Page 33 of Shield and Savior

Watching the bride and groom get married and confess their undying love for one another makes me bitter. That hasn’t been my experience, and trying to ignore the way Lance makes me feel only adds to my frustrations.

We meet the bride and groom in the receiving line. Both give us a polite but confused ‘Do we know you?’ glances before the bride recovers and gushes, “Thank you so much for coming.”

I give her a polite and practiced smile while Lance shakes the groom’s hand, and we move on.

I have an entire speech ready. I’ve rehearsed in the shower for a week now, but the receiving line is not the time to say it. No, it needs to be at dinner, as a grand gesture. I will not let Dad down. When the bride and groom are eating and want to be alone, I’ll walk in front of them and relay the message that I am, in fact, the representative from the Four Families. And I’m finally living up to my family’s plans for me.

ChapterSeventeen

Izzy

My feet are on fire as Lance and I leave the church. We wave the bride and groom off and enter phase two: the reception.

Back at the car, Lance turns up the radio and hums along to the song, though he seems annoyed with himself for doing it. He flips the station a few more times until he finds a podcast about history. He doesn’t ask if I want to listen to it, but he does pick a topic he knows interests me.

“Hey, I sent you an email earlier. Did you see it?” he asks without taking his focus off the road.

I dig through my purse for my phone, find the email he sent me with two links, click on the first, and my heart stops. Is it some kinky sexy toy? Wishful thinking. Some beautiful diamond rings? Absolutely not. A video about Bigfoot? No, but that would be kinda cool. I stare at the image on my phone. This can’t be right. No way. I click on the second link, and the object is the same, but different.

“Plates?” The word chokes me, and I can’t figure out why.

“Yeah, you only have four plates. After we eat dinner, I wash them when you go to bed so you and Drew can have plates to eat your breakfast on.”

My body reacts with fire, burning my skin with his words. What does he mean? Is there some sort of hidden code?

He quickly adds, “I don’t mind washing the dishes. It gives me something to do. But I thought you might need more plates.”

That’s when all the emotions I haven’t been able to pinpoint for months bubble up. More plates. My legs shake. Or are they bouncing? But my hands are definitely shaking. My throat burns, decidedly unlike the sexy fire. This is rawer. Everything gets blurry until I blink.

“Shit!” I hear vaguely to my left side.

The blinker ticks, and the tires rumble, breaking any dam I had holding back my tears. Now I am hysterical.

The engine dies, and the only sound is my sobs. He goes to reach over to me but is trapped by the seat belt, slingshotting him back into place. Unlatching the seatbelt, he throws his arms around me, crushing me into the center console. “What’s wrong?”

“Plates,” I manage to say.

“Okay, um, did you not like the patterns?”

Between sobs, I eke out, “they” gasp “were” sob “a pack of eight.”

He rubs my back as he says softly, “I don’t understand.”

“Twelve. You wanted to give me twelve plates. That’s four meals with you, me, and Drew.” Two days of breakfast and dinner. Two days of everything feeling right. Fun. Safe. Wanted. “But it’s going to be six meals when it’s just Drew and I. I’ll be left with a cabinet full of dishes.”

This is all temporary.

He isn’t hanging around because he wants to, but because he’s being paid to.

I didn’t realize how much I wanted this until reality sucker punched me with an Amazon link.

I’m not sure how my face ended up in his neck, or when he started to pet my hair. “It’s always been just the two of us because no one else wanted us,” I whisper once I get control of my breathing. “The family doesn’t want me because I fucked up all of Dad’s plans for me.”

No one wants me. No one wanted us. The stink of failure clings to me wherever I go.

His voice slices through my intrusive thoughts. “Your family wants you here, otherwise they wouldn’t have hired me.” He puts his hands on my cheeks and brushes a traitorous tear away with his thumb. “And they trust you, otherwise they wouldn’t have given you this job.”

Waverly still hasn’t gotten a job yet, and she’s been home this entire time. Thiago’s wife hasn’t been asked either. Maybe there’s something to this. Maybe.

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