Face Your Fears

Chapter 34

The urge to strangle my cousin was stronger than ever, but the ceremony was starting soon, and it was probably a sin to murder someone in a church.

"Consider this my form of payment," Carlo continued as he watched another gaggle of Rebecca's sorority sisters flutter by to their seats in the pews.

"You know I'm doing this free of charge, right?" I said, biting back a sigh.

Carlo shrugged, fiddling with the settings on the camera I'd managed to borrow from a guy I'd gone to Pratt with. "Who am I kidding? You wouldn't have given me a cut of the payment anyways."

"Not true. I would've paid you what you're worth."

"And that would be?"

"About seventy-five cents."

That comment opened up a round of manly bickering in Italian, with a lot rapid hand gestures and cursing.

We were getting a good bit of attention from people sitting towards the back of the church where we were huddled, but I was willing to bet there were less than ten people present that even knew Italian, so I figured it didn't matter.

"For the love of God, would you two shut up already?"

Our bickering was cut short as Hadley came marching over, Milo in her arms, a dangerous look on her face as she narrowed her eyes at us.

"Who, us?" Carlo said, playing innocent. "We were just having a...creative discussion."

"You do know I can speak Italian, right?" Hadley said dryly. "This is hardly the place to be threatening to punch someone in the dick."

"My goodness, the foul mouth on you!" Carlo gasped. "You shouldn't speak like that in front of the baby, you know."

Hadley somehow managed to smack Carlo upside the head even while holding Milo, and then turned her attention to me.

"Rebecca and the rest of the bridesmaids are ready for you. You'd best get to it before she has a breakdown."

"A breakdown?" I repeated with a grimace.

"C'mon, it's her wedding day," Hadley said, like this should've been obvious. "Every bride is a wreck on their wedding day. At least before the ceremony."

"Even you?"

"Yeah, even me. Half of Italy flew in for our wedding, remember?"

"Yeah, you're right. I almost forgot."

Our wedding hadn't been as stressful as I thought it would be, but when the alcohol started flowing and my extended family members had their fair share, I'd done my best to block it all out.