Boys, Beers and Bad Behavior

Chapter Two

You’d be surprised how much you can screw up in less than twenty-four hours…and okay, you have got to know I didn’t plan on going to my cousins millionth wedding drunk. I didn’t plan on ruining the groom’s speech or accidentally setting the top table on fire. I mean, does anyone actually plan for those things?

All I can say is that it happened, and of course, it starts with a bottle of vodka.

Somewhere between three and four pm, I wake up with a start. My phone is buzzing under my cheek and I grasp at it, squinting in my dark room to read the incoming caller ID.

Mom

“What?” I answer grouchily, rubbing my forehead and tossing my legs out of the cover of the comforter.

“Hello to you too,” I hear her sigh. “I have reserved you a dress at Macy’s. I need you to pick it up now and then you will have to meet us there. Your aunt called and your father and I are going earlier to help out.”

“I’m sorry, you have reserved me what?”

“A dress, Nevaeh. Are you even listening to a word I have said?”

I bite down on my bottom lip. “I heard, but why?”

“Because this is a family wedding and I’m not having you rolling in one of those skimpy things you own.”

I roll my eyes. So, she’s brought me some ancient number with frilly skirts and puffy sleeves. Wonderful. My mind skates back to the last dress Mom brought me. It was a muted green, first of all – not my color – and it came down to my ankles. I looked like a f*****g camping tent.

“Fine,” I tell her because I know it’s so much easier to just agree and deal with the consequences later.

“I mean it, Nevaeh,” she says my name like its poison. “I will get an email saying it has been picked up.”

“I said fine, didn’t I?” I push myself out of bed. “I’m even getting up now.”

“Congratulations,” she mutters and I almost smile. “Look, I’m texting you the address of the venue now. I want you there dead on five, do you hear me?”

“Loud and clear Sarge,”

I don’t get to hear the tail end of her retort because I’ve tossed the phone back onto my bed and am pulling on a pair of (probably dirty) skinny jeans and some hoodie I am sure I stole off some guy I was with last weekend.

It smells nice so I keep it on and reach for some shoes under my bed, kicking a pair of panties across the room and finding my keys underneath.

Bingo!

It doesn’t take me that long to reach Macy’s and I pick up the dress with ease. The girl behind the counter looks between me and the dress a few times with a tight-lipped smile and that just about tells me everything I need to know about the hideous number in the bag. I don’t dare look for fear of fainting.

Considering the dress pick up didn’t take too long, I call Tess who meets me outside Walmart with the pretense of scoring us some alcohol before I am forced to play happy families in an hour’s time. She steps out a car I have never seen before in my life and blows a kiss to someone inside. One guess it’s whoever she hooked up with last night and I smirk as I watch her bouncy red hair bound over to me, a grin stretching across her face.

“How are we faring this morning my dear wife?” she says as a way of greeting and smashes me into a hug. The bag crinkles beneath us and she frowns and swats the thing from my hands and eyes it like it’s a bomb.

“Don’t tell me…”

“She’s forgotten her glasses again?” I say although it comes out more like a question.

Tess picks up the dress that I haven’t dared to look at and raises an eyebrow. “It’s considerably better than the last one,” she says after a moment. “I mean it’s black which I thought was reserved for funerals…oh wait no, it’s navy, silly me.”

I blink and look down at the garment. It’s not that bad at all. It’s plain navy, skater style dress that looks as if it will hit just above my knees. It’s nothing to shout about town about, but it’s not that bad. I take it from her and shove it into the bag.

“I’ll have to change into it soon,”

“I can’t believe you’re going to that,” Tess says with a roll of her eyes.

“I don’t exactly have much of a choice, T. Mom keeps threatening that prison in Alaska and I think she’s pretty close to breaking point.”

“As if she would ever,” Tess hooks her arm through mine. “Who would she harass if you weren’t there?”

I laugh. “Trust me, she would send f*****g smoke signals to Alaska if she thought it would get me to listen to her.”

Tess only smirks and then before I know it, she’s hiking her skirt up and rolling her shoulders back and corners a late twenties looking guy who stands outside the store smoking.

I leave her to do her handiwork and not long after, the guy reappears with a brown bag and I smile, knowing what’s inside. Tess ambles towards me and with one quick look over her shoulder, she shakes the bag at me and laughs.

“You have a talent,” I tell her as she approaches.

“He was basically salivating with one bat of my eyelashes,” she giggles and it’s not hard to believe. Tess is curvy – but in all the right places. Her natural red hair is the type of shade that gets people’s attention without her even doing anything and to complement that all, she has the brightest green eyes I have ever seen.

“So, last night,” I say as we both head back to my car and she pulls out a bottle of gin. I grimace but take the bottle from her hands and take a swig. It’s not the same as vodka, it doesn’t quite burn the way I like but anything to take the edge off this evening is all I need.

“Neve,” Tess swigs from the bottle and pulls a face. “I hate gin,” she says and then gives me back the bottle.

“Stop avoiding it!” I shove her playfully. “I want to—”

“Okay, yes, we slept together.” She interrupts. “It was crap, I mean from what I can remember. He was seriously into dirty talk and you know how much that cringes me out.”

I nod and watch her fiddle with her bitten down fingernails. I can tell something’s up without her saying anything and I just stare at her until she looks up and meets my gaze.

“He texted me last night,” she almost whispers it and I have to suck in a breath.

“He did?”

“Three times,” she fishes out her phone. “I deleted them without opening but they were short, so I saw on my notifications what he said.”

“And?” I prompt.

“He needs more money.” The words are barely out of her mouth before she starts to scream and thrash about in the passenger side of my car. I leave her to vent, knowing that it’s best to leave her to let it all out than try and reign her back in. A lady loading her car next to us looking over quizzically and sees Tessa’s outburst.

After a minute, Tess stills and leans her head back against the seat and closes her eyes. Her hair has fallen away from her face and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think the trail of small scars behind her ears were nothing, but I knew better and it’s not the only place she has them.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Don’t you dare apologize to me,”

“He just makes me so…”

“I know,”

She scoffs and downs more of the liquid. “He treats me like a human ashtray for most of my childhood and then keeps expecting me to dish him out money like I’m a f*****g ATM?”

“I swear fathers are the shittest people on earth,” I roll the bottle of booze between my hands and then take a large gulp.

Tess sighs and reaches for my hand. “I just want to forget about it all for a while,”

I smile. “That, my darling, I can help with.”

                                                                                    *

Three hours later, I am standing outside the wedding reception roaring drunk. I can barely see where my parents are sitting let alone my hand in front of me. I don’t even know how I got here. I vaguely remember struggling into this dress in the back of the car with Tess’s voice talking to me somewhere in the distance.

“Please tell me you’re sober, Neve?”

I look up and see my mother approaching me. Her face is priceless – mouth agape like this is the first time she has seen me in this state, her eyes wide and diluted like she is the one who has had a few too many.

“I’m moderately functional mother,”

But whatever she’s about to say is cut off by the clinking of glasses and suddenly the groom is standing up.

“He’s better looking than the last one,” I comment – clearly a little louder than I thought because the table closest swivels their heads to look at my mother and me with a scowl. I can practically see the smoke pouring from my mother’s ears. For a woman so intent on her outside image, you’d have thought she would practice her poker face a bit more.

“I can’t believe you’d do this,” she hisses and tugs at my arm but the next thing I know I am stumbling back into an oncoming waiter who in turn trips over my foot and falls back into the top table where plates and decorations clutter to the ground.

Silence engulfs the room and I peek a look at my mother and it’s one look too many because before I know it, I am tottering over to the table.

“Oops, sorry about that!” I might as well have rigged a megaphone to my mouth. My cousin stands up, a recycled wedding dress clung to her body and she’s frowning.

“Nevaeh, what are you doing?”

I scramble for the fallen items on the floor and begin to place them back on the table. I beckon for a waiter to help me, but he just stands there gawking at me as I pick up the shards of glass from the floor with my bare hands without a care in the world. I am distinctly aware of a large piece piercing my skin, but I don’t care enough to grab anything to stop the bleeding.

“I’m just gonna pick up, oh.”

Without meaning to, I have smacked the waiter who has approached behind me and it takes several seconds to register he is holding a tray of brand-new lit candles. The tray falls and the candles tumble onto the table linen and the next thing I know the entire table is engulfed with flames.

“Well, shit.”