Hunter
The wedding was being held at my family residence garden. The altar was decorated with flowers and looked so beautiful that I started to wonder if I’d teleported into heaven all of a sudden. The trees posed as a good shelter from the beaming sunlight, lamps suspended from the branches.
The weather seemed perfect, and gave the place a romantic vibe.
Elaine had gone out of her way to give it a chic and an elegant look. She loved Pinterest and I had no doubt she’d copied some ideas from it.
People had already taken their seats, we’d decided to keep the ceremony private even though my step-mother wanted to do something extraordinary like a Disney themed wedding or something equally outrageous. I’d denied, we didn’t need a lot of people for the wedding to make it special and besides, I didn’t think Blue would appreciate a huge crowd gawking at her, and then asking her questions that she didn’t have answers for .
The only thing that mattered was that we were getting married.
My sister Hannah was the maid of honor, and a few of my cousins were bridesmaids, and groomsmen who’d flown here especially from other parts of the country.
Leslie was wearing a similar groomsmen suit, custom-made. One of the groomsmen, my college friend Oliver had been holding him in his arms, until the fur-ball ran off to smell flowers. I got the impression Les didn’t give two shits about my wedding.
I was nervous; I could literally feel my palms sweating. All I had to do was get through this wedding and I had nothing to worry about. From the last two days, I’d been worried that I’d be run over by a car or just shot by a madman in broad daylight. At one point, I’d been scared of slipping on soap and dying on wet tiles of my bathroom.
Now that I was standing here at the altar, I worried that the trees would suddenly fall and crush me beneath it.
It was already time! Why wasn’t Blue coming out?
Fred was my best man and stood beside me, looking through the entrance of the altar to see if he could spot Hannah.
“How do I look?” I asked him.
He passed me one look of appraisal and grinned, “Dashing.”
When I had looked at myself in the mirror, I knew I looked good. With my golden-brown hair seeming thicker since I hadn’t gotten a haircut for ages, the light freckles on my nose weren’t even visible until you looked closer. Blue always said that was her most favorite best feature of me, along with my silver eyes. And lastly, the cream white tux was tailored to perfection.
“What are the girls doing?” Fred muttered close to me. “I have a feeling the minister doesn’t like waiting.”
I shrugged. “Girls. You know how they are.”
Suddenly, Adrian was making his way towards me. He was hot on his heels and his expressions were giving me anxiety.
What happened? Was Blue okay?
“You need to follow me.” He said.
“Blue...where is she?” I asked.
“I can’t answer here.” Adrian said looking at the crowd. “Come with me.”
I excused myself, gave the minister some bullshit excuse that I wasn’t feeling well and needed some time, and somehow walked out of the aisle with my heart in my mouth.
Away from where the wedding was being held. I walked into a small tent, the place that I’d used for any final touches to the outfit. A large man was seated in a chair with shoulder length hair dark hair, if you looked closely, you could see the dark navy in it, but his features were otherwise roguish and his eyes looked familiar. He wore normal slack pants and a white shirt that expanded over his broad shoulders.
He stood up when he saw me walk inside. He easily crossed six-feet-five.
“Who are you?” I asked, not trying to be intimidated by his thuggish looks.
Adrian cleared his throat beside me, “This is Apollo, Blue’s older brother.”
My jaw probably dropped to the floor. Out of all the days that Blue had been here worrying about her family, her brother had a good timing of finally showing up.
Note the fucking sarcasm.
My hands were curled into fists, I kept them at my side. If he thought he could walk in and declare that he wanted to take his sister back, I didn’t know what I would do. Maybe stab him right here. Instead of displaying anger, I said, “Blue’s wanted to make contact with her family since quite a long time. It’s been around three months.”
“We’ve been searching for her all this time. I went everywhere. I went to Greece first and came empty, then went to Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania. Our younger brothers are touring South East Asia; two of them have split up between India and the Middle East. And then one of the mermen in our community told us they’d seen Blue swim towards the Pacific Ocean.”
It was kind of hilarious if you think of this.
Where is your wife from?
Oh, I don’t know, last I heard she swam from the Pacific Ocean, I picked her up from a beach in California.
“Turns out she was in America, out of all places. Adrian sent me signals and I found my way here.” He said silently.
Something told me Apollo wasn’t pleased with the fact that his sister found her way into America. Maybe he would have much appreciated her in Greece. You know with the same language, the culture and all.
“I’d like to make something clear, Apollo. I did not kidnap your sister. I found her on the beach laying...well, without clothes on. I brought her home, gave her food and shelter.” I cleared my throat. “Taught her the human ways of life. During the time that I have spent with Blue, we realized how much we love each other. You had time before to find her and take her back, you didn’t. Now, I’m going to marry her unless she tells me otherwise.”
He gave me a nod. “I spoke with Blue before I met you.”
“You did?”
“Yes. She says she wants to marry you and has threatened to kill me if I force her to go into our world.”
“But we must take her back, Apollo.” Adrian interrupted. “No matter how noble Hunter is, we just cannot trust humans.”
I threw Adrian a sharp look, and then looked back at Apollo, politely I said, “I don’t need your permission to marry Blue, because I’d marry her one way or the other but I think it would mean a lot to her if you gave us your blessings.”
Apollo stared at me intently. He looked like a man with a lot of patience, which was a good thing. I didn’t want to make enemies with my future brother-in-law, in fact I wanted him on my side.
Badly.
“Hunter,” He began slowly, “This is the first time we’ve meet so I have no way of knowing what kind of a man you are. If I let my sister marry you, it would solely be a gamble made with what Blue has already told me about you, the fact that you are a good man, and that you took care of her while she was with you.”
I gave him a nod, keeping my expressions neutral. The last thing I wanted was to look arrogant and blow this. Whatever he had to say, I was going to listen. I knew I’d do the same way if I was in his place. If my sister ran away from here and say landed on Mars and found an alien guy and told me she wanted to marry him, I’d be worried too.
I’d probably take pity on the alien and tell him how Hannah slept with her mouth open and drooled on her pillow in the morning.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: The Bad Boy And The Mermaid