I sat down on the faded pink quilt on my bed, hugging a pillow to my chest, and inhaled deeply.
The sound of voices drifted up the stairwell, along with the hollow steps of someone climbing the old stairs. Tessa appeared in my doorway a moment later, peering in at me. Her long, honey blonde hair hung down her back in waves, and she was wearing her signature cowboy boots and a cute little sundress. She looked like warmth and light. She radiated it, in fact.
“Do you have some kind of tracking device installed in me that I should know about?” I joked, raising an eyebrow and suppressing a smile. Just being in her presence again had me feeling more at peace than I’d felt in months.
Tessa grinned, propelling her body forward and diving beside me on my bed. She threw her arms around me and squeezed me tightly. “I’m sorry; I couldn’t wait to see you! I missed you!”
“I missed you too,” I told her, laughing. It hadn’t really been all that long since the last time Tessa and I had seen each other. Just two weeks ago, we’d gone shopping for bridesmaid dresses and had lunch. Before she moved away, we hadn’t gone more than a day without seeing each other since we were very small. We liked to joke that we were sisters from another mister.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she sighed, her blonde hair fanning out on my pillow as she leaned back. “There’s so much to do still.” She sounded almost hopeless, as if she thought she would never accomplish everything.
“Relax, we’ll get it done,” I assured her, stretching. I was suddenly overcome with exhaustion.
Tessa rolled over to face me, her amber eyes carefully assessing me. “How’s Alex?”
“He’s fine,” I shrugged.
“He’s not at all worried that you’re in town for the nextmonth?” she prodded, arching a brow, her eyes never leaving my face. “By the way, how’d you swing that?”
“Why would he be?” I shot back, giving her a hard look and avoiding her second question. I still hadn’t told Tessa the real reason why I was back home on ‘vacation’, and frankly…I wasn’t ready to talk about it.
“Because…Braden’s back in town. You’ll be spending a lot of time with him over the next few weeks. Heisthe best man—you guys will be walking down the aisle together and stuff.” Tessa’s eyes had a strange glint to them, and it made me nervous and more than a little cranky. The prospect of touching him again did strange things to me. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to take his arm without popping him in the nose first.
“Alex has nothing to worry about. There’s nothing between Braden and me, and there will continue to be nothing between us. I’m only tolerating his existence because of your wedding.” I frowned.
“Well, hopefully you can tolerate his existence tonight. We’re going out for some beers with the girls—and knowing the guys, they'll probably show up at some point.”
“What, why?!” I demanded, trying to keep the panic out of my voice without much success.
“Why not?” Tessa inquired innocently. She bent her legs and crossed one over the other, her right foot bouncing up and down. “There’s only a month until the wedding. I know you’ve been super busy with work and Alex but the bachelorette party…”
“Relax, Tessa,” I rolled my eyes dramatically and sat up. “Do you think I haven’t been planning for that? Because I have. It’s planned.”
“I know,” Tessa said gently. “But you haven’t really had a chance to talk to any of the other bridesmaids. The girls are kind of in the dark.”
I felt a surge of guilt. She was right, I hadn’t really been in contact with the others, not since we’d all gone dress shopping. I found it difficult to speak to Becky. When I was with Braden, I was a part of the Millers’ lives, of Becky and Aiden’s life. They’d welcomed me in with open arms and we’d became close. When Braden broke up with me, I felt like I had lost them too. I was no longer Braden’s girlfriend, but Braden’sex-girlfriend. It made things incredibly awkward between Becky and me.
As for Krista, well. I hadn’t really had much to say to her in the last several years either. I’d found out months afterwards that Joanna had been the backstabbing bitch to make out withmyboyfriend, Braden, and Krista hadn’t even had the decency to tell me and she had been there. No, I’d had to beg and plead with Tessa to tell me. I told her I needed to know, because I had needed to know. I had hoped that hearing the truth would finally break the hold that Braden had on me.
Instead, I’d lost two friends and became even more bitter and jaded.
But I was going to have to deal with all of that. I couldn’t put it off any longer, Tessa was right—her wedding was approaching quickly and we still had a lot of planning to do. The bachelorette party was scheduled for a Saturday night. We were headed to Toronto to hit up three of the best clubs, capping the night off at a male strip club. I’d already booked the hotel room and the limo.
“Alright, where are we going?” I sighed, feeling guilty for having put this off for so long.
“Just to O’Riley’s,” Tessa responded. “But first, I need to go to Walmart and see if they have any mason jars. Want to come?”
“Why do you need mason jars?” I asked, confused.
“For the centerpieces, remember?” Tessa looked hurt. “I sent you the Pinterest board…”
“Crap, right sorry. I was half asleep when I looked at it,” I apologized, feeling like the world’s worst maid of honor. I’d really dropped the ball in recent months. I pasted a smile on my face, offering my hand out to her. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
* * *
Four and a half hours later, we were sitting at a booth in O’Riley’s, sipping beer and sharing a plate of nachos while Tessa went over her ideas for the centerpieces. She had a mason jar in front of her and some pamphlets from the florist. Krista, Becky, and Katie sat across from us, pouring over the pamphlets and cooing over Tessa’s choices.
“We’ll get together the night before the wedding to set up the centerpieces,” she was saying, looking at each of us in turn to make sure we were paying attention. “The guys will set up the linens and chairs.”
