Partners In Crime

•Rodriguez•

Marina heard a whoosh, the empty seat beside her suddenly filled in her peripheral by Alex.

She continued looking ahead at the priest, her cousin waiting for the bride beside the altar. Alex sat on the edge seat, a detail which they'd planned to run off quickly.

"Slight deviation from the plan, Rini," Alex whispered near her ear. Just in that moment, she noticed how deep it had become.

"What kind of deviation?" she hissed.

"Unfortunately, they don't have a bloomin' tuba anywhere in this cathedral, so I had to improvise."

"What did you do, Alex?" She started biting her tongue. But before he could answer, everyone rose from their seats, their heads pointing towards the double doors.

And while everyone watched the bridal members saunter in, shortly followed by the blushing bride, Marina stared at the priest, seething.

Her heart hollowed in her chest. Who had she become? The chaos from the early weddings had all been purely coincidental, now she was here praying for the concussion of a priest. She wasn't religious, but she prayed to God, safe in the knowledge there were ends to these means. It was what her abuela would have wanted.

The bride joined her cousin at the altar in front of that vile priest. Everyone around her sat down, and she did too. She scanned the scene, the couple facing each other with their groomsmen and bridesmaids behind them. She wanted to be happy for them, but her mission was holding her back.

Then, Marina felt a warm hand interlacing with her own. Alex's hand. She hadn't realised she wasn't breathing until that point when it caught in her throat.

"It'll be okay in the end, promise, love," he whispered, stroking her hand with his thumb, a tenderness in it she hadn't recognised before. But it had always been there.

She nodded gently so that he saw it, nobody else knowing what it meant.

And the ceremony started. The couple kneeled in front of the priest. They received a gift of a rosary. Marina watched her abuela cry at the scene, dabbing her eyes, completely unaware of the nastiness of the priest. After exchanging their vows, she held her breath. The time grew nearer. She gripped Alex's hand tighter, sweltering under the summer heat.

She watched the priest bring out the Lazo, ready to drape the rope over the two in a figure of eight.

The rope fell over their necks, binding the couple together. Shit. This was too important to screw up. Everyone was so happy.

The Priest uttered the trigger words. In the blink of an eye a guitar dropped from the above balcony, whacking him on his head with a loud thud, knocking him out.

Everyone gasped in horror at his limp form on the ground. Their terror reverberated across the open space.

Shit, what had they done?

Marina caught on to Alex's deviation. Not a trumpet, but an electric guitar. And more specifically, Alex's Stratocaster.

Everyone in the pews chattered frantically, on their phones or praying to themselves. Marina and Alex noticed Marina's cousin reaching for a piece of paper lodged in between the guitar strings. A photo. On the back was a date and a short description written by Alex.

His eyes widened. His almost-wife peered over his shoulder. In the next moment she wailed and clasped her hand over her mouth. They brought it over to her abuela, who wailed also, crying but now for a very different reason. She glanced around to find Marina, and once they locked eyes Marina felt physically beaten by both the shame and understanding in her abuela's gaze.

Once everyone heard the news, they were stuck in a state between shock horror and relief. The photo depicted the priest, who'd woken up hours later, close with a young boy. Alex and Marina saved her cousin's marriage from being bound in corruption, preventing the shame it would have brought her family, but the tension hung heavy as she and Alex stood outside her house later, the night cloaked over the sky.

"D'you want me to come in with you?" he asked, their hands still conjoined from earlier.

She exhaled audibly, looking down to her feet, her heartbeat spasmic.

"Probably best you didn't. It's gonna get ugly, so I-I'll save you the pain," she said, oddly euphoric from the events.

"Cheers," His hair was long now, cheek-length, fluffy and wild, but Marina, meeting his face, found his russet glare hiding.

"This'll probably sound weird but, do you feel like after this, we might not see each other for a while?" he said. "It's just-I reckon me guitar made it a bit too obvious that it were our fault today."

She rolled her tongue in between her lips. "Is this you saying goodbye?"

"No! No, no, never Rini. I don't want it to be, but you can't control who invites who at their weddings. And actually-" He faltered, looking off to the side.

"-Our band's taking off, globally. Our record company's planning on having us do a world tour. So I imagine I- Won't be around for many weddings."

Marina felt stunned for a second. She'd heard about the buzz for his band's world tour in the office, but never really processed it fully in her mind. In that moment, she realised how much she lived for these moments together. She felt she had the power to defy fate when they were together.

And now he was leaving.

"Well, maybe we...don't have to say goodbye," she said.

"No?"

"No. We can, this will sound really corny, but we can just say...see you in a minute?"

He paused, rolling his tongue in between his lips. His hidden smirk peeked through. He seemed to be lingering.

"Sounds ideal, Rini."

Slowly, they detached from each other's hands, straightening themselves up.

"God do you even remember my real name?" She smiled, trying her best to bite it back.

He chuckled. "Absolutely not. C'mon. To me you're always gonna be Rini."

Alex started walking away, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, turning around once more as she grabbed her doorknob.

"Good luck in there, and...See you in a minute."

Her eyes stung. She didn't like watching him grow further away. It just made her feel his absence more.

She blew him a light kiss. He caught it and splashed it on his cheek.

"In a minute, Alex."