I heard it, then.
Michael.
Making certain…sounds.
Lisa heard it too, which was why she’d tried to talk louder than necessary.
I bit my lip, blinked hard, and forced my imminent breakdown aside. Turning to Eric, I held out my hand. “Phone, Eric. Now.”
He hesitated. “Why do you want to see it? You know what it is, obviously.”
I got in his face. “Phone…now.” I used the hard voice I’d learned from Dad, the one with the snap of authority.
Dad was a cop, a former USMC drill instructor, and an overall badass, so he was an expert in what he called The Voice of Authority. He’d also taught me self-defense from the time I was old enough to walk, so I could hand most men their own asses in thirty seconds or less, and Eric knew it. Hell, he’d seen me do it more than once.
He dug his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, and handed it to me—the video was cued up, on pause.
It showed the door behind me, the door to Michael’s dressing room. It was cracked open, and the video was being shot through the crack. Michael was visible through the crack, tuxedo pants around his ankles. His bowtie perfectly tied, his vest buttoned up, his coat left open, white shirt hanging below the vest and coat.
In front of him, bent over the back of a chair, was Tawny, Lisa’s best friend and my third bridesmaid. Yes, her name really was Tawny. And she fit the name, too: fake blond hair, big fake tits, skanky, had done a turn as a stripper. In the video, she was taking Michael’s cock and, from the sounds she was making, she was loving it. Loudly.
I wanted to see what had been so funny, so I scrolled to the left to bring the video back to the beginning. The video had caught Michael as he tripped over his own pants and fell backward onto his ass, leaving Tawny bent over the chair, dress shoved up past her gyrating hips. Michael’s erect dick flapped and flopped and wobbled as he toppled backward. Honestly, it was hysterical. It was funny enough that despite the circumstances, I actually giggled.
But I sobered quickly.
“He’s still in there?” I demanded, tossing Eric’s phone at him. “Fucking Tawny?”
Nobody answered, which was all the answer I needed; I’d seen enough, no need to confront him.
I wiggled my full-carat diamond solitaire engagement ring off my finger and sucked in a deep breath—well, as deep as I could, anyway—to fend off the meltdown for a few more minutes. I turned to Lisa, grabbed her wrist and pressed the ring into her palm. “Tawny can have him.”
I turned and left, fighting off the need to have a total nervous breakdown.
Dad was still waiting on the bench, and he looked up as I stormed past him. “Baby? Dru? What’s going on?”
I kept marching, and let Dad catch up. We were out of the church, and into the pouring Seattle rain in less than sixty seconds.
“You were right, Daddy,” I managed, as I approached the driver’s side of Dad’s beat-up red ’07 Tacoma—he’d driven us here, but now I needed to drive. I needed to get away as fast as possible.
Dad wasted no time hopping into the passenger seat, which was good since I wasn’t waiting around. The second my ass hit the faded, ripped cloth seat, the engine was on and I was peeling out.
“Right about what? What’s going on?” he asked as I skidded out of the parking lot of the church and onto the main road.
Dad having trained me to drive, he was fairly relaxed despite my wild driving.
“About Michael, about everything.” I sniffled and tried to stop the next one, because I knew once I let it out there would be no stopping it. “He—he—Tawny, he was—SHIT!” I slammed my fist on the steering wheel so hard the whole truck shook. “That piece of shit was fucking Tawny in the dressing room.”
Dad’s eye twitched, and his massive fist clenched. “Knew that punk was a slimy bastard.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“So now what?”
I unbuttoned the trench coat, shrugged it off, and handed it to Dad. “Now I go get shitfaced. After that? I don’t know.” I contorted in place, trying to loosen the bodice, and managed to give myself enough room in the dress so I could actually take a breath without it hurting.
Dad rested his meaty hand on my shoulder. “Pull over, baby-cakes. I’ll drive.”
I yanked the wheel to the right, hopped a curb, and skidded to a halt in a drug store parking lot. We did a Chinese fire drill, and when I was seated Dad took off again, albeit far more sedately than I had.
He glanced at me. “You gonna cry?”
I nodded. “A lot. I’m gonna ugly cry so hard, Dad, you don’t even know.”
He dug into his back pocket and produced an actual handkerchief. Dad, classic, right there. He’s not all that old, since Mom had me at nineteen, but he acts like someone from a previous generation. Handkerchiefs, trench coats, and I’m pretty sure he has a fedora somewhere.