My Mob Wedding

Chapter 8 - Goodbyes and Gingers

I'm awoken by the sound of my bedroom door smacking the wall behind it.

"Diana! You're running late! You were supposed to be leaving fifteen minutes ago!" Hunter shouts, barging into my room.

I look up at him through blurred morning vision. I lean forward but Jared's leg kicks out and I fall to the floor. He always manages to kick me off even if he starts off without much space.

I push myself off the floor and grab the nearest item, which happens to be a tissue box, and start beating Jared with it. Why? Because my thought processes make absolutely no sense and perfect sense in the morning. Beating him because he knocked me off my bed is absolutely logical.

He moans and half-consciously blocks my hits. "What the hell Diana?"

"You knocked me out of my bed! And we need to get up. We are running late," I say, gesturing to Hunter.

Jared gets out of my bed, wriggles into a sweatshirt, and announces, "I'm ready."

I grab the pair of sweats and the NYC t-shirt I left out for today and head into the bathroom. I change quickly, brush my teeth, and throw my hair up into a messy bun. There, that's all this guy is getting out of me. I yell down the hall at Dad but find him in the living room waiting for me. I give him the 'one minute' finger and go into my room. I drag out my carry on and the two guys who were drooling over my magazine with Kate Upton on it. Well, more accurately, Hunter was drooling over Kate Upton and Jared was checking out my Sexiest Man Alive edition with Adam Levine on the cover. That man is freaking yummy. I snag those magazines on my way out. It's gonna be a long plane ride across the country.

"You ready to go?" Dad asks.

I sigh and nod. "Too early."

The four of us leave and hop in Dad's car. Jared and Dad are going to say goodbye to me but I'm honestly not quite sure why Hunter is coming. He's probably just coming so he can make sure I actually get on the plane.

+++

"Flight 29, boarding now," a shrill, nasally voice announces. Finally, stupid delays. I glance over to the desk and find the shrill, nasally voice to belong to a stick-thin, pasty ginger. Gingers bother me. They have since second grade when Cara Miller, a ginger, pushed me off the swing and kicked mulch in my mouth. Of course I was the one who got in trouble for punching her in the face afterwards, but it still made me hate her and gingers as a whole. Her older brother, Ethan Miller, also didn't help the cause of the gingers. He dated a former friend of mine and then while she was in the bathroom at homecoming, he tried to make out with me. Needless to say, he also ended up like his sister did and I lost that friend because she thought that I came on to him.

I stand and head to my dad and give him a hug.

"I love you, honey," he tells me.

"I love you, too, Dad." I release him and move to Jared.

I wrap my arms around Jared.

"Bye, Ana. I love you. And don't forget to call or I'll come find you and make you call," he threatens.

I laugh. "Bye, I love you too and I will call." I get close to his ear and whisper, "Go for it tonight with Derek. I want you to be happy."

He smiles and releases me. "Maybe I will."

"You better, mister."

Hunter leans against the wall and looks to me. "There's a party over there tonight. I'll be flying out later in the day and staying with a friend for a few days."

"Okay, when is the party? I'm pretty tired and I don't think-" I start.

"You have to go," he cuts me off. "Vince's orders. Pretty much just do whatever Colton says for a few days. Listen to him, he knows what he's talking about."

Swell. Now I have to do whatever he says. Well, he's shitting his pants if he thinks I'm moving all the way across the country to be bossed around by someone who I don't even know or want to be anywhere near. That isn't happening.

I frown at him but slap a fake smile on for one final wave to my family before I board the one-way trip to a completely new life.

+++

"We have safely landed so please, passengers, stay seated until you are told you may move about. Please remember to gather all of your belongings from around your seats and stowed in the carry on. Have a nice day and thank you for choosing us," the flight attendant announces, awakening me from my three hour nap. It was a good nap too. I read both magazines for an hour and then just took a nap on the cool, smudged glass of the window.

A few minutes pass before we're told we can move about the cabin and orderly exit the plane as we've safely landed and docked the plane. But I'm having no such luck as the anxious mother and antsy four-year-old who sat in the two seats closer to the aisle are taking their sweet time to orderly exit the plane.

When the mother has finally rounded up her husband and six rambunctious children, they leave the plane. I'm finally able to get my things, but at the price of a killer headache.

I get off the plane and through airport security without much trouble, but then I realize that I'm unaware of where this guy lives and how I'm supposed to get there.

Great. Now I'm stuck in a city where I know no one without a clue of where I'm supposed to be and how to get there. This better not be foreshadowing to how this place is gonna go. I quite possibly might die if that's the case.

I slump down in the uncomfortable, orange, plastic seating that the airport has to offer and mope like any logical seventeen-year-old would do.

I watch as person after person greets the person waiting for them with such enthusiasm that I think the walls might burst. Gag me.

With a roar of a fierce internal lion, I look around for a restaurant to eat at. A Starbucks is right across the sea of eager rides home and I think I have enough stamina left to brave the baby birds awaiting their mothers.

In one swift movement, without too much space to over think this decision, I weave with a vengeance through the crowd, bumping, but not being stopped too much. That is until I smack straight into a ginger. I drop everything in my hands to the ground. Damn ginger.

"Hey! Watch it!" I shout at him.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" he says, crouching down to pick up my wallet, my phone, and the random assortment of flight papers I collected. "Here you go." He opens my wallet and glances at my ID. "Diana."

"Thanks," I say, taking back my unscathed phone, violated wallet, and slightly crinkled papers.

"Wait, Diana? Diana Saunders?" the ginger asks, his perpetual smile and radiance of happiness dying down for a moment of slight shock.

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm here to pick you up. I'm Co-"

"Colton!?" I gasp. This is my worst nightmare. I have to marry a ginger. I could die.