96 Wedding jitters

96 Wedding jitters
Date = 13 August
Two days to go.
Place = San Francisco (Black Pit)
Our safe zone.

POV - Aria

If anyone had told me a year ago that I’d be sitting on the floor two days before my wedding — barefoot, wrapped in a silk robe that cost more than my dignity, inside an estate four times the size of Manhattan — drinking flat champagne with two women who feels like sisters I’ve known my entire life — all of us traumatized — I would’ve laughed in their face and suggested intensive therapy.
Possibly medication.
Yet here we are — flat on the thick carpet.
The couch is occupied by wedding junk — shoes, makeup, a veil I refuse to look at again because it turns me into a weepy liability. And a suit jacket Enrique abandoned earlier, before he left with the boys, as if he was afraid it might bite him.
So the floor it is — a half-eaten tub of ice cream sweating onto the rug — our legs crossed, knees touching, close enough that I can feel Mel’s warmth and Sky’s restless energy vibrating beside me.
Outside, the night presses its face against the windows — dark, patient, mildly judgmental— as if it’s still waiting for one of us to screw up. And somewhere out there, three bodyguards lurk in strategic shadows, pretending they’re part of the landscaping.
Inside, though? Inside is bliss.
Warm. Soft. Safe.
The nail lady has just packed up, leaving behind the faint smell of acetone and triumph. Our nails glow with perfect peachy French tips — wedding-ready, trauma-approved.
The kids are with Haley. The boys are off celebrating Enrique with rum and poor decisions. And for once, the chaos has taken the hint and stayed away.
We are sprawled on the floor like teenagers at a sleepover, champagne flutes in hand — filled with different drinks — hearts oddly light.
The house creaks. We all pause.
Then Sky relaxes. “Probably just one of the guards adjusting his gun.”
Mel sighs. “I miss when that sentence wasn’t comforting.”
“I swear to God,” I say, poking the carpet with my champagne flute, watching bubbles cling uselessly to the glass, “if something dramatic happens between now and the wedding, I will be extremely annoyed.”
Sky snorts, sharp and sudden. “Define dramatic.”
“Blood,” I say immediately. “Choices. Kidnappings. Red shoes. Screaming. Men with guns. Dead bodies.”
Mel smiles serenely and settles a hand over her stomach, the picture of calm. “So … a typical Tuesday.”
I shoot her a look. “You’re pregnant. You’re not allowed to joke about violence.”
“I’m a Blackburn knocked up by Grimm,” she replies evenly. “Violence is my emotional support animal.”
Sky laughs so hard she has to clamp a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking. I feel the sound more than I hear it — bright, cracked, a little feral. Tension breaking free.
Sky doesn’t laugh often anymore. None of us does.
Not since Kiara.
When it happens, it feels like stealing something back from the universe.
“I just want to state for the record,” Sky says, wiping at her eyes, “that if anyone tries to kidnap me in the next forty-eight hours, I will commit murder.”
Mel, very pregnant and profoundly unbothered, snorts. “You say that like it hasn’t already been attempted. Twice.”
“Kidnapping and murder are one thing,” I say. “But disrupting my wedding is where I draw the line.”
The words settle heavier than I expect. I lean back against the couch, the silk fabric of my robe cool against my shoulders, staring up at the ceiling like it might explain how my life went so spectacularly off-script.
“I’m getting married in two days.”
There it is.
The sentence that still feels fake every time it leaves my mouth.
Mel turns toward me, her eyes soft, knowing. “You sound shocked.”
“I am shocked,” I admit. “I was emotionally prepared to die alone with some cats and an attitude.”
Sky arches an eyebrow. “Ain’t you allergic to cats?”
“Exactly.”
They exchange a look over my head — the kind that says they know things I don’t. It would not be a stretch … they usually do. Or maybe I just don’t want to see.
Either way, they smile at me like the ending isn’t as terrifying as it feels.
And for a moment, I let myself believe them.
Sky is curled against the couch, knees tucked up, a flute with wine cradled in her hands that she is absolutely, definitely not drinking from. She smiles faintly, the kind of smile that doesn’t quite reach her exquisite eyes.
“You’ll be fine,” she says. “You’re marrying one of the twins. They’re basically built for chaos management.”
Enrique. My twin. My fiancé. My true love. My calm in the middle of a very loud storm.
“Correction,” Mel says dryly. “She’s marrying the stable twin.”
Though I can argue stability is relative when you’re friends with Damion Grimm and your twin is Jackson fucking Blackburn, I don’t … because yeah … against those two, Enrique is as calm as a mother-frickin’-daisy.
Sky scoffs. “Excuse you. Stability is very relative. I heard he threatened a priest.”
“He negotiated with a priest,” I correct immediately. “Jackson did all the threatening.”
I pause, then add, “Using a look that strongly suggested eternal damnation. So … the threatening part was all your twin-love.”
I wink at her. She rolls her eyes as if she’s regretting her life choices.
She nods anyway. “Yeah … I got nothing … that sounds like him.”
I glance at her, studying the way her fingers curl around the stem of the glass. “I could never be with him,” I admit. “That man terrifies me.”
Sky’s lips twitch. “Oh, he’s technically a demonic pooch.”
That cracks something open.
“So,” I say lightly, pivoting before the moment can turn too serious, “you’re in love with the devil.”
Sky groans. “Can we not phrase it like that? It sounds like something my mother would read from her cards.”
“She already did,” Mel says, delighted. “He’s your devil card.”
“He’s not a devil,” Sky mutters.
“He threatened that preacher with a smile,” I remind her.
“He’s misunderstood.”
Mel snorts. “Some people claim so was Hitler.”
Sky shoots her a look. “Low blow.”
“Sorry,” Mel says without an ounce of remorse. “Hormones.”
I watch Sky as she tucks her hair behind her ear — a nervous habit. “Talk to me,” I say gently. “About Jackson.”
She hesitates, exhales. “He’s … complicated.” That’s common knowledge.
“They all are … the whole bloody lot of them,” Mel gushes.
“That’s code,” I say. “For ‘emotionally damaged but hot’.”
“Painfully hot,” Sky agrees.
Mel laughs softly. “But Jackson is definitely a little more complicated than most. He had a rough childhood. Him and his twin … they learned early that love comes with bruises.”
That hits me somewhere deep.
“Does that scare you?” I ask. Cause it scares me a little.
Sky shakes her head. “No. What scares me is how careful he is with me. Like he’s afraid I’ll break.”
Mel smiles, warm and knowing. “That’s not fear. That’s devotion.”
Sky looks down at her hands. “I’ve never had someone look at me like I’m the thing they’re protecting.”
My eyes sting. “Enrique looks at me the same way. Maybe they aren’t so different after all.”
“You deserve that,” she tells me.
“So do you,” I say softly, meeting her gaze.
I swallow. “Enrique makes me feel … safe. Like I can exhale.”
“I feel safe with Jackson,” Sky replies.
“That’s how you know,” Mel chips in. “When love feels like relief.”
“At least Enrique is the quieter one,” I think out loud. “The observer. Damion and Jackson will burn down the world, and Enrique just … steadies it.”
“Every apocalypse needs a good steadier,” Mel says.
“So do I,” I smile at that, cause it’s true. Then I turn to her. “And you. Pregnant. Engaged. Unmarried. Unbothered.”
“Correct,” Mel says cheerfully.
Sky tilts her head. “Why are you waiting?”
Mel sweeps a hand over her stomach. “Because this little one comes first. Because I want to walk down the aisle knowing who I am after motherhood. Not before.”
“That’s powerful,” I say.
“It’s practical,” Mel replies. “And Damion supports it.”
I blink. “He does?”
She smiles. “He doesn’t have a choice. I’m not walking down the aisle looking like a bleached beach ball. Besides … he said he’d marry me barefoot in a hospital hallway if that’s what I wanted.”
Okay. That one hurts — in a good way.
“I hate that he’s romantic,” I mutter. “Enrique isn’t there … yet.”
“At least he’s trying,” Sky smirks. “Jackson is allergic to the word.”
Her lips curve without permission, dimples betraying exactly how she feels. “But then he does something wildly out of style, and I can’t not be affected.”
And honestly? I get why she tamed the devil. She’s got the face, the looks, the spine, and the kind of brain that makes men rethink their life choices. Beauty, brains, courage, and logic. Add to that the patience of a saint with excellent boundaries, zero tolerance for bullshit, and a moral compass that doesn’t wobble under pressure, and you’ve got the whole package. This girl didn’t tame the devil. She educated him.
Mel raises her nonalcoholic glass. “To the morons who surprise us.”
We clink.
The laughter fades eventually. Because there is an empty space in the room. We all know it.
“She should be here,” Sky says quietly, her annoyingly perfect face somber.
My heart cracks open.
“She would’ve teased me mercilessly,” I whisper. “About the dress. About crying. About the peach …” I almost let it slip, but luckily they’re both concerned with their own sadness.
“She would’ve hated me at first,” Sky says. “For the deceit.”
“Then loved you for putting Jackson in his place,” Mel murmurs.
I stare at the floor, the thick fibers in the rug hazy as my vision blurs. “She died because of Graham.”
The words taste like rust. Like something I’ll never quite swallow.
“And Cindy,” Mel adds immediately, voice sharp and steady. “Let’s not forget that bitch.”
I let out a shaky breath that’s half laugh, half sob. “Never,” I say. “I hate her the most.”
Sky scoffs. “Get in line. I’ve been hating her with the utmost, top-tier, superlative degree of intensity.”
“Now … that’s commitment,” Mel chuckles and squeezes my hand, grounding, warm. “But we need to move on.”
“Not on,” Sky corrects gently. “Forward.”
I sniff. I don’t know the difference, but forward sounds like it involves less emotional whiplash.
The scales aren’t even, but one thing tilts them — Graham is gone.
“I hate that part of me feels steadier knowing that they lost Graham,” I admit, feeling guilty while I say it.
“If we’re counting the fallen — everyone loses, but some losses still matter more,” Sky mumbles softly.
A sad huff of laughter passes between us, brittle but real.
The silence that follows isn’t empty — it’s weighted. Dense. But it doesn’t crush. It sits with us, like a shared blanket we all know is threadbare but still ours.
Grief still hurts. Anger still burns. And somewhere beneath it all, there’s that familiar exhaustion — the kind that comes from surviving too much.
But we’re here. Together. Breathing.
And apparently ranking our enemies, which feels … productive.
The silence lingers — heavy, shared, survivable.
But for once, that’s enough. And for the first time, it doesn’t feel like I’m alone in it.
I draw in a slow breath, the kind that scrapes all the way down my lungs.
“I’m scared.”
They both turn to me at once.
“Not of the wedding,” I say quickly, because that part is easy to admit now. “Of happiness. Because it feels like tempting fate. Like the universe is just waiting for me to get comfortable.”
Mel tightens her grip on my hand. Her thumb brushes over my knuckles, grounding. “Maybe happiness is the rebellion.”
Sky smiles at that, soft and steady. “Maybe surviving is the victory.”
I huff out a laugh that breaks halfway through and turns wet. “We’re such a mess.”
“And yet,” Mel says gently, “we’re sisters now.”
“A blood bond,” Sky adds solemnly.
I stare at them — really stare.
These women. This strange, fierce bond. Forged in fear and grief and the kind of love that shows up anyway. Not the neat kind. The earned kind.
I sniff and shake my head. “I’m not cutting my hand, spitting in it, and exchanging bodily fluids.”
I eye them both suspiciously. It would not shock me if one of them produces a knife. Or a shivvie. Or a shank.
“We are not twelve, bitch,” Mel snaps, indignant and pregnant and absolutely capable of murder if provoked.
“But,” I say, ignoring the feral fairy entirely, “I will protect you. Both of you. No matter what. Bodies, secrets, bad decisions — whatever.”
Sky’s smile turns bright and unguarded. “Right back at you, Ginger.”
Mel nods once, firm. “Always.”
Outside, the night holds its breath. No footsteps. No shadows sliding past the glass. No sense of being watched.
For the first time in longer than I can remember, the quiet doesn’t feel like a warning.
It feels earned.