Page 55 of When Night Falls
"It's in three days." Troy squeaks up from next to me and I twist my head like a possessed doll to look at her. This is really fucking happening and it's happening fast.
She's wearing black leather everything. Black leather pants, a black leather jacket, black leather boots. Everything matches her wavy hair hanging loose over her shoulders. The only thing not black is the white tank under her jacket and the blue in her eyes.
"What?" She holds up her hands in defense. "Sorry. I figured you and your fiancé talked about these things." She leans againstthe wall and twirls a strand of her long black hair around her finger.
I look back at the sales consultant with wide eyes. She smiles at me with an embarrassing look on her face.
"Why are you even here, Troian?" I ask as the red-haired woman leads us to the back of the studio.
Rivian made sure to rent the whole boutique out just for us.What a gentleman. Though part of me wishes that either I was by myself for this wretched chore or that maybe he would have wanted to come instead.
I haven't seen him since our run-in in the basement which brings me memories in waves of heat. Both desire and fury dancing in my head.
"I'm your maid of honor," she replies to me as we get settled into the big pink cushion bench the lady signaled us to sit at before disappearing into the back.
"I'm sorry?" I feel my eye twitch.
"Tradition. Kind of." She shrugs her shoulders again.
I'm starting to learn that Troian only has a few gestures she responds with. One shoulder shrug. Two shoulder shrugs. And shrugging of the shoulders while leaning on something. I actually aspire to be her; seemingly in a constant state of not giving a fuck.
"Don't I get a say in who my maid of honor is?"
We sit down and put about five feet between us.
"Sure. Who are your options?" She smirks at me as she twists her phone around between her fingers.
I think about how I might have had Griselda here with me instead. Long ago when we were ten, that might have still been true. Or how much of a train wreck things could have been ifTweedledeeandTweedledumwere my bride's maids.
"Touche," I say to her, knowing that I could have had it worse. That I actuallyhavehad it worse.
"Listen, I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot the first time we met?" Troy shifts her position to cross her leg over her knees, leaning back into the chair as she stares at her cell phone.
"I don't think so. I thinkyougot off on the wrong foot when you tripped out of the candy store and fell into me. By the way, you owe me a new candle." I quip and a playful smirk curls across her face.
"Yes, ma'am." She salutes.
"None of that please."
"Sorry, it's the rules."
"It's the rules that you have to call mema'am?" I give her a questioning look.
"Your highness. Your majesty. Queen. Ma'am. You name it."
"You can't just call me Lucynda?"
"Well, I'm not really supposed to," she explains.
"And what if, as your queen, I ask you to call me Lucynda?" I sit back in the chair as well, starting to realize how real this whole situation is about to get, forget about the fact that I'm about to pick out a wedding dress.
"Then I guess I will call you Lucynda." She shrugs again, clicking her tongue this time.
"Good."
A few moments of silence pass us by, not even the wind from outside can be heard swaying through the trees. I look across the street at the bookstore, I can see it a few stores down.
I miss it already. I decided that I didn’t want to sell it but I can’t very well operate it while I’m off getting hitched to a vampire, so there it sits dormant and lonely.