Chapter 61
Lucky hung up the phone and sighed. “Okay, the plane is still at the airport, all I have to do is call home and think of something believable to tell them.”
“I told you, just say we had car trouble,” Liz groaned, covering her eyes. She was still laying on her back on the bed, and had become tired of staring at herself in the mirrored ceiling.
“No, they might ask too many questions about that. Why don’t I just say we had to stop last night because of the rain, and we’re staying today because you’ve got some 24-hour flu bug? At least that’s almost the truth!”
“Fine, whatever,” she mumbled, pushing herself off of the bed and scooping up her discarded clothes from the floor. “I’m going to see if I can dry these so I can get dressed.” She disappeared into the bathroom while Lucky picked up the phone and dialed his parents’ number, praying his father wasn’t home.
“Hello?” Luke answered cheerfully.
“Hey, Dad,” Lucky greeted, trying not to let his disappointment show through his voice.
“Cowboy! Where are you? Your mother’s worried sick over here. Shouldn’t you have been back by now?” he asked, playing dumb.
“I know, but we hit a few snags. There was a bad storm last night that forced us to stop, and today Elizabeth has some sort of flu. She can’t stop throwing up, so we had to stay another day. Hopefully, she’ll be better tomorrow, so we’ll leave as soon as we can. We’ll probably be home sometime in the afternoon,” he explained, hoping Luke would buy it.
On the other end of the line, Luke was grinning, trying not to laugh at his son’s lame excuse. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. I hope Liz feels better soon. So, you’re in a hotel? Just the two of you?” he asked suggestively, figuring it would keep Lucky from guessing that he knew what was really going on.
Lucky groaned and rolled his eyes. “Give it up, Dad. She’s sick! Anyway, there are two beds in this one.”
“What do you mean ‘this one’?” Luke asked, intrigued by his choice of words.
“Oh, um, just that the place we had to stay with Lulu only had one. Speaking of which, what was up with sending us there a day early?” he asked, his anger towards him for that returning.
“I’m sorry, Cowboy, like I told your mother, I got the dates mixed up. So what did you do? The three of you shared the bed?”
Lucky felt his face grow hot at the memory. “Um, yeah, something like that,” he muttered, wanting to end this conversation as soon as possible. His head was pounding, and talking to his father wasn’t helping things. “Look, I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing. We’ll be here,” Luke said ominously, chuckling softly as Lucky hung up.
Lucky stood up and grabbed his clothes from the floor, wrinkling his nose at how wet they still were. He walked over to the bathroom and knocked lightly on the door. “Hey, Elizabeth? Are you almost done in there? I need to dry my clothes too!”
“I’ll be right out!” she shouted, then cursed softly, the volume of her voice affecting her head as much as it did his. He sighed and walked over to sit at the table to wait, picking up the marriage certificate that sat there. He studied it and tried to remember something about the previous night, anything that would help him understand what possessed them to get married. While he was trying to figure out what they were going to do about it, Liz came out of the bathroom, dressed.
“All yours,” she said, flopping down on the bed. “There’s a dryer in there that did a pretty good job on mine.”
“Thanks.” He stood up and retreated into the bathroom with his clothes, leaving her alone. She glanced around the room, trying to figure out what to do while she waited for him, her eyes landing on the TV. Remembering that the tape was still in the VCR, she walked over to it and hit rewind. When it was done, instead of ejecting it like she had planned, she hit play and sat on the floor.
She watched the beginning of the ceremony, trying to figure out why they had done this, and how she could possibly not remember any of it. She had always pictured her wedding day as the most memorable day of her life, with everyone she loved there, and the man she loved more than anything waiting for her at the altar. Instead, all she had was a video tape showing her something she had no recollection of, her marrying Lucky with no one but some phony minister and whoever was operating the camera there to see.
The tape came to their kiss, and she leaned forward to watch, feeling somewhat foolish, but too captivated by it to look away. Watching herself kissing Lucky so passionately was stirring something inside her, something she’d been trying to ignore, but that seemed to be getting stronger every day.
Lucky emerged from the bathroom after drying his clothes enough to be able to wear them comfortably. He saw Liz watching their wedding tape and froze, wondering why she was viewing it again. It was at their kiss, and she was leaning forward, studying the screen. He could feel his pulse quicken slightly as he watched the way he had grabbed her and how fiercely he had kissed her. When the kiss was over, he nervously cleared his throat, causing her to jump in surprise. She turned around and blushed when she saw him standing behind her.
“Oh, um, I was just hoping to jog my memory,” she explained quickly, trying to hide her embarrassment.
“Did it work?”
“No, not at all.” She stopped the tape and rewound it again, then walked over to the VCR to retrieve it. “I just can’t believe that we can’t remember anything at all!”
He shrugged, grabbing some of their stuff. “Maybe it’ll come back in a few days. Anyway, we better get going. The plane is waiting.”
“Right, let’s go. The sooner I get out of this city, the happier I’ll be,” Liz grumbled, grabbing her purse and heading for the door.
~*~
Luke hung up the phone and chuckled to himself.
“What’s so funny this time?” Laura asked, walking into the room.
“That was Lucky on the phone,” he answered with a sly grin.
“Is he okay?” she asked worriedly. “What did he say?”
“Gave me some story about stopping because of a storm last night, and said Liz was sick today, so they won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon.”
“Sick? Oh, that was probably just an excuse, I suppose.”
“Actually, if they were drunk enough to tie the knot, I have a feeling that wasn’t exactly a lie. The poor girl’s probably been praying to the Porcelain God all morning.”
“I wonder if they even know what they did,” Laura mused. “I mean, those little chapels don’t usually have rings or anything concrete that they would see later. What if they just think they took a trip?”
Luke laughed, never having thought of that. “Oh, then this little party will be even more fun! Man, I can’t wait to see their faces when they walk through that door!”
“Who are you inviting, anyway?”
“Everyone, babe. I’m going to make sure everyone is here for this! No sir, nothing but the best for my kid and his new bride!” he answered, grinning widely. “In fact, I better start making those calls right away. Can you go to the store and get decorations? I want to make sure they know exactly what this is for when they get here.”
Laura smiled and shook her head, amused by his exuberance. “Sure, I’ll go right away. You realize they’re going to kill us, don’t you?”
Luke nodded, picking up the phone to begin his invitations. “Of course, but we wouldn’t be respectable parents if our kid didn’t hate us, would we?”
