Can you bring coffee?My head is pounding.
Danny
Not until you give me all the details.
Mabel
This is all your fault, you know. You told me to give him a chance.
Danny
You dirty little rat. I thought you’d kiss him. Maybe let him finger-bang you in a crowded nightclub and jerk him off in the bathroom. I didn’t think you’d marry the guy!
Mabel
Coffee. Danny. Please. Bring me coffee, and I’ll tell you everything.
For the rest of the morning, I feel like I’m underwater. I had just enough time to shower off the stench of regurgitated tequila while recounting what little of the night I remembered to Danny as he sat on the bathroom sink, and then chug the Irish coffee that he was kind enough to bring me before Trina was dressing Ryder and me in matching white golf attire and corralling us to the golf course twenty minutes off the Strip. The physical effects of my hangover have mostly settled, but as I stand here on the edge ofthe green, pretending to watch through oversized sunglasses as some billionaire football team owner from California tees up his next shot, I still feel like absolute shit. My lungs burn in my chest. My vision is blurry around the edges, my abdomen is knitted up tight with tension, and my palms are sweating profusely—and not just because of the desert sun beating down on me.
My best frenemy—excuse me, myhusband—squeezesmy hand and reminds me to smile, mumbling under his breath just loud enough for me to hear.
Right. I have to smile because there are cameras on me, watching my every move on what should theoretically be the first day of my honeymoon. The morning after the happiest night of my life. Trina made sure that the press were well aware that while today might be mine and Ryder’s first outing as a married couple—last night’s adventures notwithstanding—we would not be taking any questions or making any statements, as we want the focus to remain on the golf and the money being raised and not our personal lives. But still, I know all eyes are on us as we stand hand-in-hand on the green.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I mutter back through clenched teeth.
Ryder doesn’t deserve my ire, but if I direct any more of the anger bubbling inside me towards myself, I might explode.
Inhaling a deep breath of dry, stifling air, I tip my lips up into my practiced, public smile. Every so often between rounds of polite clapping, I look up towards Ryder, giving the cameras something I hope looks a lot like a new bride desperately in love with her husband. Thankfully, the dark frames I’m wearing hide my eyes, which don’t lie as well as the rest of my face. Because every time I look up at Ryder, when I’m supposed to be seeing the person I chose to spend my life with, all I see is my reluctant partner swirling around the drain after we flushed our lives down the toilet together. Four words play on a loop in my head like the soundtrack to some fucked up merry-go-round.
This cannot be happening.
I want to scream. I want to rage. I want to eat a thousand donuts, and then I want to figure out the science behind time travel, go back to yesterday afternoon and slip myself a sleeping pill to prevent the entire night from ever happening.
But I can’t do any of that. I can’t feel my feelings out loud. I can’t admit to the world that I made a mistake. I am Mabel Quinn, and I do not fuck uppublicly. As far as anyone needs to know, I’m exactly where I want to be.
So, I hold Ryder’s hand. I pretend to make moony eyes at him. I don’t even flinch when he presses his lips to the top of my head, even though my instinct is to hit him in the gut. And after the world’s longest round of golf, I’ve successfully tricked myself into believing I will survive this sham of a marriage, at least until after the Games in Milan. Then I’ll have to figure out how to convince Trina to grant us the right to a divorce, but that’s a problem for future Mabel. One thing at a time.
The short flight back to Denver followed by the long drive to our town of Snow Pines is surprisingly quiet, if not a bit unnerving. The parents are still pissed at Ryder and me, of course. Dad and Marcus didn’t even find out about the stupid marriage until right before they hit the links, and they’re not currently speaking to us. Mom and Melanie seem to be off in their own little best friend world, probably plotting ways to make our lives miserable for embarrassing them. Danny napped the whole trip, waking up only long enough to shuffle from the plane to the car. And Ryder?
Ryder has barely looked at me since we left the hotel room this morning. He certainly hasn’t had much to say other than his reminders to smile. Whenthe SUV lugging us back into the mountains pulls up outside of my condo building, I realize that this is the first time Ryder and I will be alone together since this morning.
“Home sweet home,” he says as he pulls his suitcase and mine from the trunk of the car and sets them on the sidewalk. Since the parents are out of earshot and there are no cameras to be found in the vicinity, I say the words that have been sitting on the tip of my tongue since I opened my eyes today.
“This is a fucking nightmare.”
Then, I cross my arms over my chest and stomp into the building, not giving a damn that I left him with my shit to carry. All I want to do is flop onto my bed, ignore real life and sleep until Milan. But inside my home, real life is right there, waiting to slap me in the face. I pause, taking in the sight as my husband’s footsteps get closer and closer behind me.
“Fuck, dude. The devil works hard, but Trina works harder.” Ryder lets out a low whistle as we stand in the threshold of the front door that opens into my living room, which is already full of crap that wasn’t here when I left. Trophies with Ryder’s name on them, pictures of him and his parents, and an all black and smelly snowboard bag that doesn’t belong to me litter my space.
It’s all too much. I’ve been teetering on the edgeof losing my shit for hours, and I don’t know how much longer I can hold on. Hell, I might already be thirty seconds into a massive freak out if the lingering liquor still poisoning my system wasn’t slowing me down. Crossing the space just to fall onto the couch feels like trying to sprint through molasses, but eventually I make it there and rest my aching head against the cushion.
“Aren’t you going to offer me a tour, wifey?” Ryder asks, and I groan. The realization that Ryder has never actually been inside my home before now is an odd one.
“It’s a one-bedroom condo, Rye Bread. Do you really need me to draw you a map to the bathroom?”
When I blink one eye open to look at him, he’s standing with his arms crossed over his chest, one ankle tucked over the other, looking completely at home leaning against the counter that separates the kitchen from my living space. His black joggers are practically obscene with the way they mold to his thick thighs, bunching up at the bottom to show off a sliver of skin between the tapered hem and the top of his black sock. He presses his tongue into his cheek as his eyes roam around the room, taking in my space. It's so damn cute, I want to scream.
I hate Danny. I hate him for calling me on my shit. I hate myself for being dumb enough to letdown my carefully crafted walls, because now look at me.
