The Chapel Wars (21 page)

“Sure.”

“Thirty-seven.”

He paused midnuzzle. “Knowing you, I’m sure that’s an exact count. Seriously, did you start dating when you were eight?”

“No. I waited until I reached double digits. Why, does that bother you?”

“I can’t decide.”

“Twenty-nine of those dates were onetime things. I don’t have a great retention rate.”

“Then it doesn’t bother me, I think.” He resumed the nuzzle. “Do you want to know how many girls I’ve dated? Or more than dated?”

“Why would I want to know that?”

“Because … because … every girl I know wants to know those kinds of things. And about earlier …”

Either he was hoping for more relationship definition, or he was asking me to say I love you back, which was not happening tonight, even if I fell into the fountains and he rushed in to save my life. These are the things couples discuss in a relationship, not that I’d ever been in a relationship, just watched those relationships at their wedding-day pinnacle. What I wanted for me individually was to kiss this boy while a billion gallons of water shot up forty-five stories into the air for gaping tourists wearing denim shorts in February. That’s really not asking for much.

“I know. I can’t believe Mike dressed as a ninja.”

Dax dodged my kiss and cupped my face. “I’m serious. I want to talk.”

“So. Talk.”

“I never know where I’m at with you.”

“The Bellagio fountains.”

“Holly.”

“I can only have so many conversations like this.”

“This would be our first conversation. First and a half, if you count that time I called you my girlfriend.”

“Yeah, and I went with it.”

“Went with it? Do you know how unromantic that just sounded?”

I rubbed my hand down my face. “Look, Dax. I love that you are super in touch with your emotions and can share all these things with me. I’m serious. It’s great. But I’m not like that. I wish I was. And … you didn’t tell me what happened with your grandpa. So it’s not like I know everything that’s up with you.”

“Are you kidding? I’m, like, the most open book in the most open library in the open world.” He frowned. “And I know I just said open too many times.”

“You’re always the one asking me questions,” I said. “Tell me something you haven’t said to someone else.”

“Uh, I did. In the valet.”

My face flamed. Idiot. He
was
the most open book. And he did mean to say those words. It wasn’t an accident. “I mean … I don’t know what I mean.”

“Okay. Fine. Look at this.” Dax flipped out his wallet. It was one of the first things I’d liked about him, how worn his wallet was. Loyalty to an accessory speaks volumes about a person.
He dug underneath the credit cards and found an old picture of a couple on their wedding day. “This is my mom and dad.”

“Can I look?”

He handed me the picture with care. I held the photo like an ancient map. His mom’s dress was all lace and poufy sleeves, her veil dripping jewels. The outfit dated the picture to the early, maybe mid-nineties. “They’re so happy.”

He nodded. “They always were.”

“I thought my parents were happy too.”

“But now they aren’t?”

“Not together.”

He motioned to the tourists surrounding us. “I wonder how many of these people think they’re happy, or pretend to be happy.” He rubbed at his eye. “I wonder what happy even means.”

“Maybe happy isn’t forever. Maybe it’s just moments, and you save them up and hold on for all the in-betweens.” I gave him back the picture. “It’s nice that you have this. My grandpa used to send me funny greeting cards.”

Dax flinched when I said the word “grandpa.”

“Sorry. We can talk about your poppy if you want to. Or not.”

“Let’s go with not. Let’s talk about yours.” He slid his picture back into his wallet. “How are you doing? With missing him?”

“Some days it’s normal. That he’s gone. And some days I forget that he even died at all. Some days I’m mad at him because of the chapel thing, some days I’m really grateful. I feel like I wake up to a bingo game every day, and some ball is going to pop up and decide how I’m going to feel.”

“B-5. You’re angry.”

“G-41. You sit home moping and eat soup. But you know how it is.” I paused. “Are you ever going to let me read that letter?”

“Probably not.”

“Can you tell me something else in there?”

Dax rubbed his hand along his hair, shaking out the static. “This was weird. Your grandpa knew my dad, I guess. My dad was the one who first came in when Poppy bought the chapel. Your grandpa was really impressed with him, took him out to drinks a few times. Dad never got involved in the Victor/Jim feud. And your grandpa didn’t want you and me involved to carry on the fighting either. He wanted …” Dax breathed. In and out. “He wanted me to know my dad loved me just like your grandpa loved you.”

“What made him even think of that? Did you ever talk to him?”

“Never.”

“That wasn’t like my Grandpa Jim, to reach out to a stranger like that, especially in some deathbed letter.”

“You and I have a lot in common.” Dax shrugged. “Maybe your grandpa thought we shouldn’t be strangers.”

The music to the fountains started then, the white lights blinding. The bursts of water danced and swayed, erupting into the sky and cascading back to the lake. Dax leaned his forehead against mine. It probably sounds dumb, but it was the most amazing, profound, sad, and happy moment I’d ever felt.

We kissed for a while, long enough that I knew people were
watching us, two teenagers in furry costumes. Dax started to say something, but I covered his beautiful lips with my pointer finger. It was a rather dramatic gesture, and I sort of liked the emotion of it all. “I don’t know if he meant to, but Grandpa couldn’t have given me a better gift than you.”

“Besides a cloud sweater.”

“Well, of course.” I kissed him again, slow and lingering. I thought about saying I love you. I thought how good those words would feel on my tongue. “Thanks for telling me everything. About your dad.”

He laughed. “What do I say, you’re welcome for showing you how messed up I am?”

The music started again. The fountains went off every fifteen minutes. How had it only been fifteen minutes when it felt like the whole world had changed?

“We’re all messed up,” I said. “I think life is just about finding the right people to be messed up with.”

The fountains went off four more times, and we didn’t leave that spot. We kissed, we talked, we found happiness in our little moment. Then this guy with headphones accidentally crashed into me. I cussed him out but ran after him to apologize and gave him a brochure. Which reminded me that we were there
because
of brochures, and we went into a frenzy for the next thirty minutes. One man told me he would give me five dollars if I left everyone alone.

“I’m worried,” Dax said, as water erupted around us.

“What for?”

“That you’re right. I might almost, sort of like Vegas now. Of course, I’ll have to move to the Bellagio to maintain this feeling. But this is on my top-five list.”

“What’s ahead of it?”

“Well, there is this doughnut place on Eastern that has amazing cinnamon rolls. But Bellagio fountains with my Hello Kitty girlfriend? Right up there.”

Around eleven, I texted my friends and asked if we could meet up Monday to figure out who won the brochure handoff. My curfew was midnight and I had to be at the chapel early the next day.

“This is kind of like our Valentine’s date, huh?” Dax asked. “Since tomorrow we’ll both be working ten hours.”

“I’m working eleven hours,” I said.

“Are you trying to top me, counting girl?” He took my hand and we walked up to the Bellagio valet.

“I already topped you. I passed out one thousand percent more brochures.”

“You passed out ten.”

“And you did zero.”

He pulled out the stack in his back pocket. “I will distribute these by myself now that I don’t have you distracting me.”

I swooped in to nibble on Dax’s lip. It was the kind of kiss that made me want to forget about work tomorrow and slip up to a room with him instead. But Sam was in the valet loop and the cars behind him kept honking. He was either waving me over or flipping me off, I couldn’t tell. I was dizzy when I slid into Sam’s car and he sped out of the valet.

I held it together. Don’t ask me how, but I held it together. I wanted to sing and sob and ask Sam if this is what love was like and how long everything would last. I watched Dax in the back
window as we careened away. I understood every love song, movie, and book ever created or even imagined. With this barrage of emotions, you can see why I didn’t initially pick up on the vibe happening in the car between Sam and Camille.

I leaned forward in the center seat. “So did you guys have any luck tonight? Bellagio wasn’t biting.”

Sam stared at the road. Camille fiddled with the horseshoe necklace she always wore. Neither responded.

“Uh, guys? Everything okay?”

Camille turned so I could see her profile, could see the red in her eyes, the puffiness of her skin. She hadn’t been crying, she’d been sobbing, and once I snuck a glance at Sam, it was clear he wasn’t doing too well either.

“No,” Sam croaked. “Not okay.”

I sat back. What should I do? Ask questions? Offer advice? Stay quiet? They’d had a fight, I had no idea what about and it wasn’t my business, but we had a twenty-minute car ride ahead of us and Sam was my best friend and I actually really liked Camille now, so I should do something? Nothing?

“We broke up,” Camille said just as Sam turned onto the I-95.

“
You
broke up,” Sam said.

Camille gave him a hard stare. “You’re not going to go around saying that now. You don’t have a right to do that.”

“I didn’t want to break up,” Sam said.

Camille twisted around in her seat, her seat belt getting stuck on her high-necked Elvis collar. “Sam wants to get married. Tell him he’s crazy.”

“Sam loves you, maybe you will get married
someday
—”

“Not someday,” Camille said.

“Sam.”

Sam glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Why is that a shock? Why not? I didn’t say tomorrow, just as soon as Camille gets done with school.”

“Why are you even talking about that now?”

Camille fiddled with her bell sleeve. “Sam … Sam kind of proposed. At the airport. By the taxi pickup line.”

“I gave you a
promise
ring, that’s not a proposal. I’m showing you that I’m committed.”

Or he wanted Camille to show that
she
was committed. I knew Sam, and putting a ring on it was his way of protecting his territory.

“But she’s a junior,” I reasoned. “She’s still got a year and a half to go.”

“Camille’s so ahead that she’s finishing her home schooling early.” Sam’s eyes were back on the road. “She graduates in spring, and told me this week that she might go away to college. Which is totally against our plans.”

“Sam.” Camille’s voice was pleading. “Then we talk about it this summer. Just because I got into all those schools doesn’t mean I’m going.”

Sam slapped his hand on the steering wheel. “It doesn’t mean you
aren’t
going, either. We planned this. We would tell your parents after graduation, get an apartment, go to UNLV.”

Camille looked down at her hands. “
You
planned that. Then you told me your plans. It wasn’t a
we
decision.”

“You’ve never said anything. Anytime I talked, you always agreed.”

“I mean … I talked about it. But we didn’t set things in stone. I was trying out ideas. You
know
I’ve always wanted to go to school in Washington. My dad’s whole family is there. I don’t see why I’m the one who has to compromise on everything, why all the plans center around what you want and not me.”

“You just never said this before,” Sam muttered.

Camille bit her lip. “Well, I’m saying it now.”

The only thing worse than their fighting was the silence. Sam flew along the freeway at over eighty-five miles an hour, his beat-up truck rattling along. If I didn’t die from his driving, I would die from the awkwardness.

If things were flipped, I would expect Sam to be on my side. But as it was, I thought Camille was completely right. Sam was going way too country song on her, and no girl should have these kinds of ultimatums at her age. Sam had a huge heart, believed in soul mates and first love and forever, and although I was beginning to see that these things were possible, it didn’t mean he had to have all the answers
now
.

Sam turned off the freeway and slowed down on the back streets as he reached my community. When we hit the 7-Eleven three minutes from my house, I cleared my throat and stuck my nose back into a conversation that I wished had never started. “Guys, look. This is big stuff. But maybe you don’t have
to figure it out now? Maybe you wait until summer, see where you both are?”

Camille nodded. “That’s what I said. Slow things down.”

Sam pulled the car over. I couldn’t let Sam know that I disagreed, right? He would think I was choosing Camille—a girl who up until recently had vaguely annoyed me—over him, when I wouldn’t choose anyone over Sam.

“Summer isn’t going to change things,” Sam said quietly. “Turns out Camille and I just wanted different things. I can’t change what I want.”

“I can’t make myself want that.” Camille sniffed. “Not right now. It’s not fair that you’re asking me to think so far ahead.”

Sam shrugged. “Probably not. But I’m more far gone than you, aren’t I? I’m singing you Randy Travis and you’re thinking Blake Shelton.”

“What?” Camille yelled. “WE DON’T SPEAK COUNTRY!”

“ ‘Forever and Ever, Amen,’ not ‘All About Tonight’? Never mind.”

They stared at each other again, so ferocious and lonely that I had to get out of there. I mumbled that I’d walk home and slipped out of the car. It was almost curfew, but I stopped by my spot at the lake. I curled into the brittle grass and counted the lights shimmering on the water (twenty-three) until I fell asleep. Then I dragged myself home, texted Dax because I was too tired to call, texted Sam and told him to call me even if he was tired, and fell asleep again in a nest of blankets on my bed.