One Too Many: A Riley Girls Romance Read online

  “You didn’t feel like you fit in,” Sierra says. That was not at all what I gathered from that, but he’s nodding.

  “It always felt like I had to do things the one way, and if I didn’t, I would upset them. It isn’t even like I wanted to shave my eyebrows or join the circus or anything, but there’s something depressing about coming from a cookie-cutter and knowing that your parents’ definition of your success is an identical cookie-cutter, you know?”

  Something hits me like a ton of bricks.

  “Are they gonna be mad about this?” I gesture to the matching rings we’re wearing.

  “They won’t be mad. They’ll be disappointed. The far more passive-aggressive way to handle it.” My stomach drops. I was so wrapped up in what my family would be thinking, saying, and texting—not to mention feeling triumphant at my epic mic-drop over Brian—that it hadn’t for a second occurred to me that Phoenix might have a few issues to deal with as well.

  In my family, someone is literally always disappointed, mad, amused, upset—my seven sisters might as well be the seven dwarves. It’s a foreign idea for me to worry about other people’s emotions when making decisions. Mostly because I’d never have made a single one for myself if so.

  Is that what his life has been to this point?

  If so, I’m proudly counting myself as his best choice.

  So in return—still growing as a person, this marriage is so fucking successful—I make another spontaneous decision.

  “Phoenix, chug that drink. I’m dumping Eileen and taking you on a honeymoon.”

  Five

  The Honeymoon

  When Brian received his promotion and sent me the great honeymoon news over text, I’ll admit to being less than pleased. In fact, we didn’t speak for a week over it. Okay, fine, it was just me that didn’t speak for a week. I’m not totally convinced he noticed. But honestly, I had British Royal dreams of the Seychelles, or at the very least, of Tahiti, and he full well knew that. So discovering that the magical three-day weekend was going to be in small town Missouri was a real let-down, to say the least.

  I’d planned on spending the majority of my time in the spa, being cared for like a queen and charging it all to the room tied to his credit card, but now?

  Looking at Phoenix, fully recovered from this morning and dressed in his own clothes once again, I finally understand why people never leave their room on honeymoons. He figures it out pretty fast, too, when I tackle him to the bed and press my lips to his until they part.

  In about half a second, he’s hard against me as his hands guide my hips. Even through all our clothes, I’m sure he can feel my heat as our tongues slide together. I rub against him like a cat in heat. After a minute he rolls us over and sits back to take off his shirt. I could look at him like this all day, but I’m sure not mad when he comes right back down on top of me to kiss some more.

  This is what it’s going to be like to have sex with him, I think. I was so used to the perfunctory kind that I had completely forgotten sex is something other people do for a good time. And this right here? A hella good time.

  Of course, I know that once we do this, the easiest method of annulment is gone. Once we do this, there’s no going back. It’s going to be real. All of this between us will suddenly be so much bigger than a rebound make-out, so much more than a funny wedding story.

  But this is what it’s going to be like.

  And this feels like heaven.

  Hell help me.

  Then his hand is up my shirt and he makes a little noise in the back of his throat when he has my nipple under his thumb and I don’t really care about anything anymore except feeling more of his skin on mine.

  He rolls a little bit to the side, enough to slide his hand into my pants and feel for himself how hot and wet I am for him.

  “Does that feel good, baby?” he asks, as though the fact that I’m panting and bucking against his fingers doesn’t give that away. My heart melts a little that he just called me baby. I kiss him again so that he won’t see me smile like a teenage girl. Once I’m completely lost in the rhythm of our bodies moving together, he pulls back and sucks me off his fingers. I swear I almost come right there. Luckily, I’m able to wait until he climbs off the bed and takes his pants off before grabbing a condom from his bag.

  Because when he turns around and I see him naked for the first time, it’s like a chorus of angels begins to sing. My husband is blessed. And in the length of time it takes him to finish rolling on the condom, climb back on top of me, and settle between my legs, I have already thanked the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for my own blessing in having entered into holy matrimony with the owner of the biggest, prettiest dick I have ever seen.

  I sort of expect him to go slowly, given the momentousness of the occasion, but he pushes right in, all the way.

  It’s so overwhelming, in the best possible way, I see stars.

  Maybe this is heaven, maybe I died on the way to the hotel. It would explain the feeling in my chest. The rainbows are back, and this time they brought kittens. I put one of my hands on his, to feel his heart racing in time with mine. The other is on the back of his thigh, urging him in harder. Faster.

  He moves in and out of me, changing up the speed and the angle. All I can do is hold on. Follow where he leads. Try not to scream and get us kicked out.

  His head is buried in my left shoulder while I think to myself, this is how it is. This is how it feels. This is what it’s like with him.

  And when he bites my neck and sends me over the edge, coming for him until he joins me, I make my stupidest ever decision.

  I fall in love.

  Six

  The Adjustment

  I could bang nonstop for the entire three days if Phoenix doesn’t insist on recharging between orgasms. Luckily, it doesn’t take long. I now regret not having absorbed all the spicy ideas Sierra had been willing to offer at my bachelorette. I’m going to get her number and fix that as soon as we get home.

  Or maybe, I’ll be too busy in my own bed at that point.

  I haven’t exactly asked, but I just assume we’ll be living at my house, because he has a roommate and that’s not a very grownup thing for married people to do.

  He grabs the room-service menu and our heads touch while we look together. His perfect copper hair and my strawberry blonde. When I glance at him, his eyes are on me and not the menu. The rainbows and kittens shoot a confetti cannon off in my heart. It’s a whole ass Lisa Frank party in there.

  I’m pretty sure we decide on cheap wine and a pricy charcuterie board. It’s hard to tell what I’m agreeing to when his hazel eyes are locked on mine. I knew he was hot when I met him at my wedding, but now when I look at him, I cannot for the life of me understand how the whole world isn’t as obsessed as I currently am. The hotel must not be super booked, because it only takes about fifteen minutes for the knock to come on our door.

  “Roooooooom service!” trills a very loud, very high-pitched voice in what seems to me to be a very fake and ill-defined accent.

  My head is already shaking when Phoenix throws a pair of athletic pants on to answer. I don’t have time to stop him, though, and everything feels like it’s happening in slow-motion.

  He opens the door.

  Five of my sisters come tumbling in.

  The volume immediately goes up to unholy levels.

  The odds of me getting laid again grow smaller by the second.

  Everyone’s talking at once and touching his hair and asking how the sex was and if we know this means we can’t get an annulment. Phoenix is frantically trying to kick the used condoms under the bed and pull his underwear off Darby’s head and assure them all that yes, his hair is quite natural thank you.

  He is the only one who is surprised when the actual room service shows up and the locusts descend, leaving us with crumbs, an empty bottle, and the bill.

  Surely if Eileen had known about this, she’d have put a stop to it, but one can never be certain. She
isn’t here is all I know. And now the sisters are pulling out bottles of Jameson and discussing where everyone plans to sleep, because of course it wasn’t enough to interrupt my honeymoon. They’re doing it on the cheap, where no one coughs up for their own room.

  I mouth sorry at Phoenix even though we’re right next to each other. It’s not like he could hear me over the racket. He nods, but he doesn’t look super happy. Me either, kid.

  I pull him out onto the balcony of our room for some air and a semblance of privacy.

  For a long moment neither of us speaks as we both appreciate the dull roar my sisters become with the sliding door shut.

  “Welcome to the Riley family?” I try.

  “I suppose you should meet mine too.” I smile for the first time since the invasion. Meet the people who made this magnificent creature? Hard yes. “Maybe we just go ahead and do it now. We can pick up wine afterwards and take it back to yours to pick back up where we left off.”

  “Brian’s card is the one on this room.”

  Never have I been more pleased about leaving vacation than as we covertly gather our things and slip out of The Elms. But then, a couple hours later?

  Never in my goddamn life have I suffered an indignity like being forced to drink 2% milk and eat a Flintstones vitamin with dinner at my new in-law’s home. It’s not exactly like my own parents were sharing the wine before I’d reached high school age, but I at least got to choose whether I wanted water or tea. The occasional soda.

  And I stopped chewing my vitamins when I stopped wearing Velcro shoes.

  “So Phoenix tells us you are a social media manager?” his mother asks me in the same tone of voice one typically reserves for discussing gangrene.

  “I am, yes. It’s a new kind of job, but one that really works for me. I’m not terribly employable in the traditional sense, but I do like money. Running people’s social media accounts out of my bed works for me.” His father chokes a little on his couscous, but I’m almost positive it’s to disguise a laugh.

  “Not employable?”

  “It’s my sisters.” I pause for a bite of broccoli. It’s pretty good, and I don’t even like vegetables. “We tend to become infestations, which HR is rarely too pleased about, particularly when we all get into it in the break room. Do you think I could have your recipe for this?”

  That pacifies her, and we have a perfectly lovely dinner, minus the fact that Phoenix refuses to fuck me in his childhood bedroom. I didn’t know I was marrying such a prude, but hey. No one’s perfect.

  But he could at least pretend I am, given that we’re still newlyweds, I’m thinking a month later as he loses his cool in our living room.

  “I just want some quiet time!”

  “It is quiet.” It is, too. “Kathleen, Maggie, hold on, I’m in a fight.”

  “You have two different televisions tuned to two different stations, music on your laptop, and you’re talking on a three-way call on speakerphone!”

  “That is quiet.” Maybe I should get off the phone, though. I go ahead and hang up on my sisters just in case.

  “Not for me. I’m going to my parent’s.” Now that’s going too far. My hackles are immediately raised.

  “And I’m going to the bar.” I slam the door before I hear if he has a smart comment to make about that, too, and fume the whole way there. Like he can’t just put on headphones like everyone else in the world when they want to drown things out? How does he think Daddy survived eight daughters? Also, how dare he go to his parents with this? Now they will know we’re fighting, and I already felt like I was on shaky ground with them. Well. Not with his dad. That guy loves me.

  But that isn’t the point.

  When I walk into There In Spirits, I’m greeted by Dave’s enthusiastic grin. I half-return it as I look around for my girl.

  “Oh, she’s not here.” He hurries to set a coaster and a napkin in front of my usual stool.

  “But I need therapy! When does Sierra work again?” Suddenly he can’t make eye contact anymore.

  “Dave. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Um… she doesn’t technically work here. I just let her behind the bar sometimes when it’s slow.” For fuck sake. It is so hard to find good help these days. One question remains, though.

  “Why?”

  “She’s an author. She says it’s a better way to spend an evening of writer’s block than facedown, rolling around on the floor.” That does explain an awful lot.

  “Makes sense. And here I was half in love with her.”

  “A common reaction. Hey, you’re not going to tell on me, are you?” Poor guy looks legiterally nervous. But it would be pretty hypocritical of me to tattle, considering how much I’ve enjoyed our time together.

  “Nah. She’s Irish. Surely we’re related somehow. Family privilege.”

  “That’s what I thought!” Dave brightens considerably. “Can I make you one of those shots you like?”

  “For fuck sake, Dave. Of course you can, but keep your voice down.” Then I proceed to drink enough not to care that my husband doesn’t bother coming home.

  Seven

  The Great Escape

  He texts me the next morning to come outside. When I step out onto the porch, Phoenix has his mean face on and I’m pretty sure we’re either going to fuck right here or else break up. When he doesn’t stand up to greet me, it’s pretty obvious.

  “Okay, but why?” I ask, instead of bothering with pointless pleasantries.

  “It’s your sisters.” He can’t look at me. “I really thought I could handle it, but it’s too much for me. There’s just… it’s too much. We can never just be me and you. Ever.”

  I’m quiet for a few minutes as a movie-montage of all the flavors of extra my sisters are run through my head. There was the DJ job-theft from the wedding, and we’ve had two arrests and one lawsuit in the month since then. Well—those are the ones he knows about. I didn’t tell him about Darby’s minor brush with a suspended license, because the family lawyer handled that one real quickly.

  Beyond that we had the usual assortment of fistfights, late night calls from Ma begging me to mediate before she got another noise complaint, and there was the dine-and-ditch bill he got stuck with after his friend the bartender recognized Kathleen from social media and called him.

  I suppose the fact that he’s in the group-text might get a little annoying, and also leave him with a few too many unwanted period stories.

  Plus the honeymoon… okay, I do kind of see where he’s coming from.

  But also, I’m pissed, because there is literally nothing I can do about my family.

  Even though the thought of moving to Belize and pretending I’m an orphan has crossed my mind, too. But I’d be bored inside of a week without those lovable assholes. And even though we steal each other’s shit and prank call each other’s bosses and hack each other’s Facebook accounts to post disgusting statuses, we always have each other’s backs. Always.

  Apparently, Father Paddy hadn’t put that one into our vows.

  “So firstly, fuck you.” Another long pause, something that’s really defined these heart-to-hearts of ours.

  “What’s second?”

  “Nothing, I just wanted to make sure the first was done with expedience.” I nod firmly at him, but I can feel my hands starting to shake the way they do when the frustration builds too fast for proper rage and tries to escape via tears. I clench them really tight in my lap and pray he doesn’t notice. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of actually watching my heart break. There’s no pink woodland creature party going on in there anymore.

  “Honestly, Bridget, I really thought I could look past this. I didn’t think it would be a dealbreaker.” He glances at me now, and that motherfucker actually means this. He isn’t making the smirky face he normally does when he’s lying about something silly. Which makes it a hundred times worse.

  Fuck honesty. It’s worse than responsibility.

  “Do you h
ave any thoughts?” he asks.

  I most certainly do. But not a one of them is very nice. And for the life of me, I can’t see how any of them matter.

  “Nope.”

  “That’s… no offense, but that’s not really like you.” Fuck him for knowing me so well, too.

  “I mean, you knew exactly what you were getting into when you suggested this wedding. All my sisters were right there. It was literally your idea to make this official. I was fully prepared to drink myself into spinsterhood, perhaps adopt a couple birds. Because do you know what? I like them. That’s right. I like birds. But you wanted this, and you made me fall for you, and now you’ve made a new decision that I am not part of and do you know what the worst part is?” I don’t wait for the response. “Now I will have to tell all my sisters about this. Good luck.”

  I turn and walk inside, lock the door.

  Remember he has a key, shove the couch in front of the door.

  Realize the couch isn’t terribly heavy, pile a few stray side tables in front of it.

  It isn’t until my barricade is firmly in place and I’m back up in my room, staring at the bed we shared just last night that I finally think of all the good one-liners I should have used. So typical.

  I spend the next three days drinking Jameson out of the last cup he used, until it’s so smeared with my own Chapstick I can’t identify a single place his lips might have touched that mine haven’t erased completely.

  After that I cry, mostly.

  The sisters? They sure know something’s wrong; I don’t usually fall off the face of the earth unless I’ve accidentally wrecked someone’s car. (Only happened twice, to be fair.) I just can’t bring myself to tell them they are responsible for the end of my marriage through absolutely no fault of theirs.

  Well. Perhaps some fault. But all Irish families thrive in chaos, that’s pretty scientific.