The Firework Exploded (The Holidays #3)(44)

Alex starts jumping up and down frantically and flinging his arms in windmill patterns toward the door when neither of us move. Sam gives me a quick peck on the cheek and races out of the room before Alex hurts himself.

When Sam’s out of sight and I can hear his feet thumping against the floor as he runs through the house, Alex rushes into the room, grabs my hand and tugs me toward the door. There are probably a million questions I should be asking right now, but there’s only one thing I can manage to mutter as Alex hurriedly pulls me through the house.

“Band? What band? Since when do we have a band for the wedding?”

*

“Crazy Bitch” by Buckcherry blasts through the sound system set up around the backyard as soon as Alex and I get out there, the trek across the yard taking longer than expected when we had to stop to fight off Turd Ferguson as he jumped out from behind a tree and latched himself to my leg. Sadly, it’s not Buckcherry playing the song, nor is it a recording of the actual song. Instead, it’s a cover being played by the worst, most off-key band I’ve ever heard, set up off to the side of the yard, right next to the reception tents.

As I use the skirt of my dress to blot at the bloody scratches on my leg left behind by Turd Ferguson, we continue walking across the yard. I almost want to laugh that just a few minutes ago I thought having cum stains on my dress would be the worst that could happen to it.

“That’s my friend Lenny and his band Lenny and the Goat Fuckers,” Alex tells me as he continues to pull me toward the beginning of the aisle, where my father stands waiting for us. “He helped me through a really rough time, so I hired him to play at your wedding to thank him. Don’t worry, he’ll slow this song down and make it more romantic when you head down the aisle.”

I want to stop walking, stomp my foot, and scream at him for hiring a band for my wedding with the word goat f*ckers in it, but it would be a waste of time at this point. As he hustles me across the lawn, my eyes take in so many terrible things happening all at once that I realize the band is the least offensive of them all.

Half of the people gathered here for the wedding are running around the yard, screaming and diving behind trees or anything else they can find to take cover. At least the other half is sitting down where they’re supposed to be, but I’m pretty sure they’re just afraid to move, seeing as how fireworks are currently shooting out from behind the barn in every direction, none of which are UP INTO THE FUCKING SKY WHERE THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO GO. My feet stutter to a stop when I see Aunt Bobbie and a group of her friends, all in fancy dresses with full make-up, minus their wigs. They’re not wearing their wigs because they’re currently clutching them in their hands, beating Fat Ralph with synthetic hair in every color of the rainbow.

“YOU BURNED MY FAVORITE LIZ TAYLOR WIG! BURN IN HELL, YOU CREATON!” a robust, bald man/woman screams, repeatedly smacking Fat Ralph in the face with a tangled dark brown wig.

“Don’t worry about that. Some of the wigs caught fire from a few stray fireworks. Aunt Bobbie will get it all sorted out in no time,” Alex tells me with a nervous chuckle, grabbing my arm and pulling me forward right when Aunt Bobbie delivers a swift kick to Fat Ralph’s crotch with her blue stiletto.

As soon as Alex gets me to my father, he places my hand into the crook of his arm and gives my dad a pat on the back. We all quickly turn at the same time when a group of women I didn’t see on our walk out here start to scream from back by the house. They scream, they flail, and they slip around in the pile of snow right next to the house, and I now realize Sam and I actually did see snowflakes out the window a few minutes ago.

“Your mother thought it would be cute to rent a snow machine for the whole Christmas-slash-wedding in July thing,” he tells me with a sigh as I spot Pinky the stripper in the center of the hysterical women.

Realizing they’re all strippers, and wearing six-inch stiletto stripper heels, I now see how they aren’t able to get their footing in all that snow that pours out of the machine at a rapid rate. With even louder, ear piercing screams that can be heard over Lenny and the Goat Fuckers, they continue slipping and sliding until they tumble down into the slush, one after the other, until they’re nothing but a pile of half-dressed, sopping wet, screaming and crying pole dancers.

“Excellent! Impromptu mud wrestling. As fun as this would be to watch, no one wants to see strippers with frostbite on their tits,” Alex mutters with a nod before taking off in their direction and yelling to them across the yard. “NEVER FEAR, LADIES! ALEX IS HERE!”

They scream even louder when he gets to them, scrambling their bodies through the snow and reaching out to him for help like snow-covered zombie strippers as he runs behind the snow machine to try and get it to turn off.

“WOOOOHOOOO, ’MURICA!” Fat Ralph shouts from the side of the barn, holding his fists in the air as the fireworks continue to go off with loud whistling and whooshing as they dart through the yard haphazardly.

“THAT, is not my fault,” my father complains, pointing at Fat Ralph who continues to pump his fists and cheer with every explosion that has people screaming in fear, diving under chairs, and covering their heads. “I had the whole thing set up on a computerized timer so I could just press a button and they’d all go off nice and orderly after it got dark tonight. That shit-for-brains found the controller, pressed the damn button and THEN asked me what the button did. Now I can’t get them to stop until they’re all done. Anyway, you look really pretty, honey.”