#DESTINATION WEDDING

[johnwickb1tsch]

Vino Veritas - Part VII

A Destination Wedding Frank x Fem!Reader Fic

Attending the wedding of your ex-fiancé gets slightly better when you meet someone having just as miserable a time as you... Warnings: Nothing too serious holy shit. Cursing. Broken engagement. Nihilism, existential bullshit, copious amounts of sarcasm. NSFW. Angst. Grump/sunshine trope. Loosely based on the movie but I'm not that smart. Or bitter. 😆 chapter map.

VII. Everything’s On Fire And It’s Perfectly Fine

You cannot exactly claim the next few weeks go well for you. 

You do a lot of cliché sunset beach walking, heavy sighing, and general wallowing in self pity.

You’re simply miserable, without him, and the feeling does not fade with time. 

Usually you are pretty content with your stupid little existence. Yet now, you feel like something is genuinely missing that you need. There’s a Frank-shaped hole in your heart–and you are bleeding out. 

It’s so bad that your regulars notice the change in your demeanor, when they come in to browse. They ask what’s wrong, and all you can do is shrug and make a lame excuse. It’s just not professional, to tell your customers that you're dying inside.

Anytime you try to coax yourself into just moving on, trying someone else, anything else…the thought dies a bitter death on a sword sharpened to a killing edge on the memory of that hilariously acerbic, utterly singular, wonderful grouch of a man. He hated everything, but for what felt like just a fleeting moment…he’d liked you. It certainly doesn’t help either, that he’s the only man you’ve ever felt comfortable enough with to really connect with on a carnal level. There was no putting on a show for Frank. No possibility of lying to him. He saw through everything, and that man just had your number in a way that you fear you’ll never encounter again. 

You’d be a liar, if you said you didn’t consider driving up to J.D. Power with that boombox. You even looked it up on Google maps. One hour, forty-five minutes, up the coast, if traffic was good. Of course in L.A. traffic was never good.

You would have braved it anyway.

Except, it turns out you are a total coward, and you know that if he rejected you, you really would want to die.

Then, you start to think you’re actually losing your mind, when you keep thinking you see him around. On the beach, a stranger in the distance is his very doppelganger. Then in town, you think you see him around a corner. By the time you rush down the block to look, he’s gone. 

You try to exorcize him by sketching his face from memory instead, at your tablet on the easel by the window that faces the ocean, up in your live-in studio above the store. It soothes you and agitates you all at once. You wonder what he thought, when he realized you slipped your possum shirt in his bag, in the airport when he wasn’t looking.

On a slow day due to rain, you decide to retreat back upstairs to your nest. The gray skies match your mood, and it won’t be the first time you’ve curled up and let the day go by, watching the relentlessly breaking waves.

Of course, just as you get settled in with a soft blanket, you hear the bell above the door downstairs chime. Usually the promise of a new customer fills you with a thrill of excitement, even after all these years, but today…you half regret not turning the OPEN sign in the window.

You check yourself briefly in the mirror, deem yourself half-passable, which is as good as it gets these days. Your hair is wild, and your eyes are sad. At least your clothes are clean, your time-worn ruffled sundress and oversized cardigan against the chill coming off the waves. You make your way down the stairs–and you almost eat shit on a cluster of colorful rocks left right in the middle of the runner. You catch yourself with a few choice words, gripping the bannister white-knuckled.

How the fuck did those get there?

Then you realize they’re similar to the ones you sell in your shop–but not exact.

You examine them, realizing that the one closest to your foot has a word engraved on it in curly slanted script: Fuck.

You look more closely at the other rocks in their now somewhat jumbled order. “I Miss Fuck You?” you read to yourself aloud, puzzled.

“You have got to be the clumsiest person I’ve ever met.”

Startled, you look up, scanning what you thought was an empty shop. But then you see him attempting to conceal his obscenely tall form behind an art card rack. It’s ridiculous–and your heart does its best imitation of a supernova.

Boom.

“You asshole!”

He frowns, but has no time to deliver a scathing retort, because you have leapt the remaining stairs and bound the short space to throw yourself into his arms–or more truthfully, just at him. An onlooker might have testified assault over ardor, in your frenzied tackle, as you throw your arms around his neck. He catches you with a surprised, “Oomph,” solid as a wall. You take heart in that his grip is just as desperate as yours. He still tries to get in that riposte, but you head him off again with your mouth on his.

You actually feel the tension leave his body, as you kiss him, and he kisses you, practically picking you up with his arms like iron bands around your waist.

“That’s your big gesture?” you finally demand. “Booby trapping my stairs with profane rocks?”

He honest to god growls at you, and it thrills you to your now curling toes. “It was supposed to say Fuck I miss you, but you had to ruin it.”

“Sorry I almost died?”

Then he is smiling down at you with that glitter in his dark eyes, and you are simply overcome with emotion, your fingers curling in the lapels of his jacket. “I fucking missed you too,” you admit, unable to stop yourself from tugging on him for emphasis.

He is breathing through his nose as he looks down at you, his expression somewhere between affection and constipation. It dawns on you that it’s more than a little likely he was terrified up until two seconds ago, and you soften even more for him, reaching up to stroke his beard. He leans into your hand, closing his eyes, and you know this is it for you. You are done for, and there is no further hope for your sanity. 

“Come upstairs,” you say, pulling on his lapels back in the direction from whence you came. You’re not sure how it’s possible for those midnight black eyes to darken more as he looks down at you, but he follows you without a word with his hand in yours. You flip the Open sign on the door as you pass by, turning the deadbolt without breaking stride. 

You have something important to do. 

***

Between kisses he looks around your second-floor apartment, smiling to himself with that judgy amusement in his eyes. It’s an open space, and there’s no hiding anything really, from your brightly clothed bed to the living area with its mismatched seating draped in bright fabrics, to your little studio space by the window to the miniscule nook of the blue-painted kitchen cabinetry.

“What?” you ask, poking him in the ribs, certain he’s going to make fun of you for your hippy-dippy boho decor. 

“Nothing,” he grunts, smiling against your mouth, assisting you in pushing his jacket from his shoulders. You’re tempted to throw it across the room, but you behave yourself and drape it nicely over the back of a chair. 

“Let me guess. ‘It looks like Pier 1 vomited in here.’” 

He snorts with laughter. “You said it, not me.” 

With a feral little growl you push him to sit on your bed. He’s so tall it just puts you eye to eye, and you cannot stop yourself from crawling into his lap. He gathers you closer greedily, his big hands engulfing your backside. God how you missed this man, and the way you fit together.

“Honestly? It’s exactly what I pictured,” he tells you gently, that tenderness in his dark eyes that utterly melts your last brain cells.     

“Does that mean…you’ve been thinking about me?”

He makes that strangled huff of a sound that passes for laughter, steeped with self-deprecation. “Yeah. You could say that.”

For a long few moments you just look at each other, caught up in the unlikely miracle that you’re here, together, once more. 

You really had believed you would never see him again. You’d believed it to the bone, and now this feels more than a little surreal. 

You consider what to do. Do you play the game, and try not to let on how absolutely bat-fuck insane you’ve been, without him? Would it be unseemly, to clamor with all your affection worn proudly on your sleeve, now that this man has dared to give you a second chance? As you look at him now, moved to the bottom of your soul that he swallowed his pride and his fear to appear at your door–you are done with games. You’re not going to hold a piece of yourself back, just in case. If this man breaks your heart again–at least you’ll know you gave it your all. 

“I’ve really missed you,” you tell him again, cupping his bearded cheeks in your hands, holding him lightly. 

He flinches at that, his eyes narrowing as for once, it seems like he is at a loss for a reply. He did good with the rock schtick, but saying it out loud in actual words from his mouth seems to present a problem for him. With his truth stuck on his tongue, he settles for pulling you into his embrace, burying his face in the bend of your neck with his arms wrapped tightly around you, like you might disappear if he lets go. And then his lips are on your neck, and his big hands are dragging down your ribcage to your hips, and you feel the circuits in your brain spark and melt for this man’s touch. 

You’d be a liar, if you said you hadn’t put yourself to sleep more than a few times, thinking about him with your hand in your panties and his name on your lips like a prayer. Straddling his lap now with his warm palms smoothing up your thighs, underneath your skirts to cup your ass–you are a one-woman stick of dynamite ready to explode. The way he squeezes your flesh with a groan from deep in his throat–you are soaked through your panties, your empty pussy clenching to the point of pain. 

Maybe it would be better, in the long run, to sit and talk this out a little bit before jumping into bed. Your libido, however, seems to find this rational suggestion from your higher brain utterly laughable.  

The pure longing this man calls up from within you–it really should be illegal, and you almost wish it only had to do with the fact that he’s the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. That would be simpler. Safer, somehow. Less painful, maybe, if and when it all goes to shit. But you know it’s too late to pretend. Where your body goes with this man, your heart follows, skipping blithely off to its doom. 

This is fine, you think, as he lowers you onto your back, his delicious weight pressing you down into your soft bed as he claims your mouth with his. 

Everything’s on fire, and it’s perfectly fine. 

“Y/n…” He sits up on his elbows, looking down at you with that haunted, totally lost expression again. You reach up to run your fingers through the silken waves of his hair. It’s obvious there’s something he wants to say, but the words keep sticking on his tongue. 

“It’s ok, Frank,” you try to assure him. Like allowing him to lay on top of you in your bed isn’t indication enough of your happiness with his presence. 

“I can’t say I didn’t hope this would go this way. But I’m not such a narcissist as to think it’s the only way it should have gone. I absolutely deserve a kick in the balls for the way I treated you.”

You raise an eyebrow to this, trying not to laugh at the mental image. “I hate to tell you,” you inform him, twining your leg with his. The bulge pressing against your center practically makes your mouth water. “But that’s not the plan I have for your balls.”

“Very kind of you. I’m serious though.”

“Me too. Believe it or not…” You brush his hair behind his ear. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

You realize this might be a foreign concept to him.

“Y/n…” He closes his eyes momentarily, maybe because you are petting him, and maybe because this is all too much.  “Aren’t you angry at all?”

You think on it. Really think on it, rather than give some off the cuff answer that maybe isn’t exactly true. “No,” you finally answer, and you mean it. “I’m just…relieved. I really thought I’d never see you again, and I was too chicken to go after you. I was afraid you’d say mean things to me and turn me away.” You blink back the moisture that gathers in the corners of your eyes.

“I probably would have,” he admits with a frown, more for himself than you, you’re beginning to realize. His eyes widen as he looks down at you, his long fingers stroking the hair at your temples. “I’m a fucking menace, y/n. I…if we do this, I’m going to hurt you.” The realization at saying it out loud really seems to drive it home for him. He bows his head to rest on your chest, as though ashamed of something he hasn’t even done yet. “Fuck.” 

He shifts as though he means to extricate himself from you, abandon you, again. You thwart him at least for the moment by wrapping your legs around his waist, pulling him back to you. You know if you have a real wrestling match, this man who is twice your size is so going to win, but maybe, just maybe, he’ll listen to you for another five seconds. 

“Please don’t leave me over something that hasn’t even happened yet.” You know you sound more than a little pathetic–but you also know if he walks out the door again like this it will destroy you. 

“Y/n…” He growls your name, and the sound does unmentionable things to your insides. “You’re so sweet and pretty and talented, and you deserve good things in your life.” It seems more than a little surreal to you, that this man, who sees the world exactly for what it is and pulls no punches, puts you of all people on a pedestal. That tingling electric feeling is coursing through your limbs again, to your very bones. It’s the most alive you’ve felt in a long while. 

“Excellent,” you inform him brightly. “I’ll start with having you.” 

“You’re not listening to me.”

“You’re not listening to me. We’ll take it day by day,” you think out loud, stroking his cheek with the blade of your thumb. “And if you hurt my feelings, you’ll say you’re sorry, and I’ll forgive you. And hopefully you’ll have the same patience for me, because fuck knows I’m no picnic either.”

With a sigh that comes from the depths of his soul Frank rests his head on your chest, finally relaxing a little. 

“You have so much hope,” he grumbles at your breast, like he’s annoyed about it.

“Only as of fifteen minutes ago, I assure you,” you tell him honestly, running your fingers through his hair. You can’t seem to stop yourself.

He makes that animalistic sound in the back of his throat, snarling at all the doubts and contingencies running at breakneck speed through his over-analytical brain. His next words come so quietly you almost miss them. 

“I think I need you.”

A long breath made of pure relief escapes you,  and you keep running your fingers through his hair. “You’ve got me.”

“That easily?”

You snort. “You call this easy?”

“I don’t even know anymore. I feel like I’m losing my goddamn mind.” 

You don’t get a chance to make some pithy reply, because suddenly his mouth is on yours again, and your ability to produce coherent thought evaporates into a red cloud of desire. Somehow between kisses and urgent, fumbling fingers you manage to divest each other of your various garments, until the world is right again, with your bare skin against his, and his cock buried deep in your needy little cunt. Frank makes love to you while looking into your very soul, and you know that thing you told him what feels like a lifetime ago was absolutely true:   

What’s it like to fall in love? 

It’s like going insane. 

What you didn’t know to add at the time, is how absolutely wonderful it is. 

***

When you wake from your post-coital snooze you panic a little when you don’t feel him right beside you, shooting up in bed. Did he decide he’d made a mistake after all and flee the scene?

But then you realize he is sitting by the window, in the comfy chair in front of your easel with a blanket wrapped around his otherwise nude form. He is staring at your tablet, where you have sketched his face umpteen times in your miserable longing. You freeze at seeing him sitting there, certain he will make fun of you for being a lovesick little fool. 

Instead, he could have pushed you over with a feather, when he just shoots you a soft smile. “You’re very good,” he says quietly, as though afraid of breaking the sacred hush of the room. You’d be a liar, if you said your best work hasn’t always been fueled by longing of some kind. If you were a happy and content individual, you’re not sure you’d create anything of merit at all. 

“Thank you.” 

Then he smirks at you, picking up a pencil. “I’ll draw you,” he says cheekily, making a show of measuring your angles with the instrument, putting down bold marks. “Voila. My masterpiece.” 

You slide out from the covers to join him in the chair, snuggling into the warm curve of his large body behind you. When you look at what he drew you burst out in laughter, hiding in the dip of his neck. It’s a stick figure…with two emphatically drawn circles in the chest area. “Oh my god. Frank…” 

“You don’t recognize my raw artistic talent?” he teases, resting his chin on top of your head. 

“I see you’re not into the graphic design side of marketing at JD Power.”

He snorts at that. “What do you mean? I’m putting this on our next campaign.” 

You are chuckling so deeply it hurts in your core. This man. This man brings you such joy, and you’ve been withering without him. It’s not good–but it’s true. 

“Great. When they fire you, you can come shack up with me.” 

It’s a relief when he snorts at your joke–you didn’t mean to invite him to move in with you within the first few hours of seeing him again, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He even holds you a little tighter, which plays unfair havoc with your insides.

“Frank?”

“Present.” From the angle of his head, you’re guessing he’s looking out the window, at the ocean. It’s a pretty killer view–if you hadn’t inherited this place from a great aunt, you never could have afforded it. You nearly die of a heart attack every year when the property tax bill comes. 

“What…made you change your mind?”

He grumbles behind you. You feel it more than hear it, with his chest pressed to your back. Maybe you shouldn’t have brought it up just yet, but god. You need to know, as a matter of keeping your sanity.

“I realized…that every time I walked through the lobby of my office building, I was hoping to see you there, ready to terrorize us all with Peter Gabriel playing at ear-splitting volumes.”

“Oh Frank…” 

“Then for a week or so I resented you for not being there, for not coming after me even though I pushed you away in no uncertain terms.” 

You listen to him speak, quietly tucked under his chin. You would never guess from the level of his tone, but you can feel the thundering of his heart against your back, feel it in the slight way his grip tightens on you. Maybe it’s ridiculous, but your eyes blur with tears, that wonderfully uncomfortable electric feeling coursing all the way to your fingertips. 

“Then I realized that was pretty fucked up, to be mad at you for respecting my wishes, even though it clearly hurt you to do so. So…here I am. I am…a goddamn mess, y/n. I’m a grouchy old man, and I still don’t understand why you seem to like me, but if you do…?”

You think on how those three little words, here I am, actually involved this no-nonsense man remembering that ridiculous little conversation you’d had ages ago, dreaming up the scheme with the rocks, hunting them down or ordering them custom engraved online, and driving all this way in the rain having no idea if you would actually be happy to see him or if you would tell him to go to hell. 

You don’t think it’s just blind optimism, that makes you think he’s not half as broken as he thinks he is. You’re smart enough not to call him sensitive to his face, but he has just been kicked one too many times by people near him who go through life with a lot less thought about how their actions affect those around them. He’s hardened himself as a matter of survival–and that you understand all too well. 

“I do like you, Frank. I really, really, do.” You punctuate each word with a kiss until your mouth is pressed to his, and the grumble of his approval vibrates on a wavelength through your body, to the depths of your very soul. 

“And,” he adds with a wry note, just in case things were getting too sappy, “Your rat shirt is starting to smell more like me than you now. It needs a recharge.” 

This does make you giggle. “What have you been doing with my possum shirt, Frank?”

“You probably don’t want to know,” he answers with that rogue glitter in his dark eyes that curls your toes. 

You scoff–and wonder how many grains of truth are hiding in the lie. The thought of Frank snuggling your shirt at night wishing it was you…you really might melt into a puddle.  

“I still have your black t-shirt under my pillow,” you confess in the spirit of solidarity. 

He looks down at you with a raised brow, amused. “I wondered where that went. You sneaky little thief.” Suddenly he is standing with you in his arms, carrying you towards the bed again. He drops you on the foot of the bed, and you have no zero time to regroup before he is on you, pressing open mouthed kisses to the insides of your thighs, up to eat your pussy like he means to devour you. 

“Fuck!” you gasp, writhing against him holding you down as he wrecks you with his tongue. “How are you even better at that than I remember?”

He withdraws with a long hard lick that makes you see stars. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” he admits, manhandling you to the edge of the bed with those big hands on your hips, plunging inside you with a groan that lifts every little hair on your body, fucking into you like you belong to him. 

And maybe, you do.

“And how is this sweet little snatch even tighter than what I remember?” he pants back, trembling with the effort to keep his thrusts slow and deep, like he knows exactly what you need to climb that shining peak–you are running up that mountain with his beautiful manhood teeming inside you.  

“I’ve been working out…” you answer with a laugh that comes out half moan, so happy you could die as he lowers his weight down on you, cupping your head in his hands, his long fingers in your hair. 

“I’m not sure I know what that means…” he answers, losing himself with his eyes closed as he bottoms out against your cervix, catching your mouth in a sloppy kiss that makes you clench and pulse around him. 

“Just say thank you.” You don’t know how you have the courage to tease this man, while he’s inside you. But you feel like your heart is made of pure sunshine in that moment, and nothing bad can touch either of you. 

“I’m trying to,” he chuckles, having just as much fun trading pithy remarks during this intimate moment as you, his thumb sneaking between you to rub your aching button to the rhythm of his body moving inside yours. You’re going to cum, to know it in your bones, but even if you weren’t this perfect handful of seconds of connection with Frank would be purest bliss. Those three dangerous words are dancing on the tip of your tongue, and you bite yourself until you taste blood to keep them in. 

I love you. 

You’ll tell him soon enough. 

The pleasure of your orgasm blindsides you like a truck t-boning you in a four-way stop–it’s as mental as it is physical, this absolute, all consuming rapture for having this man in your arms again, in your body, in your life, if you dare to believe it. 

Frank is not far behind you, moaning into the bend of your neck as he cums, filling you to the brim with his hips locked against yours. In the aftermath he sighs something softly into your hair, something utterly inaudible over the sound of your heart pounding in your ears and your heavy breathing. 

It’s something short though. Something three syllables. 

“What?” you whisper, sweeping the hair from his face with a trembling hand. 

 “Nothing,” he answers, pulling back with a sleepy smile. He shifts to the side and drags over the comforter, wrapping you up in his arms and the cloud-soft blanket. “You know,” he says sleepily, “I was miserable for so long, I think I forgot what happiness feels like. So thanks for scaring the shit out of me, I guess.”

“Anytime,” you chortle, snuggled under his chin. 

Everything is on fire…and maybe it will be perfectly fine. 

----

Epilogue coming soon...

[bladesrunner]

Destination Wedding (2018) dir. Victor Levin

[cinematicsource]

Destination Wedding (2018) dir. Victor Levin

[dilfgifs]

KEANU REEVES as Frank DESTINATION WEDDING (2018) dir. Victor Levin

[boredth]

If you haven't ever seen Destination Wedding (Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder), I feel like it's a very silverv situation. At least, it's definitely got the potential to be.

Johnny doesn't shut up even in his sleep

[awhalesrider]

Destination Wedding but silverv

This part in Keanu and Winona's movie Destination Wedding is soo perfect for Johnny and Val, so...

[keanumancrush]

Keanu & Winona...

Destination Wedding (2018)

[dunhamsolivia]

winona ryder and keanu reeves in destination wedding (2018) dir victor levin

[cristinaricci]

Destination Wedding (2018)

[discoscoob]

Characters I want to try and make bots for in the future:

Ted Logan - specifically Bogus Journey Ted though. I love him in the first movie but he’s just a baby in high school. I only wanna make bots for characters that are adults. Unfortunately this means I don’t want to make bots for any of Keanu’s characters that are under 18

Johnny Utah - the kind of man you’d save from drowning then immediately exchange your voice for legs just to be with him and spend 3 days trying to kiss idk

Frank - I rewatched Destination Wedding the other day all I want is a grumpy Frank bot

Don John - he so pretty

Donnie Barksdale - controversial maybe but he just looks too good I can’t help it I have a thing for the mullet

Marlon - Genuinely my favourite character Keanu played even though he only has like 5 minutes screentime. He’s like the old dog at the shelter with patchy fur that no one wants to adopt. I just wanna take him home and cook him something

I already have bots for Jack Traven and Constantine but I would like to make some more for them eventually too

[johnwickb1tsch]

Vino Veritas - Part II

A Destination Wedding Frank x Fem!Reader Fic

Attending the wedding of your ex-fiancé gets slightly better when you meet someone having just as miserable a time as you... Warnings: Nothing too serious holy shit. Cursing. Broken engagement. Nihilism, existential bullshit, copious amounts of sarcasm. Eventual nsfw, not this chapter. Angst. Grump/sunshine trope. Loosely based on the movie but I'm not that smart. Or bitter. 😆 chapter map.

II. The Interminable Fucking Car Ride

“So…what do you do?”

“I run the marketing department for JD Power.”

“The car trophy people?”

“That’s a magazine.”

“Ah. So you’re the grand architect of big corporate’s bid to tell us what to think while slyly taking all our money.”

He snorts. “Only those who are incapable of thinking for themselves. Somehow, that doesn’t seem to apply to you.”

If you squint, that almost felt like he was paying you a compliment.

“So, what do you do?” he asks in turn.  

You don’t know why you’re almost embarrassed to tell him. “I run an art gallery/gift shop on the beach in Playa Bonita.”

He blinks, those lovely dark eyes fixed on you for a moment. “Of course you do.”

“What does that mean?”

He huffs a little. It almost sounds wistful, but then he frowns, utterly fucking ruining the moment.  “You just look the type.”

You’re not sure why that stings…or why you even give a fuck.

The Fucking Rehearsal Dinner

“I’ve never really understood the point of the rehearsal dinner. Is eating so hard we really have to rehearse it?”

You sense an almost twitch of the corner of Frank’s mouth. They have stuck you together at a table in the far back. The black sheep who they felt they had to invite, but didn’t really want to.

“Not to miss the opportunity to make the groom’s parents spend unnecessary money too?” Frank offers.

“Fair to spread the misery, I guess.”

“Didn’t you sue Keith over this shit?”

“My parents did. They lost thirty thousand dollars in deposits.”

“Jesus fucking Christ. No one should spend that kind of money on a wedding.”

“Strangely, I agree with you now. I didn’t know any better at the time.” You’d been so young, you could hardly even fathom how much thirty-thousand dollars was.

Your parents had been happy at the time with the prospect of marrying you off to Keith. He’d been successful, charming, and outwardly doting on you. They never really thought you had much going on your own, so they probably thought he was the best you could do. The thought still hurts, more than it should.

“I mean,” you blurt, “Did you know who you are or what you wanted when you were 20?”

“Of course not.”

“He was my whole world. When he dumped me. It...it really fucked me up.” You don't know why you're admitting this to this near total stranger. There is just something about his forthright manner that demands honesty. 

“Ah well, join the club. My father tried to shoot me once, if it makes you feel any better.”

You blink. “He tried to shoot you?”

“Yes. With a gun.”

“What did you do?”

“I ran at him.”

“You ran at him? Not away from him?”

“Yeah. Well, I was pissed off. He tried to shoot me again, but I got the gun away from him and hit him with it. Broke his orbital bone. He said I was the accumulation of all his bad decisions. He started to cry and begged me to kill him. I didn’t, only because I didn’t want to fuck my whole life up. The poor bastard jumped out the seventh floor the next day.”

Before you can stop yourself you reach out to place your hand on his on the table.

Before he can stop himself, his long fingers close around yours.

This connection endures for precisely 1.5 seconds before he shakes you off.

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t think your fine.”

“Fine, I’m all fucked up, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

You sigh, sinking down in your chair, embarrassed. Why did you touch him? What were you thinking?

“I guess we’re in the club together,” you answer miserably.

You feel him looking at you out the corner of his eye. There is a weight to this man’s gaze. It’s not unpleasant, just…you feel as though he sees everything.

“I feel like we should get at least decoder rings or something,” he grumbles.

The bride and groom make their entrance, interrupting whatever acerbic thing you were going to say next. You watch as they make their way through the crowd, basking in the glow of being the center of attention. Keith always loved that shit. You hate to admit, that his bride to be is a solid stone cold foxy 10. The kind of woman that men will trip over themselves for as they walk down the street.

You weren’t bad looking but you’d never had that kind of power.

If you wanted to trip a man, you had to do the dirty work and actually stick out your foot.

“Oh, look at us, let us presume to inconvenience you with the ostentatious display of our love,” you mock quietly in a mousy little falsetto.

It actually makes Frank laugh. At least, you think it’s a laugh. Maybe it was indigestion.

He joins in, though forgoing the funny voice, “And we’re conceited enough to think we’re actually different from the rest of the human race, and our love will last forever and ever…”

You’re enjoying this malicious bit of fun, but there is something in the way that he says it that makes you pause. “You don’t think love can ever last?” you ask.

He snorts. “Well, he doesn’t. I heard the prenup she had to sign was brutal,” he tells you.

 “Poor thing.”

“You really feel sorry for her?”

“Slightly?”

“Are you going to say hello?”

You sigh. “I guess I fucking better.”

You slowly make to stand, the chair screeching under you. “Give ‘em hell, kid.”

You flip Frank the bird as you go, and hear that peculiar strangled sound that must pass for his outward expression of mirth.

Dumb ass free shit you would never do on your own

"I spoke to the bride last night."

“Indeed?”

You’ve had pedicures before, but you’ve never sprung for a professional foot massage, and you have to admit it feels pretty good. It totally surprised you to find Frank there, but he’d informed you unashamedly that he can’t resist free shit. You find that amusing, considering he’s obviously comfortable, if not outright rich.

Maybe that’s how he stays that way.

“Yes, and she told me she doesn’t mind that you’re here, and she’s not threatened by you.”

You snort at that, taking a long sip of your iced latte.

“At least, I think she meant you. She’s dumb as a box of rocks, it was hard to tell who or what she was talking about at times.”

You sigh at hearing that. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to soothe my feelings.”

It’s his turn to snort. “Merely reporting facts, I assure you. If you still feel badly about Keith and have not managed to move on to one of the other 8 billion people on this planet, then there is no helping you.”

“Is that your method for getting over a bad breakup?” He makes it sound so easy, you cannot help but roll your eyes at him.

“No, I have opted out of that shit show. It makes me uniquely qualified to offer comment on your own situation.”

You tilt you head in confusion, looking over at him. “You’ve…opted out of what? Dating? Romance? Marriage?”

“All of the above. It never ends well, as I have learned from watching my mother’s train wreck of a life as she blithely stumbled between marriages and boyfriends and suitors.”

“That’s so sad,” you blurt before you can stop yourself.

If you hadn’t already started to learn this man’s gestures, you would have missed the way he stiffened slightly, staring fixedly down at his feet.

“How many times have you been in love?” he asks.

You think about it, and regret the answer. “Just the once.” With Keith, the asshole. Any one who came after didn’t have much luck getting over the wall you built to protect yourself from another heartbreak.

He looks at you then, and you are pinned by those chocolate brown eyes, that for once seem earnest rather than annoyed. “What’s it like?”

The fact that this man, who is at least ten if not fifteen years your elder, is asking you tears your heart into little bits of confetti.  

“It’s like going insane,” you answer truthfully, and he looks back down, frowning.

“I thought so.”

***

You are standing in your inflatable body bumpers together on the sidelines, declining to partake in this insane sport, content to watch the others attempt to inflict cervical injuries on themselves and others.

The question is eating at you, and you decide what the hell. What’s he going to do? Be mean to you?

“So, you’ve never been in love?”

“I don’t think so,” he answers, frowning, though it’s the same frown he’s been wearing for the past hour watching the idiots running around the field.

“Believe me, you would know.”

“Do insane people know they’re insane?”

“Ok, maybe that was a bad comparison. It’s…total surrender.”

“Wow, you’re really talking it up.”

“It is though. You have these special feelings for a person, and you just know whatever they do to you, it won’t matter, because you’ll still care for them.”

“It doesn’t matter, until it does matter.”

“Some people have higher tolerances for pain than others.”

“If you loved Keith you could probably take a Caesar-style stabbing without flinching.”

You’re not sure how exactly to respond to that.

“At any rate. I prefer to avoid pain rather than withstand it. My parents inflicted quite enough. No need to spread it around.”

“Alright, I get it that your parents sufficiently traumatized you, with the failed marriages and the…shooting thing. But doesn’t there come a point where you have to let it go and rise above it?”

“I don’t see any reason to.”

“Think about all your missing out on though.”

“What exactly is that?”

“You know…human connection. The things that make life worth living.”

“Jesus, are you sure you don’t work for Hallmark?”

“Positive.”

“I bet you sell rocks in your shop that have inspirational words carved in them.”

“Of course I do. The markup on those things is astronomical.”

You see him smirk out the corner of his eye.

“I bet you also sell little statues of big-eyed children slinging bible verses.”

“Ohhh, now those are fighting words, sir.” You bump him lightly with your inflatable tutu, making him shuffle a step. For a fleeting moment, you catch a hint of a smile, and it feels like a resounding victory.

Feeling bold, you fix him with an earnest stare. “You claim you’ve opted out of this mess. But what if you meet someone you really like?”

“Then I should probably run swiftly in the opposite direction,” he says, paying you a side-eyed look.

Five minutes later, he does quit the field, though he doesn’t quite run from it. You tell your self that it’s just a coincidence, and that he was just done standing in a polyvinyl orb in this heat.

But deep down…there is the tiniest kindling of something in your heart, and you know you should kick dirt over that shit and stomp on it.

You don’t, and you carry a ridiculous little light feeling with you as you return to the hotel.

It feels like you swallowed a butterfly.

[doctorwhoisadhd]

this was so cute the appearance of mr smiths theme.........

[comingupforblair]

Enid: Don’t you want to secretly have a romantic life that confirms your hopes instead of your cynicism?

Wednesday: No. I’m fond of my own cynicism. It’s very comfortable

[cinemajunkie70]

A very happy birthday to Winona Ryder!

[faithlike-mustardseed]

[keanumancrush]

Keanu and Winona...

Destination Wedding (2018)