Page 115 of Deceitful Vows

“You have tickets to a DJ Rourke show?” My question doesn’t come from Aleena. It comes from a blonde wearing a bridesmaid sash on her left.

“Uh-huh,” I lie. It is only a temporary fib. I’ll sell a kidney for tickets if it keeps Aleena looking at me how she is now.

She’s grown up so much over the past three years. Her beauty is the perfect combination of sexy and cute. She had a more doll-like appearance on her eighteenth birthday, and the couple of pounds she’s added to her svelte frame makes the change-up even more noticeable.

She is so beautiful that I can’t help but admire her out loud.

“Do you really think so?” she asks, her voice almost a sob.

“Of course.” I back up my pledge with a brisk head bob. “You’ve always been the most beautiful sister. Everyone says it.”

“Because that’s whatshetold them to say.” It doesn’t take a genius to realize who she is referencing when she sneers “she.”

“Anything I ever say to you is because I believe it, Aleena.” I act as if I can’t feel the beady eyes of half a dozen co-riders on me. “It is Mother’s praise you need to be wary of. Okay?”

“Okay.” The shortness of her reply shouldn’t allow it to instigate so much heartache, but it does. It hurts like hell. “Though I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell her about this.” Her cheeks whiten as a confession spills from her lips. “I wasn’t meant to drink. But when I saw you entering the lobby, I got a little nervous, so I rushed back to my room for a nip of courage.”

“I think you had more than one nip.”

She grimaces before saying, “I think you are right.”

When she sways like a crunchy leaf on a deciduous tree at the end of fall, I band my arm around her waist and tug her into my side.

“Not just about how much I drank, but going out too. I don’t think we should go dancing. I don’t feel very well.” Aleena darts her eyes between Shevi and me. “Is this what drinking is meant to feel like?”

Before we can answer her, a burp almost knocks out the five remaining riders in the elevator. She perks back up while everyone around her goes green around the gills.

“Actually, I think I’m okay.”

When she stumbles out of the elevator on the top floor, I tighten my grip around her waist and then shoot my eyes to Nikita. She nods in agreement before I can utter a syllable and then helms our slow walk down the corridor to our room.

There’s no doubt the wetness in Aleena’s eyes is from sadness when she watches me pull an oversized college shirt out of the trash bag now housing my clothes. It isn’t designer like her clothes and shoes, and it is a stark reminder of how I survived my first two years without a home. Trash bags were once my blankets.

“The baggage handlers got a little dramatic with my luggage. It didn’t survive the flight.” When my reply pulls her lips a little higher on one side, I continue the honesty route I promised myself I wouldn’t start until after this weekend. “The good news is, I got a compensation check that will fund more than a new Frumpy Fran.”

“Frumpy Fran?” Since she is well past intoxicated, her words come out slurred. “You still have that?”

“Uh-huh.” A nod adds to my reply.

Frumpy Fran was what I called my gym bag during middle school. I can’t remember exactly how it started, but it was along the lines of my mother saying that I’d become frumpy if I didn’t increase my cardio from an hour a day to three.

“She was a good bag.”

“Looks like it,” Aleena murmurs through a yawn. Her tiredness is understandable when you realize she spent the past hour bouncing off the walls. “How many hours of cardio do you do per day now?”

I shadow her slow walk to the bedroom I had planned to be mine while answering, “Ah… none.”

“None!” Her voice is so loud Shevi and her other bridesmaid I’ve yet to be introduced to stir. They’re hogging one-half of the bed I’m endeavoring to get Aleena in. “How is that possible?”

When she remains staring, demanding an answer, I shrug. “Good genes?”

“Good genes, my ass. I have to work out twice a day to stay fit, for hours each session, and I still don’t look like that.” After thrusting her hand at me, she crawls across Shevi while mumbling under her breath. “No wonder he looked at you the way he did.”

“Who?” I ask, hopeful my daft act will save our exchange from nosediving toward awkward.

Topics of jealousy only ever veer a conversation one way—toward the negative. I’ve only had an hour of pleasantries. I’m not ready to flip the switch just yet.

Aleena’s response is so delayed that just when I think she’ll never answer me, she finally does. “The man on the mezzanine.”

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