Page 2 of Nutmeg + Mistletoe
Jeremy.What a dumb name, anyway.
By the time I weave my way back inside and find my friends, I’m already halfway into a bottle of tequila I picked up off of a waitress. No glass. No lime. No shame.
I simply gave the nice lady five hundred dollars and told her to leave the Don Julio with me.
The four bridesmaids and bride-to-be are huddled near the VIP booth, eyes widening as I approach, phone in one hand, bottle in the other. I’ve been angry texting them the whole time I was stomping around the casino floor, like we were playing some deranged game of Marco Polo.
“Hey, sweetie,” Alaya says carefully, stepping toward me. “So sorry about Jeremy.”
The other bridesmaids chime in behind her. “Yeah, girl. So sorry!”
I tip the bottle back, taking another long, defiant swig. “I hope he gets ass cancer!”
“Easy there,” Alaya says, voice half soothing, half concerned.
“Fine! Dick and ball cancer. Is that nice enough for you?”
“Jesus, Marlow!” I hear from behind me.
I take another swig, wiping my mouth like a drunken sailor. “Well, it’s a little dick, so it won’t be much of a loss to society!”
Sarah eyes the bottle in my hand, her brows shooting up. “Um… anyone else notice she’s drunk half of that already?”
I hiccup again, clutching my drink like it holds the answers to life. “And why is it—why—that women always settle for the guy with the little dick?”
“Can we stop sayingdickso much?” Sarah hisses through her teeth, her smile frozen and eyes darting around. “People are starting to think we’re prostitutes!”
I wave her off like she’s missing something big and mind-bending. “We think—we think—if we accept a man as heis, with his little edamame-looking penis, he’ll be grateful. He’llworshipus. But no! He goes and knocks up Jillian.Jillian!The canker cunt!”
Alaya, calm and dressed like an off-duty goddess, leans in with her best preschool teacher voice. “Hey, Marlow? Since tomorrow’s my wedding day, and you’re my maid of honor and all, why don’t you go back to the villa and lie down, sweetie?”
Translation: you are seconds from being immortalized in a viral TikTok meltdown, and we cannot have that.
“I’m just saying, Laya! With a name like Nelson, he better have a good di–”
Sarah pours more tequila down my throat, stopping me before anotherdickflies out of my mouth.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, tears come. Hot and fast.
“I was finally going to introduce him to my dad, Laya!” I blurt, my voice breaking on the words.
She pulls me into a hug, rubbing my back. “I know, sweetie. We all know how hard it is to bring someone home to Daddy.”
Harder for me than most.
I’d been dating Jeremy for a year before even thinking about introducing him to my father. Because my dad sniffs out men like Jeremy in a heartbeat. The ones who talk a good game, who charm their way in with no intention of settling down. The ones who only want to get in my pants. Daddy’s words.
And he would’ve been right about Jeremy.
Because, let’s be real—it takes a player to know a player. And my dad? He’s one of the best.
Not in a sleazy way. He’s not out here lying to women or spinning some fairytale. If anything, he’s brutally honest.
Every time he meets a woman, he lays it all out there—he married the love of his life years ago, and now that she’s gone, he has no intention of falling in love again. And somehow these women eat it up. The honesty. The no-strings-attached vibe. The man could sell sand in a desert. It’s no wonder I suck at relationships.
Whenever I ask him—usually after we’ve split a bottle of wine—how the hell I’m supposed to find love when he’s the example I grew up with, he always says the same thing. That I shouldn’t overthink it:“Find the man who’s honest. The one who can’t live without you. Find the one who gives you their whole heart without question. That’s what you wait for. That’s what I had with your mother.”
Then he reminds me he’s still being honest with these women he goes out with today, which is why he feels no guilt about his bad boy image and the fact he’ll never settle down again.
