Partners In Crime

•Hoffman•

Smoke wafted in the air, lacing from people's cigarettes and hung around the dancing bodies. If Marina bet a million pounds that nobody at the Hoffmans' engagement party was sober, she'd be a rich woman indeed.

Her body was slumped on a 'rustic' looking bench, her head on Alex's lap, her feet on Solana's, as she'd just finished dancing until her feet wore out. They couldn't stop giggling.

Solana and Alex took deep drags; Marina stuck to her bottled margarita.

"So wait," said Solana forcing the two to be quiet, "why am I drinking these miniature bottles of champagne and not the champagne here guys?" She tapped off the ashes, still snickering shamelessly with a small bottle of bubbly open in her other hand.

Alex glanced down to Marina in his lap, his hair short, his face youthful. They started laughing stupidly.

"What?" Solana nudged them. The two couldn't stop grinning.

"You'll see, querida," said Marina sweetly, a streak of tease underlying it.

"Stop speaking a language we don't understand," quipped Alex with a sad frown. He'd said it so seriously but Marina thought it was anything but that.

She catapulted into laughter again, firing her tequila-tainted spit into his face.

"Oi! Watch it, Rini!" He rubbed his face with an unserious sulk, breathing in another drag, laughing again.

"Serves you right for smoking that rubbish," she said, trying to grab it from him, Alex only bringing it higher and higher above his head.

"Come and get it then, if you're so adamant about me not having this 'rubbish'."

A smouldering look fell upon his face, a new configuration to it she hadn't seen before. Well, she hadn't known him long.

At least when she was sober, she could glance around quickly and pretend she wasn't looking only at him. But thanks to her discarded common sense, she did. And time stopped for a fleeting moment. Oddly. She looked on, almost under a spell.

But an eruption of cries broke out which pulled her away from it immediately.

Not soon after, the sounds of yelling and a loud smack caught her ears.

She sat up, her hands on both Solana and Alex's shoulder for support. In front of them was a large crowd of twenty-somethings. The betrothed were in the middle, stumbling around like everybody else.

"You're a right bell-end, Sam!" said the soon-to-be bride. And, may Marina point out, with the rage of seven hungry tigers.

Sam cried out in pain, nursing his face, his eyes spinning in a drunken enchantment. He wasn't just buzzing, he was blackout.

"Ughh, you bitch Marie, you fucking bitch!" he roared.

"Seems you're the one fucking bitches here, Sam, you arsehole."

He launched for her, Marina's heart pounding until she saw two hands link with Sam's arms, holding him back.

She saw the water glisten over the bride's eyes. Complete silence complemented her cracking voice.

"We were going to work this out, and you did it again-"

"-I din't do nowt!"

"-Drunk until you forget you're mine, talking to some other girl like I'm not even here. Well guess the fuck what?"

She ripped off the engagement ring on the finger, throwing it in his face. He let out an aggravated cry.