Izzy’s eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “Oh, Odette. Have I told you lately how much I love you? How lucky I am to have you as my best friend?”
“You haven’t, but I’m willing to hear you out at any time.”
She laughs, dabbing under her eyes to keep the tears at bay. “Oh my gosh. I can’t believe I’m getting married tomorrow.Finally. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this day my entire life, you know?”
Oh, I know. Maybe even better than most. I’ve only been keeping a wedding wish list since I was twelve.
I regretted throwing it away the second I woke up the next morning. Sure, I had Noah in bed beside me, which was great, but not even that could have fixed the sadness that had settled into my chest.
I had finally given up. I said for years that I was done planning. That I had made peace with the fact that I was never going to get married, but still, I clung to that wish list just in case. Crumpling up that paper and throwing it away felt like I had finally closed that chapter in my life.
But the second I did, I wanted to open it back up.
Istillwant to open it back up. I’ve tried to start my wish list over a few times, but nothing has felt right. And how could it? I had that same one since I was a little girl. I took it with me through middle school, when we moved here to Port Harbor in high school, through college, and it was sitting with me the day that I opened my business checking account. It was there for my first wedding and even the last disastrous one we don’t talk about. That piece of paper has been there with me through all of it, and now it’s gone, all because I wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t interested in marriage.
I was wrong. I am interested. I amveryinterested.
Seeing Izzy and how happy and excited she is to marry her best friend makes me want it even more, the curse be damned.
“You’re next,” Izzy singsongs, almost as if she can read my thoughts. “You’re going to meet someone at this wedding. I just know it. There are plenty of single guys we went to high school with, and Craig has so many amazing friends you’re going to love.”
“Izzy ...” I groan. “I thought we tabled this discussion.”
“And I did. I said nothing about any of those guys being your date for the wedding. Besides, you’re already kind of sort of going with Noah anyway.”
“What? I am not!”
“Well, no. Not technically.” She blows out a puff of air, like she’s irritated with me. “But youaregoing to dance with him or else I’ll cry, and you really don’t want to make me cry on my wedding day, now do you?”
Of course I don’t want to make her cry. What’s even worse is that Iwantto dance with Noah, but I can’t. I fear we’ll give ourselves away instantly.
How I’m even going to make it through this dinner without doing just that is beyond me. It’s getting harder and harder every day to pretend like I don’t have feelings for him, and this wedding is going to be the ultimate test. I just know seeing him in a tux will completely unravel me.
And it’s not just how hot I know he’ll look. It’s more than that. It’s how I know he’s going to look at his sister with nothing but love and happiness in his eyes, even though he doesn’t believe in marriage anymore. It’s how he’ll swing his mother around the dance floor. And how he’ll let the little kids of Port Harbor stand on his feet as he dances with them too. It’s all the little things he’ll do that will make me want to break our rules more and more.
But I can’t think about that now. My sole focus needs to be on Izzy and Craig getting their happily ever after. Maybe I can think about mine later.
“All right.” Izzy claps her hands together. “I’m ready. Are you?”
I nod, and we make our way from my apartment, where Izzy will be staying tonight. She and Craig might have done things a little backward, having already bought a house together, but they want to do the night before the wedding the traditional way. The rehearsal dinner is the last time they’ll see each other until tomorrow’s ceremony.
I drive us along the waterfront toward the diner where the rehearsal dinner is being held. Craig didn’t seem too thrilled about the venue at first, but once he saw how happy it made Izzy, he didn’t seem to mind so much anymore.
I’m glad because I sure could use a fat stack of pancakes right about now to get me through this evening.
“No!” Izzy lets out a cry that nearly has me running off the road and straight into the sidewalk.
“What?” I slam on the brakes. “What is it? Is it a spider?!”
“What? No. My earrings.” She rifles through the small clutch in her hands. “I forgot my earrings.”
“Oh? For tonight? We can just run back to my apartment.” I flip on my blinker, ready to pull into a parking lot and turn around.
“The ones for tomorrow. They’re from my grandmother. She wore them at her wedding, and my mother wore them at hers, and now I’m supposed to wear them to mine.”
“Shit.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “Please don’t hate me.”
