Page 45 of Wild Hit
Somehow my house has become a zoo.
“All right, folks. Here’s the plan,” Lucky Rivera says as he motions at the TV in the living room, where he has casted a note from his iPad. Chicken scratches adorn the screen in different colors, code for who is doing what. All of them are connected by red lines that look suspiciously like a certain meme. He explains, “We need to make this as believable as possible, which means scattering witnesses everywhere and posting proof on social media. For that we have our expert here.”
He motions at Rosalina who raises her hand in a salute. “Aye, captain.”
“I’m the captain,” her boyfriend mumbles before taking a sip of lemon La Croix. My face twitches with a flash of amusement.
“You’re the general of my heart, how about that?” She bats her eyes at him.
“Focus, people,” Lucky says, as though he wasn’t the most easily distracted person in this entire committee. “So as we have discussed, the first step is for the ladies to go shopping for wedding stuff—rings, dresses, and something blue.”
My daughter pauses from munching on literal popcorn. “Who’s bringing something borrowed?”
I take a deep breath and remain unmovable. I sit in the middle of my couch, Marty on my left and Audrey on my right, facing the screen. Cade and Hope sit on the armchair together, as in, she’s on his lap. Inwardly I thank them for keeping it PG rated. Meanwhile, Logan—our captain, aye—and Rose sit on the carpet by the coffee table. No matter how many times I offered to bring them chairs, they refused. Clearly this is a comfortable setup for them. It also allows them prime access to the boxes of pizza on the coffee table that came straight from Cade’s favorite joint.
The locksmith has come and gone, so in theory we don’t have to be cramped in my modest living room, but this has become headquarters for the Marriage of Convenience Operation—name provided by a team captain who surprisingly reads romance books—and somehow Lucky has become the project lead. Dude has a glint in his eye that is almost scary, as if he’d waited his entire life for this very moment.
He gesticulates like an overhyped scientist as he continues speaking. “Listen, I can lend socks to the whole wedding party if I must.”
“No,” Logan fires back right away.
Cade shudders. “Hard pass, bruh.”
Clearly there’s some history here.
“I made friendship bracelets yesterday, how about those?” Marty offers from her generous, and also deeply amused heart.
“Way better options,” Hope agrees.
Beside me, Audrey is as still as a statue. For the billionth time tonight, I check with a quick glance that she’s still, in fact, breathing. Her eyes are so wide that the lamps brighten them a shade or two. Pretty sure she’s scared of all these shenanigans, yet she’s not putting a stop to them.
“You okay?” I whisper to her.
She turns slightly toward me. “Unsure.”
“Should we stop?” Not just this strange pajama party, I mean, but everything. The whole plan. Call off the wedding, per se.
She just shakes her head as an answer.
“Now, the next crucial step is that we have to do Vegas rules.” Lucky circles the air around the messyWelcome to Las Vegassign he drew in a corner.
I reach over to my daughter and cover her ears. “Keep it child friendly, my guy.”
“Of course.” He nods theatrically and folds his arms. “All I’m proposing is group clubbing and some paparazzi type pics that we can accidentally leak.”
Rose reaches for her phone on the carpet next to her. “Roger that. Creating a burner account as we speak.”
“Dad?” Marty asks, “Can I hear the rest now?”
I don’t remove my hands from her ears quite yet and ask Lucky, “Do we have specific situations that we want to, uh, capture on camera?”
I will yeet him into outer space if he proposes something I wouldn’t let my kid see.
The smirk on his face tells me he can read my mind. “That’s gonna be up to you two.”
Audrey and I exchange a silent glance. She blinks a lot. I do my best for my eyes to not pop out of their damn sockets. A private conversation is definitely needed. I finally release my kid from the protective hold.
“Then,” Lucky emphasizes, “We get drunk.”
