The hand that flailed towards me a second later proved me wrong, knocking into me so hard and so unexpectedly that I stumbled backward – and fell.
I couldn’t tell which registered first: the fact that she’d hit me in the face with the back of her hand, or the fact that I’d landed hard on the side of my hip. Or maybe it was the fact that even she was apparently shocked by what she had done because she wasn’t running away at all.
All I knew was that after all of those things filtered through my brain, the next thing was the fact that Xavi was shaking with fury.
“Hey!” he yelled, jumping in front of me, his hands in fists at his side. “Where the fuck do you get off? Huh?”
She blinked at him. I wanted to tell him to stop – that she wasn’t in her right mind, that reasoning with her right now was pointless. She had wide, glassy eyes – she probably wasn’t hearing a word he said. But I was too winded and in too much shock to say a word.
“First you come here to ruin a perfectly good fucking wedding, between two people who are really fucking nice and deserve to be fucking happy!” he shouted, gesturing wildly at her. His whole body was a story of tension, from his clenched fists and strained-forward neck to the feet planted so firmly on the ground it was clear he had no intention of leaving his spot as my protector. “Then you go and fuckingpush overa fuckingdisabled person! Haven’t you got any fucking respect for anyone?!”
She stared at him, and all I could think was that I hoped she’d even heard him above the sound of the music, and where had the music come from, anyway, and why was it so loud up here?
She moved to the side slightly, drawing back, and I could see beyond her for the first time – and I realized where we were.
I realized why she hadn’t run when she saw us.
This was where she needed to be.
“Xavi!” I yelled, scrambling, pulling myself back to my feet through sheer willpower. I would regret it tomorrow, but for now, I grabbed out for my cane and pushed myself up as fast as I could. “The paint!”
For a second, I didn’t think he heard me.
Then he darted forward, quicker than I had thought possible, at the same moment that she moved. Stooping down and to the side.
Picking up the bucket of paint she had taken so much care and effort to bring up here – to the balcony above the dance floor in the bar, where the wedding party must now have moved in order to celebrate the newlyweds’ first dance.
There was a struggle. Xavi’s hands were on the bucket, but so were hers. I stepped forward, reaching out to help, to tip the scales in our favor –
And she let go.
The bucket flew backward at the same time Xavi did, barreling into me and knocking me to the floor for a second time – but this time, accompanied by a wash of red paint that sloshed right out of the bucket and all over us, the carpet, the walls, and even the lower half of Tara’s white wedding dress.
Xavi
It took me a second to even register what the hell had just happened.
Paint… everywhere. It was all I could see. For a horrifying moment, the world had turned red and I couldn’t breathe – until I swiped a hand over my face, clearing some of it from my eyes and my nose.
I was covered in red paint.
First, she’d hit Rowe in the face so hard she’d knocked him off his feet, and now she’d knocked him down a second time by pushing me into him. I looked down at him as I scrambled to get up and get my heavy weight off his body. His white suit – it was ruined. Covered in red paint, too, except for the half of him that had been covered by me.
He only had one suit.
I turned to this psycho fucking bitch in a rage, ready to do anything short of pushing her over the damn balcony for what she’d done to Rowe.
And for the second time in a short while, I felt his hand on my arm – pulling me back.
“Tara,” Rowe said, and I realized my energy could be better spent in helping him. I scrambled to help him up, offering him my hands and grabbing his cane for him so he didn’t have to stoop to get it. He leaned on the wall for support, and I clenched my hands at my sides again, willing the fury inside of me to go away. The protective rage. I never wanted him to get knocked down or hurt or tired out by someone else like that. “You don’t have any paint left, now. What are you going to do?”
She seethed at us, silently for a moment, her hands opening and closing by her sides. “I’m going to wreck this day for him,” she said. “He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Why not?”
It was a devastatingly simple question. Tara’s lips wobbled for a moment, a caricature under all that smeared lipstick. “He hurt me.”
“He broke up with you,” Rowe said. “A long time before he met Cade. Isn’t that right?”
