After the Wedding

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

When Keisha married Ruben, she planned the perfect wedding—and the perfect wedding cake. But when an uninvited guest ruins the reception, it unravels not only Keisha and Ruben’s perfect day, but everything about their relationship.   

Keisha’s mother always said Keisha led a cursed life, but she never believed in magic. So, when an unexpected event brings Keisha and Ruben back together again, Keisha must make a choice: hold on to her beliefs or place her trust in Ruben once and for all.

Part of Happily Ever Afters, an Uncollected Anthology.

“Rusch is a great storyteller.”
—RT Book Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Feb 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524228170

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. She publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov's Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.   

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After the Wedding

After the Wedding

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing, Inc.

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After the Wedding

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About the Author

After the Wedding

It all went sour one hour after Keisha and Ruben finished their vows. Triumphant photographs taken, family organized in a tight groups, candles placed nearby for mood lighting, even the good Reverend Fisher smiling as if he had done something right.

Maybe he had. The day was beautiful. The sky so blue it looked like a painting, the sun warm but not too bright. Drops of rain remained on the newly bloomed pink heritage roses in the church’s two-acre garden. The caterer didn’t even think they needed the white tent that Keisha had reserved, although when she saw it wasn’t there, she had her mother request it be put up anyway.

And that was when they all heard the scream.

Keisha gathered her organza gown over her knees, kicked off her ridiculously tall, thin, and expensive heels, and ran barefoot across the newly mowed grass—once a cop, always a cop, she reflected later—butting guests aside to get to the woman in distress.

The screams were high and piercing, terrified and out of control. As she got closer, she saw some of the guests (groom’s side, sharing his dark brown skin and his square shoulders) standing, with hands clapped over their mouths.

She plowed through them as well, hands grabbing at her, trying to stop her from going any farther. But there was no stopping her, so the crowd parted, revealing the cake.

The cake. The one thing she had truly splurged on. Keisha believed that weddings were the point of the event, not the reception afterward, although she wanted to show her friends her appreciation. She believed in vows and marriage and happily ever after.

Not some drunken asshole, crushing her six-foot-tall chocolate, white, strawberry, and caramel layer cake, perfectly divided up so that friends could have a piece with just one flavor or with all the flavors mixed in.

She had spent weeks contemplating that cake, and now a man in a cheap suit sprawled on top of it, compacting all six feet down to two feet, the little bride and groom, sculpted by one of Ruben’s friends into perfect replicas of Ruben and Keisha, in pieces on the wooden platform the caterer had placed over the uneven ground.

Keisha stomped around the table, covered with ruined bits of cake. That asshole, whoever he was, owed her $2,000 for the cake. Maybe he owed her $4,000 if she added in pain