THE CRAZY GOOD SERIES - Rachel Robinson Page 0,349

and my house is abuzz with guests. It’s mostly my family from overseas and a few of my close friends. It’s like a florist puked in my kitchen, and a dress shop opened up in my formal living room. I have four spare bedrooms and all of them are piled high with bitch stuff. You know the kind, shirts tossed over bed frames, makeup bags and hair tools on dressers, and seventy different kinds of perfume wafting in the hallways at any given moment. I can’t be in there with them. They’re too happy, too excited for the wedding tomorrow. I’m outside by the pool with a lowball of bourbon. It’s the expensive shit Dax left in the bar. I’ve killed almost half the bottle and I’m still lucid enough to remember what the fuck I’m doing tomorrow. The sane decision of emailing Cody for a final time was made during glass numero uno. I check my email on my cell phone again. Nothing new. This time, the last time, he’ll leave me to my life without inserting any more confusion.

I take a sip and relish the burn down my throat as I gaze to my left. My neighbors must already be asleep because all of the lights are off at their house. Their boat bobs in the water off their dock. I wonder why it’s not on the lift. It’s odd. The husband is usually meticulous about maintaining the expensive boat and he’s just left it out here to bang against the dock all night.

The raucous noise coming from behind me signals that someone said the word ‘wedding’ and has to take a shot of vodka. Oksana is creative like that. Drinking games are her specialty. I tried to tell them to tone it down. My side of the aisle will have the drunken lunatics still hung over from the night before. I shake my head, check my email one more time, and then wander across my plush lawn to the neighbors’ back yard. I pull my silk ‘bride’ robe a little tighter around my waist to cover my pajamas. My feet get wet in the grass because I’m wearing a pair of cheap flip flops to balance out the pain I’ll be in tomorrow with the sky high heels. My mom said I should cheat and wear flats under my wedding dress because no one would see them. The last thing I need is to start my marriage off with a lie, even a small one about fucking shoes. I groan. A little because wet feet suck and a little because weddings are stressful. The bourbon hits me tenfold as I consider the fact that sitting down and drinking all night was a bad idea. Standing up after is like a ride on a Ferris wheel you’re forced to endure after a bag of cotton candy.

“What are you doing over here?” a male voice asks. I turn toward the sound. Squinting in the dark, I see the outline of a man, my neighbor. I startle. He’s standing in his yard in the middle of the damn night.

Forcing a smile, I put up a hand to wave. Can he even see it? “Hi. Sorry,” I say, and then point toward his dock. “Your boat wasn’t put away properly. I wanted to make sure everything was okay.” Turning on a small light, he approaches. I get that sinking, chilly, hair prickling feeling that signals something’s not right. Fuck. I’m unprepared. Embarrassingly so. I glance behind me at my house, but everyone is still inside. I see figures dancing through the large glass windows. It looks like a movie screen from this angle. My neighbors can see into my house like in a fish tank. Chill bumps rise on my arms and legs. Why didn’t you check out the new neighbors, Lainey? Dumb move.

I take a step back toward my property line. “I’ll just head back home now that I know you’re here and will, uh…take care of it, I guess.” I take another small step and my foot slips in the wet flip flop. It also squeaks. Irritated, I blow out a small breath.

“Why are you leaving so quickly? You just got here,” a female voice chirps from behind me. I spin and come face to face with a pretty brunette. Her face triggers a memory and I realize she’s familiar. She smiles as she watches understanding cross my face. “I, I, know you,” I stutter, trying and failing to