A Beautiful Wedding (Beautiful, #2.5)(11)

My dad and Jack ran our town when they were in high school. They were the first generation of badass Maddox brothers. In college towns, the locals either started fights or were picked on. Jim and Jack Maddox never experienced the latter, and even met and married the only two girls at their college that could handle them: Deana and Diane Hempfling. Yes, sisters, making Shepley and me double cousins. It was probably just as well that Jack and Deana stopped at one, with Mom having five unruly boys. Statistically, our family was due for a girl, and I’m not sure the world could handle a female Maddox. All the fight and anger, plus estrogen? Everyone would die.

When Shepley was born, Uncle Jack settled down. Shepley was a Maddox, but he had his mother’s temperament. Thomas, Tyler, Taylor, Trenton, and I all had short fuses like our dad, but Shepley was calm. We were the best of friends. He was a brother who lived in a different house. He pretty much was, but he looked more like Thomas than the rest of us. We all shared the same DNA.

The fountain died down and I walked away, seeing the sign for Crystals. If I could get in and out of there quick, maybe Abby would still be in the Bellagio shops and wouldn’t see me.

I picked up the pace, dodging the extremely drunk and tired tourists. One short escalator ride and a bridge later, I was inside the stories-tall shopping center. It had glass rectangles displaying colorful water tornados, high-end shops, and the same odd range of people. Families to strippers. Only in Vegas.

I popped in and out of one suit shop without any luck, and then walked until I hit a Tom Ford store. In ten minutes, I’d found and tried on the perfect gray suit but had trouble finding a tie. “Fuck it,” I said, taking the suit and a white button-up to the register. Who said a groom had to wear a tie?

Walking out of the shopping center, I saw a pair of black Converse in the window. I went in, asked for my size, tried them on, and smiled. “I’ll take them,” I said to the woman helping me. She smiled with a look in her eyes that would have turned me on just six months ago. A woman looking at me that way usually meant any attempts I made to get in her pants had just been made a thousand times easier. That look meant: take me home.

“Great choice,” she said in a smooth, flirtatious voice. Her dark hair was long, thick, and shiny. Probably half of her five feet. She was a sophisticated, Asian beauty, wrapped in a tight dress and sky-high heels. Her eyes were sharp, calculating. She was exactly the kind of challenge my old self would have happily taken on. “Are you staying in Vegas long?”

“Just a few days.”

“Is this your first time here?”

“Second.”

“Oh. I was going to offer to show you around.”

“I’m getting married in these shoes in a couple of hours.”

My response snuffed out the desire in her eyes, and she smiled pleasantly, but she’d clearly lost interest. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking my receipt and bag with the shoe box inside.

I left, feeling much better about myself than I would have had I been here on a guys’ trip and leading her back to my hotel room. I didn’t know about love back then. It was fanf*ckingtastic to go home to Abby every night, and see the welcoming, loving look in her eyes. Nothing was better than coming up with new ways to make her fall in love with me all over again. I lived for that shit now, and it was way more satisfying.

Within an hour of leaving the Bellagio, I had picked up a suit and a gold band for Abby, and was right back where I started: in our hotel room. I sat on the end of the bed and grabbed the remote, clicking on the power to the TV before bending over to untie my sneakers. A familiar scene lit up the screen. It was Keaton, quartered off with yellow tape, and still smoking. The brick around the windows were charred, and the ground surrounding was saturated with water.

The reporter was interviewing a tearful girl, describing how her roommate had never returned to the dorm, and she was still waiting to hear if she was among the dead. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I covered my face with my hands and rested my elbows on my knees. My body shook as I mourned my friends and all the people I didn’t know who’d lost their lives, as I apologized over and over for being the reason why they were there, and being too much of a f*cking bastard for choosing Abby over turning myself in. When I couldn’t cry anymore, I retreated to the shower, standing under the steaming water until I got back into the frame of mind Abby needed me to be in.

She didn’t want to see me until just before the wedding, so I got my shit straight in my head, got dressed, slapped on some cologne, tied my new kicks, and headed out. Before letting the door close, I took one long, last look at the room. The next time I came through this door, I’d be Abby’s husband. That was the only thing that made the guilt bearable. My heart began to pound. The rest of my life was just hours away.

The elevator opened, and I followed the loudly patterned carpet through the casino. The suit made me feel like a million bucks, and people were staring, wondering where the fine-looking * sporting Converse was off to. When I was about halfway through the casino, I noticed a woman sitting on the floor with shopping bags, crying into her cell phone. I stopped dead in my tracks. It was Abby.

Instinctively, I stepped to the side, partially hiding myself at the end of a row of slot machines. With the music, the beeping, and the chatter, I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but my blood ran cold. Why was she crying? Who was she crying to? Didn’t she want to marry me? Should I confront her? Should I just wait it out and hope to God she doesn’t call it off?