Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
From the dance floor, my mom waves at us. Then she promptly forgets our existence again when Fenn’s father cups her ass over her white satin gown. He gives it a hearty squeeze, and I almost hurl. As far as weddings go, this one is an understated affair. There are more staff at this thing than guests. Just the four of us, all dressed up for this cozy little exercise in psychological warfare.
“This is painful,” I groan into the glass of whatever I don’t taste as I swallow. “It’s like watching a sex scene on TV next to your parents.”
“Nah, like watching your parents in a sex scene on TV next to your parents.” Clearly disgusted but oddly entranced, Fenn can’t look away. He washes the thought down with a gulp of champagne.
“I’m both ashamed and disgusted with myself.”
As an act of mercy, Fenn shoves the bottle at me. “Here, man. Never too early to develop problematic coping mechanisms.”
I tip the heavy bottle to my lips. “Cheers.”
The thing about expensive champagne, it drinks fast. I barely notice Fenn pass off the empty bottle for a second. Our parents continue rubbing against each other in slow motion to a soundtrack of retro cringe. Meanwhile, the sadistic DJ is on his phone checking Twitter, oblivious to our pain.
“This is weird, right?” Fenn is now busy making deformed origami from an embroidered cloth napkin. “I mean if the two of them died right now. Let’s say a chandelier mercifully falls on their heads while we’re sitting here. And a shard of glass flies across the room to slit my aorta and I nearly bleed out before slipping into a coma—you would legally have to decide when they unplugged me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
The guy chugs a bottle of champagne and thinks he’s Nietzsche.
“I’m saying, that’s a lot of responsibility. Being family. What do we even know about each other?” He pauses, puzzling over my face so long I get uncomfortable and lean away. Drunks are known for sudden outbursts. “I’ve already forgotten your name,” he says to his own astonishment. “Shit, I actually forgot it.”
I can’t help but grin. “RJ,” I supply, just as another slow jam fills the ballroom. Christ. Enough. I want to murder this DJ. He must be doing this on purpose.
“Is that short for something?” Fenn asks.
“Like did my parents just pick their favorite letters of the alphabet while the doctor was dangling me upside down by my foot?”
“Did they?”
“Nah. It’s short for Remington John.” I pull out my phone, shielding the screen slightly as I find a MacBook on the Wi-Fi network. Call it an educated guess, but I surmise the machine going by “Grandmaster Gash” belongs to the tool in the headphones who’s running the music.
“Remington John?” Fenn snorts loudly. “How blue collar,” he remarks, an undercurrent of rich-boy prick bubbling to the surface.
Distracted, I open Spotify in the background and try to remember what we’re talking about. “My dad had a thing for David Carradine in the ’80s. I don’t know. What the hell kind of Sound of Music name is Fennelly?”
He shrugs, unbothered. “My dad would probably say it was an old family name. But I’m pretty sure my mom got it off a baby blog.”
In the middle of an especially torrid display to Chris Isaac’s “Wicked Game,” Weird Al suddenly comes blaring through the audio system.
The DJ throws off his headphones and nearly falls over on his stool trying to figure out why he can’t get control of his playback.
“The hell just happened?” Fenn glances at me, then at my phone. “Did you do that?”
I roll my eyes. “I wish. I’m just checking texts over here.”
I drop the Wi-Fi connection and pocket my phone, allowing the DJ to take back control as Mom and David saunter over. Sweaty, smiling, and with no remorse for their actions.
“Time to cut the cake, don’t you think?” Mom’s smile is sincere and joyful, which cracks through a sliver of my bitter cynicism at this spontaneous upending of both our lives. Then she notes the two empty bottles of champagne and raises an eyebrow at me.
I give her a what-can-ya-do shrug. Sorry not sorry. I mean, shit, they should have handed out Vicodin party favors. That dance floor routine alone was like KGB waterboarding torture.
“You were right.” David, my mother’s new fully articulated checkbook, accepts the scotch on the rocks deposited into his hand by a dutiful waiter. He takes a quick sip. “We would have done better to spring for a band.”
“Not too late to throw this shindig in the back of the jet and head to Vegas,” Fenn says, a mocking note to his voice.
It doesn’t escape me that he says the jet. Not “a” jet, as in any old jet. But THE jet, implying the Bishops are in possession of their own private plane. Fuck me. What world is this and how did I end up here?