“FLOWERS AND CAKE are done.” I clamp the flat iron over a long strand of hair and smooth. “Ask me how much?”
Matthew stands in his scrubs, half asleep leaning on the doorframe of the bathroom. “Five hundred?” he guesses.
“Three hundred,” I say proudly. I admire my straightened brown strand and start smoothing the next one. “If this comes out good, I can do my own hair on the wedding day and save even more money.”
“Holly, you don’t have to do that. We’ve already cut so many corners for this wedding. I know you’re excited about the house, so am I, but I don’t want you to sacrifice on everything. This is our wedding day.”
“Actually, it was $355. I had to pay for the membership. I got the cake and flowers at Costco.”
His expression is pained. “When you see Ashley later, please don’t tell her. I vaguely remember Robin doing something like that and Ashley going nuts.”
“Robin is the one who suggested it.” My hair looks too flat now; I need something to give it a little dimension. I grab the can of hairspray, bend forward, and lightly spray at the flipped hair. “And she already warned me not to tell Ashley.” I flip back up and pat my poufy hair into a happy medium.
“Are you excited for tonight?” he asks.
“I’m going out with Ashley, Robin, and your mom for a bachelorette party hosted by Jayne. Excited? No. Scared shitless? Yes. She promised me it would be tame, but I don’t trust her at all. Do you know anything?” I grab a bottle of perfume, spray, step into the mist, and repeat.
“No.” Matthew chuckles, stepping into the bathroom. He lifts his shirt off, opens the shower door, and reaches in to start running the water. “But is it wrong if I hope whatever it is gets you drunk, horned up, and pushing the beds together when you get in?”
My skin warms at the sight of his bare chest. His body is a chiseled work of art, perfect in every way. It’s been way too long since we’ve done the dirty, and I’m thankful to have plans because if I didn’t I think I’d risk it and strip off my clothes and join my sexy fiancé for a nice warm soapy shower.
“Matthew, I’m almost done. Just wait, don’t get undressed yet.” I’m salivating so much, I spit when I talk. It takes two swallows to get all the moisture down.
Matthew’s hazel eyes look me up and down through a suspicious squint before he removes his glasses and places them down. “You’re horny.”
“No.” I take two more loud gulps and step backwards.
“Yes, you are. This little standoff until marriage thing you started is getting to you isn’t it?” He stretches out his muscular arm and shuts the bathroom door.
“Matthew, I don’t know what you’re doing, but whatever it is, we can’t. They’re coming to get me in less than twenty minutes.” I pick up a lip gloss and face the mirror, applying it with a shaky hand. He stands close, his half naked body pushing up against me. His hot skin touching mine. Horny is an understatement of what I’m feeling.
“All I need is ten.” His arm slips around my waist and pulls me in. His thin scrub pants keep no secrets. I feel the poke. “You smell so good.” His nose sweeps over my neck, inhaling. “Make that five.”
“I can’t,” I say, but my body responds in a completely different way. His fingertips trail over one of my exposed shoulders and my belly rolls all the way down, waking up the sleeping pink princess. I want to resist but… I can’t. Fuck it. His mother thinks I’m up here getting ready for a night out, and Matthew just worked a twelve-hour shift. I doubt she’d ever suspect us of sneaking a quick one in. “Five minutes,” I breathe, hiking the short black dress I have on up to my waist and shimmying out of my thong. By the time I hoist my bare ass up onto the vanity, Matthew is already waiting, dick in hand. I open my legs, more than ready to play, and he goes to slide in. But the positioning is off.
He grabs hold of my backside and pulls me to the edge of the countertop, but the steam from the shower filling the room makes the marble countertop slippery, and it just doesn’t work. We can’t get our motions to sync for all the important body parts to line up and stay in place.
“Up. Stand here. Face the mirror,” Matthew demands forcefully, and I go weak. God, I love it when he gets all alpha on me. I do as told and stand in front of him, my hands propped up against each side of the sink for balance. I wish I could watch as Matthew eases in from behind, but the mirror is already fogged from the steam of the shower.
This time there is no problem syncing up. It’s quick, and the need for release builds inside of me right away. Usually I’d try to suppress the feeling, but there’s no time and I let myself go right for it.
Fuck me faster. Right there. Yeeees, I say in my head, careful not to mutter a single word or groan a single groan as my body tightens and convulses around his thick, hard…. “Oh, God.” One tiny little whisper escapes me.
Matthew thrusts harder, and my body crashes with more force into the vanity, knocking over a few things on the counter. Coming back to my senses, I see the bottle of perfume start to roll. I grab it quickly, grasping it tightly into my fist, saving us. If the bottle had dropped to the tile floor and shattered, it would have been a disaster. A pungent one.
I wait for Matthew to finish, but his pelvis still pumps away. His exhaustion is probably helping him to hold out. My dress gets tugged and he searches for one of my breasts. I help by pulling down the top of my tank dress, bringing my bra down with it. He immediately takes hold of one breast, massaging as he continues to thrust. I close my eyes. It’s been way too long. Waaaay toooo loooong. A second orgasm is already building. Two for one. That’s fine. I’m going with it. We’re being quiet. Let’s do this.
I raise my hands up, the perfume bottle still clutched safely, and lean back as best I can for Matthew to have full access to both of my exposed breasts. He grabs hold and uses them for leverage as his speed increases and he goes for the big finish. His grip is so tight but it feels so good. So fucking good. I begin to rock. I reach my free hand back and grab on to a lock of his thick hair and yank. Matthew releases a raspy, desperate moan that sends me over the edge. It’s not easy, but I manage to suppress any noises from escaping me and thrash my arms forward.
Crack.
We both come to an abrupt stop as we both stop coming.
“What was that?” Matthew asks. I’m afraid to look but slowly bring my gaze up to the steamy mirror.
“Is that a crack?” No. Please no. I start rubbing away the steam, hoping that I’m wrong. But I’m not. Right down the center of the bathroom mirror is a crack. The perfume bottle in my hand smacked into the mirror when I so cleverly kept silent yet thrashed. Fuck. How come the bottle didn’t break? Is this thing made of glass or stone? I should’ve just let it drop.
“You broke the mirror?” Matthew searches for his glasses and wipes some of the fog from the lenses with his thumb.
“No. No. Not me. We did. We broke it,” I say in a panic, rushing to put my bra and dress back into place. I’m not taking all the blame for this. “I saved the perfume bottle from breaking. You grabbed my boobs, and I was trying to be quiet. Fuck. Fuck, this is not happening. We never should have had sex. This is exactly why I said we needed to wait. Now your parents are gonna know we were having sex in the bathroom ten minutes before I’m supposed to hang out with your mother all night.”
“Calm down.” Matthew adjusts his dark glasses, the only thing he has on. “It was an accident. There’s a million excuses we can give on how it broke. My parents will not automatically assume it was a sex-involved crime.”
“Oh no, and now we have seven years’ bad luck.” I hug my arms over my chest and rock. “Just what every bride and groom buying a new house needs.”
“That’s not true, that was just a scare tactic the Romans came up with. Mirrors weren’t cheap and they were made poorly and easily broken. In order to avoid negligence, they said that breaking a mirror would bring seven years of bad luck.”
“Matthew, shush. I can’t get a lesson right now. I’m sorry.” I don’t mean to be a bitch, but mirror-related facts are just not gonna fly with me at the moment. “What are we gonna do? How are we gonna explain this?”
Matthew, still naked, puts a finger to his lip. “This mirror is new. Less than a year, I think. They probably just got it from Home Depot.”
“Really? Do you think they still have it in stock?” I ask hopefully. “And we can replace it without them knowing?”
“Possibly. I’ll go out tomorrow and look,” Matthew offers.
“Tomorrow? If we wait until tomorrow, then your mom will see it.” Even though it’s not a bathroom she often uses, Mrs. Daniels is a fanatic about cleaning and restocking supplies, especially with how frequently the girls are over. Wait. Maybe we can blame it on one of the girls. No. What’s wrong with me? I’m awful for even thinking it. Right? Right.
“Holly, I’m so tired. All I want to do is go to bed. I promise I’ll wake up early tomorrow and go out first thing.”
“Oh… okay, I know you’re tired,” I say with a shaky voice, my shoulders sinking with defeat. I scramble to think of a quicker resolution. “What if I make up an excuse to meet everyone later and go replace it myself real quick?”
“Holly, stop, you’re overthinking it. My mom won’t care. I’ll tell her it was me.”
I sniffle, fighting back the urge to cry. “I guess it doesn’t matter, your mom already doesn’t like me.”
Matthew removes his glasses and hands them to me with an annoyed growl. He steps into the shower, sliding the door behind him. I watch silently as he adjusts the nozzles and jumps. “Cold.”
“What are you doing?” I ask over the glass stall biting down on my thumb nail.
“I’m taking a cold shower so I can wake myself up and go get that stupid ass new mirror.”
“Really? Oh my God.” My shoulders relax. I’m being rescued by my knight in shining nakedness. I lean forward and press my puckered lips to the glass. “I love you so freaking much,” I say, and truly mean it with every fiber of my being.
“You better,” he replies.
BY THE TIME I get out of the shower, Holly is gone. I’m so tired that if I even so much as look at the pillow, I’m gonna fall asleep. Bathroom sex was amazing, but the consequences of rocking her world shattered the mirror. If I had three wishes, having someone take care of this for me would be all three.
I towel off my hair and open the closet in search of clean jeans. None. At the bottom of the closet is an overflowing basket of dirty clothes. My mom offered to do the wash, but Holly insisted she could take care of it. She didn’t.
I open the drawer, thankful for one clean pair of boxers, and slide into them before putting my filthy, disgusting scrubs back on. I give one last look of longing at my bed before trudging downstairs to put on a cup of coffee.
“Hey.” I’m taken off guard by my dad in the downstairs hall wearing his dress khakis and a maroon button-down shirt. “Why are you so dressed up?” My mom is out for the night at Holly’s bachelorette party, so he can’t be going out with her. Kent, followed by Patrick, joins us in the hall, both of them dressed up way more than usual. What the hell?
“Surprise, man!” Kent claps his hands together wickedly. “It’s your bachelor party.”
“Yeah, we figured Holly was going out with the women, so we’d surprise you and take you out for a wild night on the town, too.” My father does a double-fisted hip-swing dance. “We can’t let the ladies have all the fun.”
“Listen, I appreciate the gesture, really I do, but I’m exhausted. There’s no way I’m up for a night out. Besides, I told you guys I don’t need a bachelor party.”
“Every man needs a bachelor party, and as far as being tired, I got a round of Firebombs set up in the kitchen to help give you wings.” Patrick chuckles at his Red Bull joke.
“Really, I can’t. I have to run an errand.” And then I should probably start a wash. Dirty scrubs will only get me so far.
“An errand at nine o’clock at night? Do it tomorrow.”
“I can’t, it’s important. I promised Holly.”
“All right, well, tell us what it is and we’ll take care of it while you go shower.” Patrick offers, assuming because I’m in my scrubs that I haven’t showered.
“We.” No, don’t say we. “I broke something.”
“That’s okay, Matty, don’t worry about it. Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it.” My father waves it off. “Come, have one of those fire grenades. They’re good.”
“Bombs,” Kent corrects. “For the record, Dad’s already had two.”
“And I’m about to have a third.” My dad takes off toward the kitchen, khaki-covered hips still swinging.
“Guys, this is really nice that you want to do this, but I’m just not up for it and I promised Holly I would take care of the mirror.”
“Mirror?”
“Yeah, the mirror in the bathroom cracked,” I say with a yawn.
“Why does Holly give a shit about the mirror?” Kent holds up his hands, annoyed. “Is she the one who broke it? Who cares? Tell her you took the blame and that Mom and Dad are fine with it.”
I wish it were that easy. “She’s weird when it comes to Mom, and there was an incident a couple weeks ago and now the mirror, and she thinks Mom is gonna know.”
“What incident and know what?” Kent curls his nose up in disgust. “A sex incident? Did the mirror break from a sex incident? Why do you two seem to have so many incidents? Do you know how to have sex correctly?”
My head hurts. Twelve hours of chaos in the ER, sex, the mirror, this bullshit from Kent. I raise my glasses and palm my eyes. “I’m so fucking tired.”
“All right, all right. I got it. How about this?” Patrick jumps in. “Kent, you take Dad out for dinner and drinks, being he’s all hyped up, and meet Jeremy and Justin at the bar. They’re probably already there waiting. I’ll take care of the mirror situation, and Matty, you just go get a good night’s sleep. Sound good?”
“Really? You have no idea how good that sounds.” I want to hug my brother, but I’m too tired to even do that. “You’ll hang it and get rid of the other one?”
“Yup, I’ll make it so Mom and Dad will never know.” He pats my back. “We’ll do your bachelor party another night.”
“No, this is all I need. A good night’s sleep and you taking care of the mirror is better than any party. You really are the best man, Pat. I’m glad it’s gonna be you standing up there next to me.”
“I’m standing right here, fuckhead.” Kent jabs my upper arm. “I’m the one taking Dad out to meet your friends. I think I should get a little credit, too.”
“Yes, sorry, you are both the best. The best brothers a man can ask for. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Now can I please just go to bed?”