Eli is gone by the time Rosalie wakes the next morning. Jasper doesn't tell her; he's drinking coffee when Rosalie comes out of her bedroom and the couch is back in place.
"She left …." Rosalie feels the sharp sting of disappointment. She knows she had meant for this to happen, but it still seems almost too abrupt. Rosalie had wanted to say good-bye at least.
Jasper inclines his head and gave a shrug, explaining, "She booked a hostel room for tonight."
Rosalie feels a sharp stab of guilt, but tries to convince herself that she isn't allowed to feel bad about her words now. She'd said it, and she meant it. And she never went back on her word.
But regardless, she can't stop thinking about Eli's surprisingly sweet eyes, with long lashes, against her broad, handsome face. "I didn't mean to chase her off," she finds herself saying, and she is almost surprised at how soft she sounds.
"Yes, you did," Jasper voice is calm. Rosalie glares at him intently, making sure he isn't mocking her. But he stays quiet, sipping his mug.
She spends the day stewing at work. She feels terrible, that much she couldn't shake. One moment she would feel guilty, and then the next moment she would feel furious at feeling guilty!
"It was obvious she had a little crush on me, but it's not harmless," Rosalie mutters under her breath, several times over the course of her day. Tanya gives her a couple of weird looks for it, but Rosalie's pretty sure her heavy 'fuck off' vibe is obvious. "I wouldn't keep a man around that had those feelings towards me."
Which is true, even if it isn't relevant. Because Rosalie didn't have male friends – not since she left high-school. The closest man she knows now that isn't her family or her coworker is Archie – who is basically her family.
But heading home that night, Rosalie still feels mixed-up, like her head is churning and her belly wobbling like she's on the highest diving board at the pool, looking down.
She finds that Jasper has cooked dinner – tomato rice. He has it dished out on the counter when Rosalie changes out of her work-wear and back into her Chenille robe. They never used the tiny four-seat side table they called a dining table.
He's on his phone when she sits down. She notices the way he angles the phone away from her, just so. Something tells her he isn't shielding her from Archie's dick pics.
"That's her, isn't it?" Rosalie asks him.
Jasper nods once, putting the phone screen-side down and picking up his spoon. "I'm still going to keep in touch," Jasper explains, "she's a nice girl."
"She is!" Rosalie agrees, angry or upset. "But I'm engaged, Cowboy, and I wouldn't let a man with a crush on me stay at our house either!" Rosalie continues, feeling her heartbeat speed up and her anger boil over. She hasn't been able to shake the feeling that everything is going wrong! Everything is going absolutely topsy-turvy! "It's not fair to Royce – has he asked you to be his best man, already!?" She demands.
Jasper looks taken aback, not at her anger but her words. Almost immediately, he wrinkles his nose. "No he hasn't, I don't actually – where are you going!?" he shouts as Rosalie takes a dramatic dive for her keys.
"I've had enough of this shit!" Rosalie's voice comes out in a scream as she blindly shoulders on her coat and marches to her car.
She speeds the entire way to Royce's apartment, her anger at herself fueling her. She's guilty that she'd driven the big sweet woman away, and she's also furious that at the end of this shitty weekend, her fiance hasn't even bothered to invite her own brother to be his best man already!
She marches up to the apartment, and bangs on the door loudly.
"Wha-babe! What are you doing here?" Royce is only in a towel, and looks bewildered, eyes comically wide. Rosalie would have mocked him over being so freaked over seeing his own fiancee, but she's too furious at him. Some of their wedding stuff was scattered on the table; like the cake-topper – a bride dragging her groom down the alter – Royce's mother thought it was hilarious. Rosalie thought it was tacky but the mother-in-law was paying for it. But Rosalie had left the cake topper at her maid-of-honor's house.
She couldn't dwell on that, though, because she is too busy being angry with him. She rounds on him, poking a finger into his chest, downright glad he was only in a towel right now because she wants him to be caught off-guard and give her a straight-forward answer! "I can't believe that you haven't asked my brother to – what are those?"
There are a pair of Fashion Nova heels under the coffee table. Rosalie never wore anything so cheap-looking.
Royce cringes. "Honey-" he begins, but Rosalie realizes in the same moment that his shower is still running.
She marches over to the bedroom and straight to the en suite.
Royce stammers after her, but she's thrown the door open by the time he catches up.
Lauren is in a towel – pressed against the side of the bathroom wall as though she's trying to hide. Rosalie rolls her eyes, and snaps a picture of the woman on her phone.
She shoves past Royce, who tries to grab her arm until she shakes him off harder. He's yammering on while Rosalie focuses on pulling up Royce's mother's contact. She forwards the picture to her, and then sucks on her left ring finger. Sufficiently damp, she pulls the engagement ring off as she reaches the front door.
"Just give me a chance!" Royce exclaims, panting hard.
"No," Rosalie replies, and tosses the ring behind him. It was the only thing about them she's sad to see go.
She turns on her heel back to her car, and she knows Royce isn't going to follow her in nothing but a towel.
She drives home with a certain type of calm over her. Calm is like the chocolate sprinkles on a brigadeiro; it encompassed but it didn't contain. The rest of her is made of anger. It flicks under the strum of her heartbeat, like molten fire. But anger she can deal with, anger she knows. She doesn't let it fully enter her mind, and to keep it at bay she makes the smallest moves possible, she doesn't fiddle with her music, she doesn't honk when a driver swings out in front of her suddenly. She knows any movement too large would make her snap.
"You stupid, idiot, fool, bastard," she mutters as she pulls into the DQ drive-through.
She pulls up to the speaker with a reprimanding yelp from her tires.
"Hi! Welcome to-"
"Medium strawberry malt, not a shake, and regular onion rings," Rosalie snaps, "thanks."
She does her inhale-exhale exercises, and she feels a little less clenched up by the time she makes it home, as though her heart isn't so heavy.
Jasper isn't in the kitchen when she gets home, but she can hear his deep voice through his open door.
"Hey," she says, sticking her head into his room. She isn't too surprised to find Archie there, though his face looks very pale. "Hiya, babe."
The little man frowns, his pretty hands fluttering. "As the brides-man, you put me in charge of flowers, and youalso chose to let the mother of the groomthink she was in charge, and you wantedme to reign her in when she was getting tacky, and–"
"Oh," Rosalie's tone is still consciously dead-pan. "The picture."
She frowns when recalling her admittedly hasty idea of revenge.
"I'm so sorry, Rosie," Archie pipes up; face crumpled in sympathy. Jasper is standing in front of him, arms crossed and face carefully blank. Archie must have come over and just told him about what had happened.
Rosalie walks in and climbs on the bed, taking the side Archie isn't sitting on and lying down.
"I cannot believe my time has been wasted," she announces to the room, staring up at the ceiling. The words ring out in the ensuing silence.
"Guess that answers the question about there still being a wedding …" Jasper says, almost chuckling. Rosalie doesn't say anything.
"How are you feeling?" Archie asks her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Like my time has been wasted," Rosalie growls, and the dam breaks, and she rips herself off of the bed. "Nine months I spent on this wedding!" she roars so loudly she feels the air rip through her throat. She clenches her fists and glares down at Archie, who blinks widely at her. "With his stupid fucking mother! With his stupid fucking friends! Papai spent two grand in deposits already!" Jasper steps up then, raising both of his hands, palms flat.
To anyone else, it might look like a placating gesture. But Rosalie knows what it is.
She squares up, clenches her fists, and begins to boxing-jab at his hands, focusing on her breathing and following the way his hands move, left up, right up. Just like when their parents had praised Jasper for getting Rosalie out of a fight at school before a teacher showed up to get her in trouble.
"Oh, you get to be the golden son! You and your dead soldier dad beat out my mother dying in boring old childbirth! I'm the problem now, I'm the trouble-maker!"
Jasper raised both hands out flat, palms facing Rosalie, silent.
"Oh don't you care try and tell me to calm down! My mother lost a son! You get to be dad's new son! The one he was always waiting for!"
Jasper lifts a single eyebrow.
"When did I say calm down? Put 'em up, come on." Jasper widens his stance, holds his hands higher. "If you wanna start fights you better learn how to win. It would have been too embarrassin' to watch my sister get her ass beat."
Panting for breath, Rosalie had stared at him as he had waited for her.
Scowling, she brings her hands into fists, in front of her face.
"Thumbs tucked under your fist, don't be afraid to stand tall," Jasper had said, as Rosalie began to punch his offered palms.
Now, Rosalie had taken a couple boxing classes, back in the day. She knew how to wrap her knuckles, she knew how to stand. Archie watches from the bed, helping himself to the last of Rosalie's milkshake.
They keep it up until Rosalie taps out, throwing her hair back and huffing out a large exhale.
"I'm done," Rosalie waves off her brother, who watches as Rosalie snatches her milkshake back from Archie, and shakes the empty cup with disgust.
"Thanks, babe," she says to the man dryly as she flops down onto the bed next to him.
Archie shrugs. "Rosalie, you got cheated on and then got a milkshake …." Archie points out. "I thought for sure you'd set something on fire or stab her."
Rosalie looks at the empty cup stupidly. She feels a little out of touch of the moment – like the events of this morning hadn't sunk in yet.
"Maybe I'm in shock?" she offers softly, but she's almost speaking to herself. But her tone is light, and she honestly finds herself more annoyed than anything.
Archie hums absently, looking thoughtful.
"That doesn't sound like you," Jasper tells her. Rosalie nods again; she never really needed a recovery time on shock. Her emotions exploded through her very quickly. When the doctor told her father and her about her mother and baby brother's death, Rosalie had collapsed wailing on the floor before her father could even gasp.
A bleak realization dawns. But Archie only looks terribly sad for her. "Do you want to see if you can patch things up?" Archie asks her, sounding sad.
"Do you honestly think I give second chances?" Rosalie asks archly him in return. Forgiveness was never an option, not to her.
Archie shrugs, but didn't seem very surprised.
It was beginning to get very disappointing, as Rosalie looked back on all the wedding planning that had been for naught. "What a waste!" she says loudly, at least in an effort to kick-start herself into a rage. All her energy and effort and valuable time – wasted. But the boxing had exhausted her, cleared her mind, given her a chance to rationalize.
"… Didn't know Royce has monogrammed towels," Jasper says in the beat of silence that follows.
Archie frowns, and whips his head to glare at his boyfriend. "There was another woman wrapped in those towels and the only thing you care about is that they're embroidered!?" Archie demands fiercely.
Jasper raises one eyebrow. "Look me in the eye and tell me you will not be embroidering your towels."
Archie gasps. "Of course I will! But right now we need to be here for Duchess!"
Rosalie can't help it – she bursts into loud, howling laughter. After a moment – Jasper and Archie join her. They laugh for so long, so loudly – that the down-below neighbor must get a broom and smack the ceiling. It's only the repeated, muffled thumping of the floorboards that quietens them.
Archie blows out a sigh, pressing his knuckles against his lashes. "Made my mascara run …." he sniffles, and Rosalie and he have to clap their hands over their mouths to stifle further giggles.
But the giggles die off, and Rosalie lets the silence stretch on for a moment, to gather her thoughts. But even trying to sort them, she could barely figure where her train of thought started.
"… I should be angrier," she decides aloud, staring at the ceiling.
Archie rolls onto his back next to her, and Jasper leans against the end of the bed frame.
She covers her eyes with her hand. "Jesus – I feel like a robot. What am I going to do with all this wedding shit I bought – do you two want to tie the knot?" she asks, looking over at Archie.
Archie gives a weak shrug; looking, of all things, bashful. He loves big parties and being behind the scenes. Not closeted, if the swishy man ever could be, but he likes privacy. Archie murmurs, "Don't need it."
Jasper moves from their feet to sit next to Archie's head, leaning down to wrap his arms around the man. He pulling the smaller man up against him, and Archie settles on Jasper's upright chest with a small sigh as Jasper tucks his head onto the man's thick shoulder. Jasper looks over at Rosalie. "You want me to beat him up or something?" he asks her, squinting his face up in a caricature of rage.
She's touched, really, with the idea – but if anyone would resort to violence it'd be herself.
In the silence, Rosalie feels a very real sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. "I shouldn't even be surprised – it was so annoying being alone with Royce, because he'd always just use privacy to fuck me." She feels her bottom lip tremble, and pulls in a few deep breathes. But it's such a pathetic, lonely thing to say that it makes her feel embarrassed and ashamed to have said it.
Jasper grunts, but Archie's words come quickly; "I hate him, Dutch!"
She shook her head. "That's why I liked talking to him on the phone, he couldn't ignore me." Rosalie remembers all the face-to-face conversations, and how they could go. Usually, Royce was pulled onto his phone; some stupid game, his fantasy football teams … and then Rosalie may as well have been talking to the goddamn wind.
"My god, Dutch," Jasper's voice is harsh, and nearly angry, "are you serious?"
Rosalie nods, her hands still over her eyes; and she's so deeply humiliated, she almost feels like she could cry.
"That bastard!" Archie gasps, and it's the fact that Archie, the pinnacle of a Southern deb, actually curses, that pushes Rosalie over the edge.
She bursts into tears.
"Oh, Duchess!" The bed bounces a little as Archie crawls over to her. Rosalie curls herself away from them as Archie sticks to her back, soothing her and stroking her arm.
Rosalie lets herself cry and cry, and when she finally stops, she realizes she must have cried herself to sleep. The room was dark and one of them had tucked her in. She sits up, her head as heavy as a ton of bricks.
"Jasper? Archie?" she calls out, feeling very much like she didn't want to be alone.
The door opens quickly, and Archie crawls in with her, hugging her tightly and letting her snuggle into him.
"I'm so sorry honey – arrangin' your bouquet, as though everything was right with the world!" he scolds himself, shaking his head in disappointment.
Jasper's hand comes and clasps Rosalie's shoulder. "At least you dodged a bullet," his tone is not relieved, and Rosalie twists her neck to look at him. His gaze is stern, standing over the bed with his arms crossed.
Rosalie doesn't particularly feel particularly relieved. She wonders how much of her deposits she'll get back after canceling. She wonders how she'll tell the guests. She sits up on the bed, and absently petting down her mussed hair.
"I need to tell Eli," she says, mostly to herself.
Eli should know; Rosalie was the one who chased her off, after all. All for a man who wasn't even loyal to her.
Rosalie feels a burn of shame – because she knows she enjoyed Eli's attention, that's what caused her to scare the woman off. Eli, with how she looked at her and what she looked like, made Rosalie feel better than any of the expensive trinkets Royce had ever given her. Including that stupid engagement ring.
Archie's frown morphs from sad to confused. He exchanges an uneasy look with Jasper, who shrugs. "Why?" Jasper asks, "You need to tell your dad."
Rosalie shakes her head. "She needs to know!" she insists, "I know I made her feel bad about –"
"She's left," Archie says quickly, looking worried as he explains, "I called her an Uber for the airport and then Mrs King called me to scrap the weddin'."
"Then I'm going to Tennessee!" Rosalie snaps, flinging herself off the bed and marching into her room for her suitcase.
"This is nuts," Jasper says as he merges into the drop-off area of the domestic terminal. "It's four in the morning! This is insane," he insists as he parks.
"This is so romantic!" Archie gushes, hands clasped under his chin.
Rosalie ignores both of them as she climbs out of the car. But then she quickly pulls open the driver's side and sticks her head inside. "I'll be back by Wednesday – just remember to tell Tanya my wedding's called off and I need time, or something."
"I can't believe this is actually happening," Jasper replies, and Rosalie slams the car door in his face.
"Go get her, Dutch!" Archie hollers out the window, fist pumped in the air.
An impromptu plane ride to get her woman! Lemme know what you think :)