Page 155 of Bridesmaid By Chance
“They are not going to give us a free ride.”
“You don’t know that. This is the perfect place to get something free. Just watch.” She takes off her ring again and slips it into my hand. “We need to find someone who is going to take pictures who will make a big to-do about the proposal. Someone loud, preferably obnoxious.”
She taps her chin and looks around as I pocket her ring.
“This is not going to work.”
“With that attitude, it’s not. Come on now. We have one goal today, to get something free.”
“Pretty sure the goal today was to get lost in the city.”
“Which we are, with a secondary goal of free things. Oooh, what about that lady over there in the pink leopard print? She would be perfect.”
“If you think so,” I say as I glance at the lady who is looking at a map of London.
“Ask her to record and remember, make the proposal personal.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I move over to the lady holding the map and I clear my throat before saying, “Excuse me. I’m about to propose to my girlfriend over there and I was wondering if you could pretend to take a picture of us in front of the London Eye but really video the whole thing.”
She snaps the map together, tosses it over her shoulder, thankfully someone grabs it before it blows away, and she takes my phone from my hand. “On it.”
“Uh, thanks.”
Unsure if this is the lady we want, I head over to where Sloane is standing and wait for leopard print to follow, but when she doesn’t, I grow concerned.
“Why is she looking around?” Sloane asks.
“Uh, I don’t…oh fuck, she’s taking off.”
And in the blink of an eye, the lady in leopard bolts to the right, my phone clutched in her hand. The fucking audacity.
“Oh no,” Sloane calls out just as I take off in a sprint after her.
Not on my fucking watch.
I dodge people left and right, calling out that she stole my phone. Tourists and onlookers watch as I chase her down the Queen’s Walk, hoping and praying she doesn’t decide to chuck my phone into the River Thames.
In a panic, she looks over her shoulder, seeing that I’m gaining on her. She tries to put it into high gear, but I’ve ran enough in my life that anything she does is not going to help, so she gives up, tosses my phone in the air out of desperation to escape and I attempt to dive and catch it, but miss by a fingertip, taking most of the blow from the impact and watching my phone skitter across the pavement.
Mother fucker.
Scraped-up clothes, a hole in my jeans now, I pick my phone up off the ground and welcome the new crack in the corner that splinters out from the center of my phone.
Yup, seems about right.
After a few seconds, I feel an arm on my shoulder and heavy breathing. I look behind me to see Sloane, bent over, gasping for air.
“Did…did you get it?” she asks.
“Yup.” I flash her the screen. “In pristine condition.”
She stands tall, hands on her hips, clearly in pain as she squints to look at the screen. “Oh boy, is that unfortunate.”
I clench my jaws together. “Very.”
She grips her side and winces. “You know, she seemed like an upstanding citizen. What a terrible misjudgment of character on my part.” She motions back to the London Eye. “Shall we find someone else?”
“No,” I say.
