Prompt Me Hard - 7. 258 – Perfect Timing

“So you decide to tell me that now?”

There was a stunned sort of silence.

“Seriously?” Angelina looked mad and wild eyed, staring at her brother, “You are telling me that, right fucking now? At this moment? REALLY?”

“Angie!” Angelo threw up his hands in the sort if supplicating gesture that had never worked on his twin sister, “Calm down. Everyone in the ceremony room will hear you.”

“I don’t fucking care if they hear me!” But she hissed instead of shouting, not that it made her any less scary. Angelina had her teeth clenched, her perfect red lips distorted by her rage. A few minutes ago she had looked beautiful and demure, the perfect bride, waiting with her white orchids and soft gardenia flowers, to be given away by their father.

“Sis… please…” Angelo knew that begging wouldn’t help. His sister was ten minutes younger than him, but that didn’t mean she played the younger helpless girl to his six feet four frame. She might have only be five-ten, but Angelina could hold her own against any man.

“Don’t you ‘sis’ me mister!” Angelina always sounded like their mother when she was mad, and Angelo gripped his forehead and wondered why on earth he’d told her. It wasn’t like her intended was out to hurt her. It had been a one-time sort of dare and big mistake. He should never have told her, especially not right now. Not right before the wedding.

“Angie. He’s still the guy you fell in love with. He’s the same Danny he was last week.” Angelo knew that his argument was sort of helpless. Green eyes just like his own showed that she had already made up her mind, “Sis! You can’t leave the guy at the alter without any explanation. How is that going to look to everyone?”

“How is that going to look to everyone?” Angelina echoed his words back at him. She was still angry, but now her anger was tinted with a combination of sadness and hate. One perfectly manicured hand reached out and ripped the orchid buttonhole from his jacket, “Why the fuck should I care how it looks?”

“Have you any idea how much Dad spent on his wedding?” Angelo knew he sounded desperate.

“So I should marry the cheating bastard because it costs MONEY?” Angelina threw the ruined orchid at him. Angelo jumped back as though the impact of the flower had hurt. “This is your fault Angelo!”

“Really?” Now Angelo was mad too. There was no way that this situation was entirely his fault, “Last time I checked you were the one who prized truth above all else!” Angelo stepped back from his sister, “Did I misremember something or did you not hit me when you found out I’d lied about Justin?”

“We’re twins!” They were both shouting now, “We’re supposed to tell each other everything!”

Angelo snorted in derision.

“I didn’t tell you when I lost my virginity and you gave me a black eye!” Oddly enough, a stupidly defensive and possessive twin sister had lost Angelo his first boyfriend, “How was I ever going to keep this a secret from you?”

Angelina folded her arms, half crushing her previously flawless and expensive white bouquet.

“Then why wait until just now? So I wouldn’t have a choice?”

“Sis, if you haven’t noticed, this is the first time we’ve been anything close to alone since before the stag do! You’ve been so busy making up the perfect white wedding.”

“And what was the point?” Tears were welling up in Angelina’s perfectly made up eyes, and even as Angelo tried to locate his handkerchief, their mother had insisted they all carried ones, he realised that her make up artist had not used waterproof mascara. Black tracks made their way down his sister’s cheeks, “Why did I bother? The cake…all the champagne. The f-f-flowers!”

Angelo clamped his teeth together and kneaded his fingers into his forehead. He should have just kept his mouth shut. Screw that, he shouldn’t have drunk more than half a bottle of Jack Daniels and allowed it to happen in the first place. Yeah, allowed it… It wasn’t like he’d had any control over the situation by that point.

“Tell me one thing?” The music was swelling, their father would be there at any moment. Angelo gulped, he knew what she was going to ask. “Who was… on top?” She winced when she said it. It was easy to tell that even though she didn’t want to know, Angelina couldn’t help but know anyway.

Angelo had a flash that he could lie and get away with it, take the blame even though he’d only known what was happening when it was already too late. That he could save his sister’s relationship with the guy who was a decent and upstanding dude – when he didn’t have more shot’s in him than a failed Mexican drug runner. But it was only a flash, his twin always knew when he was lying. Angelo hung his head in shame.

“He was.”

Angelina snarled. She burst through the door to the ceremony room, stamped very unceremoniously up the aisle and to the inhaled shock and surprise of all the well-dressed guests, slapped her fiancé hard across the face.

“Angie?” Danny seemed confused, his voice desperate.

“You fucked my brother!” She screamed.

Everyone turned from the scene to look at Angelo, still standing at the back of the room, looking wild and desperate, but he was looking at the man who he now realised, was very quickly going to be his ex-boyfriend.

Angelo put his head in his hands as the screaming started again, wondering why he always had such awful timing.