My Cardboard Balcony

Second Night by Belinda Roddie We spent an evening at Brown's house, exactly twenty hours after the wedding, and, like bastards from the Shetland Islands, we passed bottle and flagon around and felt hot honey whiskey burn our innards. I wore my silver band with pride and an ounce of courage, and my best man wrapped a leftover ribbon around my wrist as a half-assed symbol of fortune. In the hotel across the way, my new wife cut her long locks to give herself an older look, and she knew I would adore the pixie cut, and she would adore it, too. And ultimately, when the mead had sunken like stone into my cavernous belly, I'd walk back to our room where the champagne bottle was empty, and the rose petals were wilting, and her flesh was raw and inviting like the cold waves of salt settling on the shores of Lerwick.

Angel revved up the engine before sliding his hands across the steering wheel, the rubber sticky and cracked from all the sweaty summer days he and Michelle had spent down south. Reaching down for a cigarette, he realized that he did not have one, and he grumbled incoherently as he drove his truck away from the cabin. It was two hours before the wedding, and he needed a smoke.