Chapter 2

Jessica placed the phone back on the coffee table in a slow, exaggerated motion.

“Jessica, I’m so sorry,” I began.

“It’s OK, Aaron, really. I know you would never rape anyone and certainly not an under-aged girl. We’ll get through this. That girl is obviously a psychotic bitch!”

‘Psychotic bitch’ seemed a bit harsh, but it didn’t seem politic to say so. I simply nodded my head slowly in agreement.

“And I’m sorry I almost made her call the police. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I won’t let you go to jail,” she said. She threw her arms around me and kissed me hard for almost two minutes. “We’ll get through this,” she said again.

We tried to forget about the phone call and focus on the wedding itself for the next week. Like all weddings, there were plenty of last minute preparations to take care of.

We had a table in one corner that wasn’t yet full and set Heather at that one. She hadn’t mentioned bringing a ‘plus one’, but decided to leave an additional empty spot just in case. We figured anything to keep her happy would be to our benefit.

The day of the wedding came and everything went smoothly. We made the rounds to each table after the ceremony, with Jessica dreading Heather’s corner, but finally, we had to go over.

Heather very politely shook Jessica’s hand and congratulated her. She introduced herself as an old friend of Aaron’s as if the conversation on the phone had never taken place. She gave no sign of having spoken to her at all. She gave me a brief, friendly hug, and pulled away. I noted that, oddly out of place for a wedding, she had a gym bag stuffed under her seat.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened until we got back to the head table later and Jessica found Heather’s place card set at Jess’ seat. Inside it was simply written, “Come see me outside when you read this.”

Jessica turned pale and held my hand as she showed it to me.

“We should probably go and see what she wants to stay on her good side,” I offered.

Outside the reception hall, Heather (who had come alone in fact), was waiting for us with a smile on her face.

“Congratulations you crazy kids!” Heather was all smiles. Jessica, not surprisingly, was not.

“What do you want?” Jessica demanded.

Heather frowned theatrically. “Gosh, Jessy, this is your wedding day! You’re supposed to be happy!”

“I would be if you weren’t here,” Jessica said angrily.

Heather wagged a finger at her. “Temper, temper, you don’t want to piss me off.”

Jessica sighed. “What do you want from us?”

“Where are you going for your honeymoon?” Heather asked.

“We have a reservation at the Fireside Hotel, in the honeymoon suite,” Jessica stated.

“That’s it? Nowhere else?” Heather asked. In fact, she already knew all this since I had already told her. Neither of us had vacation time at our jobs yet and had opted to take only the weekend off and staying just at the hotel, forgoing an actual honeymoon for now. Heather couldn’t let on that she knew any of this yet, of course.

“No, just there, just for the weekend. We don’t have vacation time yet,” she said.

Heather sighed and frowned, “Well, if that’s all the time we have, then we’ll have to make the best of it.”

“What do you mean, ‘We?’” Jessica demanded.

Heather said simply, “I’m coming with you. We’re going to have fun together.”

“No way! Forget it!” Jessica yelled. I hushed her to avoid attracting attention from inside the hall.

“Yes, way. Didn’t I make myself clear before?” Heather said. “Or would you prefer I just head over to the police station now? Actually, that would be unfair. I’ll let you wait until the end of the reception before I call them.”

“No!” Jessica yelled, then lowered her voice. “You can come. Whatever you want.”

Heather smiled. “Good, that’s more like it. Now go back and finish your wedding and come get me when it’s time to leave.”