say as I hand it to her. “Not sure how clean the floor is.”

  “Good idea.” She puts it at the end of the table. “Probably not very clean.”

  “I wouldn’t eat off it.”

  “Do you eat off many floors?”

  “I do my best to avoid it.”

  I meet her gaze and we both smile. This might be weird and strange and awkward, but it’s not bad.

  It’s kind of nice.

  Flora—I don’t know her but already I can tell she’s nothing like Evelyn. Not that I’m looking for the anti-Evelyn—not that I’m looking for anyone—it will take some time to adjust.

  She takes a deep breath. “I figure we should talk about it, you know, about what happened. I mean, what are the chances of both of us having our weddings messed up? It’s kind of fate or weird karma if you believe in that stuff. Which I’m not sure if I do, but it is strange that we hooked up. But not really hooked up. Or we could just avoid the topic altogether and get back to talking about movies, or Game of Thrones. Or I could tell you more about my Star Wars phase.” Flora pauses in her a rapid-fire recitation. “What do you think?”

  “Do you always talk that fast?”

  Her big eyes widen even more. “When I’m nervous. But it’s weird because I didn’t feel nervous with you before, only sort of comfortable, but that’s when we were with the others, but now when it’s just you and me, it’s still comfortable, but definitely kind of weird so that makes me nervous—”

  “You say weird a lot,” I interrupt with a grin.

  She lifts her hands helplessly. “I don’t know what else to call it. You have to admit this has been a strange day.”

  “Bizarre, peculiar, abnormal, out of the ordinary,” I recite. “Unusual. You’re right. Weird sounds best.”

  “You sound like a thesaurus.”

  “It’s my hidden talent. I’m surprisingly articulate.”

  “Very eloquent. Even loquacious.”

  I shake my head. “You got me there. I don’t know what th
at means. I’m only a ballplayer, after all. At least, I used to be. Why did you leave him?” I switch topics quickly.

  “So we’re going there, are we?” Flora nods in agreement. “You want me to go first?”

  “I’m the one who asked.”

  “I think that was probably to shut me up. I’ve been told I have a tendency to babble.”

  “I’m sorry I make you nervous.”

  “Do you know Canadians apologize more than anyone else in the world? And for so much that’s not their fault! I once tried to go for a whole week without apologizing and couldn’t even manage a day. It’s hard in my store when I have to apologize for taking so long, but usually, that’s not even my fault, just because of some customer who can’t make up their mind between yellow roses or Gerbera daisies.” Flora pauses for breath and gives me an apologetic smile. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

  I grin as I lift my coffee. “Don’t apologize for it.”

  “I won’t,” she says firmly, and I laugh. Laugh out loud, like my heart isn’t as heavy as a carry-on bag full of rocks.

  It feels a little lighter now.

  “So which would you pick?” I take pity on her confused expression. “Roses or daisies?”

  “Gerbera daisies, of course. Roses are beautiful, but they really don’t have a lot of personality. Like some mega-model who is as boring as fuck.”

  I love how she whispers the word, even though we’re alone in the restaurant.

  “That’s a very Canadian way to swear,” I say out loud, taking a sip of my coffee. “We are very polite, aren’t we?”

  Flora leans forward. “Which is why I won’t say that this coffee is horrible,” she whispers. “At least I won’t say it very loud.”

  I laugh again. “It’s not Tim Horton’s.”

  “Tim’s,” she groans, holding her chest. “The best donuts ever, but I’m in love with Starbucks. I feel like such a traitor.”

  “I won’t tell your secret,” I promise.

  Flora smiles widely. “This stopped being weird. But where was I?”

  “About to get weird, I think.”

  “Ah. Why did I leave Thomas at the altar?” she asks, staring up at the stained ceiling like it had the answer. “That’s the fifty-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?”