“Wow, sexy and smart,” said Joan, with a big smile. “That’s good to know.”
Michael didn’t know what she meant, but he took it as a form of compliment.
As they turned during their dance, he noticed his sister sitting at the table with her wife, and she was staring at them very intensely.
“Something is going on with my sister.”
“She probably doesn’t like the idea of us flirting with each other,” said Joan.
“Why not?”
“Oh, she’s just being protective of you,” said Joan. “She probably thinks that I’m just going to seduce you and leave you.”
Michael chuckled.
“Why does she think that?” he asked.
“Because that’s what I’m planning to do,” she replied.
Michael was stunned and gulped; he didn’t think people actually gulped when they were surprised outside of TV, but he found himself actually doing that.
“Are you serious?” he asked.
“Why not?” she replied. “You’ll be going back to New York soon. We’re both single people, and we’re definitely attracted to one another.”
“I’m just surprised. You never showed me any interest in high school.”
“That’s because I was a stupid little girl back then,” she told him. “I knew you had a thing for me, but I was obsessed with being a dumb, popular girl and going after the jocks.”
Michael remembered how Joan ended up marrying one of those former jocks from high school, but his sister told him how it ended very badly when he kept cheating on her.
“So, what do you say, you want to get out of here?” she asked. “It would be just for one night, but it could make up for that lost time we should’ve had a long time ago.”
Michael was stunned. He had dreamed of this moment with Joan for as long as he could remember. He had moved on from those old feelings he had for her long ago, letting them go as just a childhood crush, but he was finally getting his chance with her.
“Ok, let’s do this,” he whispered to her. “But we have to get away from Vikki. For some reason, she does not like the idea of us being this close. I don’t know why, but she looks very pissed.”
“Don’t worry about it; I’ve got a plan,” Joan assured him.
The plan was simple; they would stop dancing and separate for a while to mingle with other people, so Vikki wouldn’t think anything was going to happen between them. After the wedding, they would meet each other and go back to her place.
They stopped dancing as soon as the song was over, and they separated as planned. He looked over at Vikki, who seemed very relieved that he and Joan weren’t together anymore.
Throughout the wedding, he mingled with other people at the wedding as planned. He had a few drinks with the other groomsman for a while, and danced with a few more women. He spotted Joan whenever he could, talking to the other guests and dancing with a few other men.
He even noticed that Vikki was leaving him alone as he was meeting other women during the reception. He didn’t know why she was so upset with the idea of him hanging around Joan, but he didn’t want to cause a problem with her at the wedding. If she found out they hooked up after the wedding, that would be a different story, but by then it would all be over and eventually she would get over it.
The end of the wedding traditionally ends with the bouquet toss and the groom removing the garter from the bride. Everyone watched as the bride and groom drove off in their limo, and everyone prepared to leave themselves.
Michael snuck off to get away from Vikki and looked for Joan. He found her talking to a couple of the other bridesmaids and took her by the arm to get her away from them.
“If we’re going to do this, we need to leave now,” he told her. “Do you have a car, or should I get us an Uber?”
“Don’t worry about it. I managed to get us a hotel room right here. We don’t have to go anywhere.”
“Good thinking.”
“But let me get your sister off our backs first,” said Joan. “I’m going to say goodbye and mention that I’m going back to my place. You meet me at room 421 and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“You really thought of everything, didn’t you?”
“I’m a lawyer. This is the kind of shit that I do,” she said with a sly grin.
Joan handed him the keycard and he left. Before he headed up to the room, he managed to get a small champagne bottle from the bartender. The open bar was over by then, so he had to pay for it, which he didn’t mind doing since he was so excited. The bartender recognized what he needed it for and let him take a couple of champagne glasses when he wasn’t supposed to give them away, but Michael gave him a good tip for that.
He went to the hotel room; it was nothing special, just your standard single-bed room with a decent view from the window. He grabbed the ice bucket that came with every room and quickly left to fill it with ice from the ice machine down the hall, then came back to the room to put the champagne bottle in the ice bucket.
About twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door. He opened it, and before he could say anything, Joan jumped on him and gave him a big kiss on the lips. They held each other tightly during that kiss, as Joan kicked the door closed behind her. They made their way to the center of the room, not wanting to let go of each other. It was a couple of minutes before she let go of him.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. After I said goodbye to your sister, I had to say goodbye to a number of other people.”
“I understand. That’s how weddings work,” said Michael.
He took a moment to open the champagne bottle from the ice bucket that he had ready on the dresser next to the TV. When he popped the cork, a burst of champagne shot out and splashed the floor; Michael made sure to aim it away from both of them. He poured the glasses and handed one of them to Joan.
“You didn’t have to do this. You are kind of a romantic, aren’t you?”
“Maybe a little,” he said. “I just thought it would be good for the occasion.”
They made a toast and drank up the champagne. Michael took her into his arms and began kissing her again. They were interrupted by a Beyonce song that suddenly came from Joan’s purse.
“Do you want to get that?” Michael asked.
“No, let me just turn that off.”
She reached into her purse and looked at her phone. She saw who called her and got concerned.
“What’s wrong?” Michael asked.
“Nothing,” Joan replied, giving him an assuring smile.
She turned off her phone, threw it back into her purse, and tossed it aside. They tried kissing again when it was Michael’s phone that went off that time. He took it out of his pocket and saw it was his sister calling him.
“It’s Vikki,” he told her.
“I figured it might be her; that’s who called me just now,” Joan revealed.
He declined the call and noticed some texts that he somehow missed from her. He read them and looked concerned by what he was reading.
“This is kind of strange,” he began to say. “Vikki is sending me these strange texts, saying things like don’t do it, you’ll regret it and you’re about to make a big mistake. What’s that all about?”
Joan grabbed his phone and put it away on the dresser next to the champagne bottle.
“Forget her. It’s just you and me right now.”