“Think of this.” I pull up my middle finger and wave it in his face.
He laughs and lets the church doors bang shut behind us. Miracle of all miracles, his big black, sleek, shiny truck is sitting parked at the curb, and Jeffers’ big slobbery mastiff head is hanging out the back window, trailing saliva all down the side of the truck. My bags, on the other hand, are all packed and in the back. Yup, that’s right. I’m ditching my own wedding ceremony, and technically, the reception too—the whole damn wedding shebang. I’m going out there on my own since I have my degree and money scraped together. I’m bugging out hard. I even left my phone back in the church’s dressing room on purpose, and last night, I cut up all my credit cards. My parents will have no way to track me until I choose to call them.
I let out a joyous bellow as I rip the veil from my hair and hurtle into the passenger seat. Unfortunately, it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be to get in with this stupid dress on. Taylen has to ram me from behind—when I say that, I mean my ass and all the layers of the dress—before he can shut the door. I look like a car wash just exploded inside the truck with suds everywhere, except the suds are freaking lace, crinoline, satin, and crap.
Running around the front, Taylen hops into the driver’s seat and guns the truck to life. The thing has a beefy exhaust on the back, and it’s lifted too, plus he’s done some other under the hood stuff, so when he stomps on the accelerator, we shoot forward somewhere close to the speed of light.
“What took you so long?” I ask again, more calmly this time. We’re now a few blocks away, and I can finally start to contain the wild heartbeat that is kicking like a bronco at the underside of my ribs.
“I had to make a stop.”
“A stop?” I ask incredulously. “You almost didn’t get there in time!”
“But I did. And I started the very contained fire in the trash can and pulled the fire alarm, just like you requested. Right. On. Time. I would never have been late, and I would never have let you marry that asshole.”
I sigh hard, which makes absolutely no difference with the number of frills and ruffles I have going on. I sink a little further in the seat. “So, what was the detour?”
Taylen winks at me, and his handsome, carved face with his square jaw, high cheekbones, solid brow, and aristocratic nose, which he hates, by the way, because he thinks it’s too pretty and perfect—his nose, not the rest of him—lights up with mischief.
“Look in the back.”
I whip around at his devious tone, scared into thinking he might have really done it this time, done something we can’t undo. That perhaps he’s gone off the deep end of practical jokes. But all I see back there are my bags and his, and also Jeffers, who is doing one heck of an admirable job sliming up the leather seats. I love his jowls, and I don’t care how much he drools. Jeffers is my massive baby, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly unless the fly tried to hurt me. In which case, he’d fuck the fly shit up. But only if I asked him to.
Suddenly, Taylen slams on the brakes, and I nearly bash my head into the dash. Belatedly, I realize I don’t have my seatbelt on yet, but how I’d ever get it on around this dress, I have no idea. Taylen jumps out, leaves his door hanging open, grabs something out of the truck box, then comes back to the driver’s side door. Holding a giant, one-layer cake in one hand, he takes a photo of me gaping and himself grinning like a fool, with the cake featuring prominently in the foreground.
Holy. Shit.
Taylen went to the hall where the reception was going to take place and stole the cake.
“I have all four tiers of your wedding cake in here. Epic, hey?” he asks from outside the truck.
“Leave it there!” I command.
He shrugs and does as I ask, setting it down on the sidewalk. We’re not in a bustling part of the city since the church was a ritzy one set in a neighborhood with primarily luxurious houses.
I put up a hand to stifle the giggles, but they pour out of me anyway. Taylen took out all four tiers of the wedding cake from the truck, arranged them right there on the curb, and then took another photo with the whole thing.
“Taylen, we have to go!” We wouldn’t want my granny, parents, or—god forbid—Henry to catch up with us if they were looking for me.