Bargaining with the Bride

F
or Pookie
—my classic music comrade, old movie cohort, and car driving cheerleader. A girl is lucky to have a friend like you, and I’m especially blessed to call you my dad.

I
t was
the first time Rachael Ford had come home early in a year, and still her head was reeling with all the numbers she'd have to crunch in the morning. Not that there was any way around it. Ever since her coworkers had found out about her upcoming nuptials, she couldn’t use her office like the oasis it was supposed to be, and now she had almost nowhere to hide.

Add to that the fact that the programs had finally come in from the printers, and she was beyond done with wedding planning. She kicked the box beside the coffee table, her stomach sinking at the thought of her name strung together with Lance’s in the curly cue font.

Linked. For eternity.

The very idea made her heart play dead in her chest.

With a deep breath, she realized a drink would be in order before she told him about the programs. After all, it
was
a quarter past noon. A half of a glass of wine was acceptable in Europe—hell, encouraged, even. And, okay, Connecticut wasn't exactly Europe, but that still kind of counted, right? It wasn’t like she lived in Pennsylvania anymore, and when in Rome...

She uncorked a bottle of her favorite, too-sweet red and poured a glass to the halfway mark. Perfect. Just the littlest bit to take the edge off. Enough to let the sharp urge to vomit fade at the very least, anyway.

Using the corkscrew in her hand, she slit the top of the box of programs and grasped the creamy card stock, tracing the raised edges of her name, then Lance's, as she read over the words.

T
wo Hearts Become
One

On this day, the wedding of

Rachael Antoinette Ford and Lance Patrick Hatchback

May the twentieth, two thousand and fifteen

Beheld at

Saint Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother

I
n one month
, she would be Rachael Ford-Hatchback. Seriously. The name was like lemon in an open wound that already had sand and salt rubbed into it as deep as it could go. She closed her eyes and swigged her wine, reminding herself that this would all work out. Somehow.

Because, really, what choice did she have? If she canceled, her mother’s “I told you so” would be so loud that it would become the new shot heard round the world. And as for her father…her head spun with numbers again, but this time it was the cost of the wedding, the image of her father’s face as he pushed a pile of receipts toward her.

Then there was Lance…

No, she wasn’t willing to think about all that right now. This was her day off and she was going to enjoy it.

She tossed the program onto the coffee table and then leaned back into her couch with a deep sigh. Tilting her head, she stared at her wine glass. Was it her imagination, or did that tiny splash of liquid look lonely? Maybe a full glass wouldn't be so bad. What was the point in skipping half a day of work if she didn't get to relax?

She started to add wine to the glass, but stopped midway when she heard a gentle thud—once, then louder.

Shit.

Lance must have fallen out of his bed again. As if it was ever cause for alarm anymore. The first few times had been scary, sure, but now it was an eye-roll worthy offense. He'd probably been reaching for his remote control or he'd been masturbating a little too furiously for his bed to handle and he'd rolled off in the struggle. One or the other.

She'd begged him time and again to let the nurse handle it, that's all she was there to do. Take care of him on the bad days when he couldn't get around the way he had when they'd started dating. But he was so stubborn, refusing to listen to her advice, or really anything she had to say in general.

She didn't bother to set the glass down as she made her way to the back of the house.

His room was just off the kitchen, a special addition they'd added when they moved to be nearer his parents. Ultimately, it had been a futile move since the pair refused to see their son and still hadn’t RSVP’d to the wedding, but she believed it had been the right decision. After all the years of throwing money at the problem—special clinics, experimental drugs, private care—she’d thought being near family might have helped him. Anything, anything for him to get better.

And to give her a way out.

But nothing had worked. At least after moving, they could live separate lives, even if her life still required his constant care. Or listening to his rants about politics. Or catching him doing something else awful.

No matter what the case, though, she was sure he preferred their separate lives. After all, he had before he'd gotten sick. Back then, he’d told her he was big into charity, even going as far as traveling across the world to give to the needy. In all of her college naiveté, she’d believed him.

It wasn’t until they’d been together for a year that she’d learned the truth—that his version of giving to the needy half a world away was sitting in a strip club in Brazil, stuffing his father’s tuition check down someone’s G-string.

After she’d gotten to the bottom of his deceit, she had decided to end things. Enough was enough, and when he got home from “Vietnam,” which was apparently code for “The Bahamas,” she was going to tell him as much.

Or, at least, that had been her plan.

When he finally graced her with his presence, he beat her to the chase with news of his own. He was sick with god only knew what—a souvenir from his many adventures abroad. She’d still come clean with him, told him she knew the real truth, but he’d apparently seen that day coming.

“What will people say?” he’d asked. “When you tell them you left your sick boyfriend of two years? What will your parents say when you bail
yet again
? Are you so cold hearted that you’d do that to me?”

She wasn’t, but apparently he was. And though her bags were packed and waiting by the door, she'd used them to ship out to Connecticut. From that moment on, every time she looked at those bags, her fingers twitched to unzip them and throw everything she owned into an escape pod.

Somehow, every time she was on the edge of leaving forever and losing the energy to care what people would say about it, he'd fall out of his bed, or he'd need a sponge bath. Or worse yet, her mother would call and remind her of exactly what a disappointment she was.

It was always something.

Something to prove she couldn’t leave him here, sick and alone. That would be all too cold, even if it was only a tenth of what he deserved.

So here she was, three years later. Stuck. Engaged to a man she hated if only to ensure that his healthcare expenses didn’t continue to drain every last penny she had. As much as she’d tried to convince herself that things would change, they were the same from day one. Even confined to one room, one way or another he found a way to be completely unavailable, and that was the only way he would ever be dependable.

She shook her head, clearing the dark cloud of thoughts that always fogged her mind, and approached Lance’s room. The thuds were louder still, and even more rapid.

Was the equipment broken? Was he trying to get the nurse's attention? And where
was
the freaking nurse? A thousand bucks a week and this was what Rachael got for it?

She made a mental note to call the agency before rushing in, not bothering to knock before banging the door against the wall.

But that wasn't the only thing banging against the wall.

Her breath caught as she tried to take it in. So, he
could
walk.

What a
fucking
miracle.

In fact, he could stand so well that he had the redheaded nurse pinned against the wall beside his bed. Rachael wasn't sure what affronted her more—the fact that her fiancé was still mid-nurse when he turned to look at her, or that he was wearing the nurse's white cotton uniform and a pair of red heels while he was doing the deed.

"Rachie," he said. Still inside the nurse. Did he not
at least
have the decency to unsheathe himself?

"Feeling better?" she asked. The words tasted bitter in her mouth, sticking to her cheeks and resting there while the remainder of her effort focused on not leaping across the room and strangling him.

"This isn't what it looks like," he finally slid out of the nurse and dropped the uniform to the ground, turning to face her full on. Apparently, surprise made him flaccid. Not that there had ever been a big difference between the two states of wiener-hood for him.

"It looks like physical therapy. Am I paying you overtime?" She craned her neck to talk to the woman who was rushing to collect her clothing from the ground. At least the redhead had the decency not to look up.

"Leave her alone," he demanded.

Rachael let out a short laugh, stunned that he had the balls to come at her, now. "Because she's an innocent victim? Tell me, how long have you been disease-free?"

"I think I should be leaving," a mousy whisper came from the woman cowering by the bedside, fastening the last of her buttons.

"Oh, good idea. You should probably head to the dry cleaner's," Rachael replied.

"The dry cleaners?" The woman knitted her brow as she attempted to side-step Rachael on her way out the door. It was the perfect chance. Rachael tossed the entire contents of her wine glass onto the front of Nurse Betty's white uniform, and the blood-red liquid dripped from the hem onto her bare legs.

"I hear wine stains are pretty tough to get out," Rachael said.

The woman was smarter than Rachael thought, though, because she didn't bother to fight back before she left, closing the door with a gentle click behind her.

"That wasn't really necessary, Rachie." Lance's pants were back on, at least. One less thing to remind her of what had just happened. Though the wine stain on the rug would be a bitch to deal with later.

"I think you're not really in a position to lecture me." She placed her fists on her hips and stared him down, waiting for the groveling. The 'please don't leave' that she would expect of any normal person who had been found boning the nurse their fiancé had been paying for.

But she'd forgotten that Lance was an anomaly of human, the missing link. The ass-hole-asaurus.

"I wouldn't have needed to do that if you didn't work so much," he settled back onto his sick bed, hooking himself back up to the multitudes of beeping machines that surrounded him. He sighed and reached for the remote, as if he'd settled the whole situation. As if he couldn't see the steam that was practically pouring from her ears and the heat rushing to her face.

"You mean if I didn't work so much to cover your medical expenses? Because you can't work? Even though you're a freelance editor? And let's forget about your naughty nurse for a minute. Why don't you go ahead and explain to me how the
hell
you can suddenly get out of bed? Not only that, did you take some kind of super drug so you can finally muster the energy to fuck somebody?"

"Do you really think there's a need for language like that?" He wore his go-to holier-than-thou simper, his long nose wrinkled as if he'd smelled his bedpan. The worst part was that he hadn't even bothered to look at her. He just flipped through the channels, finally settling on
The Young and the Restless
. "Can we discuss this when you're a little more rational? My show is on."

"
Your show is on?
" Her voice had roared like a volcano before, but now it was an ant in the middle of a giant field. Quiet. Almost unnoticeable.

"Yeah, the evil twin just killed her sister, so, you know, it's pretty important."

Fire erupted in her stomach and she leapt like a hyena onto his bed, ripping the remote from his hand before throwing it into the TV, shattering the glass with satisfying force.

He jerked forward, but she held him down, staring at him until he finally met her gaze.

"Listen to me. You're
going
to explain how you're magically healed.
Or
I can get my lawyer to have you explain it to a jury."

"Will you at least get off of me?"

"No."

He sighed. "I don't really think this is appropriate."

She lifted him off the bed and slammed his shoulders into the bedpost with a loud
thunk
. Based on the wild look in his eyes, that had finally gotten his attention.

"All right, well, I've been really improving these past few weeks," he coughed the saddest fake cough the world had ever seen before he continued, "but I've just been so lonely and Gretel was really patient with me." He tried to make his chin quiver, but it looked more like a baby learning how to nod its head for the first time.

"So Gretel
Miracle Worker
-ed you until you could do her against the wall?"

"Well, it didn't really start against the wall, per say."

"Mmmhmm," she huffed, rolled off of him, and then grabbed his charts from the bottom of his bed. After years of sitting through all of his tests and procedures, she'd learned to decipher most of what they said, though doctor handwriting was still something of a mystery. "Well this is odd."

"What's that?" He groaned and rolled over in the bed, pulling his sheets over his face.

"All of your specialists say you're doing fine. The checkups for the drug treatments say you're performing at record rates. And yet Gretel's reports say that you're getting worse every day. Isn't that curious?" She threw the clipboard onto the ground.

"Well, some days are better than others." Even he couldn't make his response sound less lame than it was.

"Get your shit and go," she said, crossing back to the door.

"But baby, I'm so sick. I need you," he gave another deplorable excuse for a cough.

"Well thank goodness you have Gretel to care for you. And she's a nurse. I'm sure she could take care of you for a long time with all the money you two have been stealing from me."

"Well, stealing is a little—"

"While you were lying about your illness—"

"More a sin of omission, wouldn't you—"

"Do I look like I'm interested?" She was fighting the urge not to douse the place in gasoline and watch it all go up in flames. She couldn't think about the repercussions. Right now, she only had one mission—and that was getting rid of her almost-lawfully-wedded lowlife once and for all. "Pack up your shit and leave."