“Kidding! But I did promise him an open bar tab for life if he saves the waterworks for the reception.”
I turned to Lissa, who had stopped trembling and now looked radiant. The transformation I lived for. “Ready to get married?”
Her eyes welled with tears that, thankfully, didn’t fall and ruin my emergency mascara application. “More than anything.”
A familiar pang throbbed in my chest, one I’d gotten good at ignoring over the past two years. The same pang that had first appeared when I discovered my own fiancé and a client fucking on the mattress I’d had since college only two days before our wedding. The same client whose beach ceremony I’d orchestrated down to the custom-dyed sand that matched her bridesmaids’ dresses.
I shoved the memory away.
“Then let’s make it happen,” I said, my professional smile sliding back into place.
Forty minutes later, I stood at the back of the venue as Lissa and her new husband shared their first dance. The ceremony had gone off without a single visible hitch. The best man had delivered his toast without vomiting again. The ring bearer had remained mysteriously well-behaved (I spotted a suspicious bulge in Devonna’s purse that looked exactly like a confiscated Nintendo Switch).
Mari sidled up beside me, two flutes of champagne in hand. “Another wedding wizarded to perfection.”
“Don’t call me that,” I muttered, but accepted the drink. “And don’t jinx it. We still have cake cutting and four more hours to go. Remember the Donaldson’s wedding?”
“How could I forget? That’s the only time I’ve seen a mother-in-law try to perform an exorcism on a wedding cake.”
“She claimed the raspberry filling looked ‘suspiciously like the blood of the innocent.’”
Mari clinked her glass against mine. “Admit it. You pulled off another miracle.”
I allowed myself a small smile as I watched the newlyweds. They looked at each other like they’d just discovered the answer to every important question in the universe.
“It’s a nice moment,” I admitted.
“Almost makes you believe in true love, doesn’t it?” Mari waggled her eyebrows.
“I’ve always believed in true love. Apparently just not for me,” I corrected her. My heart gave a traitorous little squeeze watching the couple.
“Way to be a Debbie-downer,” Mari said, nudging me with her shoulder. “Nice job with the dress back there, by the way.”
“First rule of wedding planning: Always be prepared for disaster. Second rule: Never say the word ‘disaster’ where the bride can hear you.”
“And the third rule?”
“Don’t sleep with the groom. Or in my case, don’t let your fiancé sleep with the bride.”
Mari winced. “Two years, and you’re still carrying that around like it’s part of your emergency kit.”
“I learned exactly what not to do, which is mix business with pleasure.”
“Or men with pulses,” Mari muttered into her champagne.
“True.” I clinked my glass against hers before taking a sip.
“I’m thinking about becoming a nun.”
A stream of champagne bubbles erupted up my nose, and I choked, scrambling for a napkin off a nearby table. “What the hell, Mar?”
“What?” Mari asked with an obviously fake innocent expression on her face. “It’s true.”
“You wouldn’t last two seconds. You need dick to survive.”
“You’re right,” Mari gave me an evil grin. “You’d make a better nun. You haven’t been laid in two years.”
“How do you know?”
