Page 73 of Trouble Walked In

“You can shift the cake over there.” Jay pointed at the window. “And stick that projector over there with it.”

“Stop right there!” Lizzie roared. After spending most ofher life yelling over music and backstage noise at concerts, she knew how to project her voice. Her command echoed off the walls and made all three intruders freeze in place. “You touch that cake, I’ll break your arms.”

Now that she’d stopped potential disaster, she turned her attention to DJ Jay. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Jay narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m fixing the layout that you screwed up. I told your people that it had to be set up on the vertical but apparently they’re too stupid to understand basic acoustics.”

“Is he for real?” Della stared up at the man.

Lizzie pointed at the floor. “Get down. Now.”

Jay gestured at his sons. “Go ahead and get that cake out of the way, then start on the tables while I deal with this.”

The boys looked like deer caught between a hunter and a cliff, unsure which way to jump. The older one turned toward the cake, the younger toward the door.

“Hey!” Della stalked toward the oldest with the stride she sometimes used on stage to command attention. “She wasn’t kidding.”

The boy froze midstep. “I just do what I’m told.”

“Well,I’mtelling you to get away from that cake,” Della said.

Lizzie reached the chair Jay stood on in three long strides. “Get off that chair.”

DJ Jay flicked a hand at her like he was swatting a fly. “Step back, sweetheart. I got standards and I’m sticking to them. They hired a professional for this event, not some two-bit wedding planner.”

Della snorted. “Professional what?”

He peered down at Della. “I know you?”

Della wrinkled her nose. “I seriously doubt it.”

The older boy looked from Lizzie to Della and back again. “You look familiar to me too. You from around here?”

The younger boy hovered near the door. He looked ready to run at any second, but curiosity held him in place. “Dad?”

Jay waved a hand at his younger son. “Get the tripods out of the van.”

The boy scurried off without another word.

Lizzie glanced at the remaining teenager. Nothing about his father’s behavior was appropriate, but neither was dressing down his dad in front of him. “Why don’t you go help your brother? I need to speak with your dad for a few minutes. Okay?”

The kid cast a hesitant gaze in his father’s direction.

Jay huffed out a breath that wiggled his mustache. “Go get the big speaker.”

Lizzie waited until the boy left the room before she unleashed her rising temper on the man. “The bride is the star of the show, not you. Whatyouwant doesn’t matter. Get down, put the tables and chairs back where you found them, and do your job, you sad, pathetic little egomaniac.”

Jay jumped down off the chair. Now that he was on the ground, Lizzie could see he was at least three inches shorter than she was, maybe more, and was obviously compensating for it with attitude.

Della moved closer to Lizzie. “Whatever you paid this guy, it’s too much.”

“What did you just say to me?” Jay flexed his jaw.

Lizzie glared at him. “Pathetic. Little,” her gaze dropped to his crotch and back up, “egomaniac.”

He took a menacing step forward. “Howdareyou. Do you have any idea who you’re talking to, bitch?”

Lizzie’s neck and shoulder muscles tensed the same way they had during the one and only physical fight she’d everparticipated in. She’d been twenty-three at the time, defending fourteen-year-old Della from a backstage leech. Usually she avoided situations like this entirely, but this time she clenched her fists and resisted the urge to back away from the threat.

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