“I’m not hooking up with your ex.” I made a face and then slapped my mouth. “Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Alice shrugged. “You’re a good friend.”
“I can’t believe she’s marrying him and invited us to the wedding.”
“She’s a bitch.” Alice nodded.
“We don’t have to go,” I said hopefully. I really didn’t want to go to this wedding. I had a really bad feeling that something was going to go awfully wrong.
“We have to go.” Alice licked her lips. “And we’re going to be crazy.”
“I don’t know if I want to be crazy.” I made a face and sighed again. I didn’t want to be crazy, but I knew for Alice’s sake, I’d be as crazy as I could be. Which would be hard, considering my background.
I was the good girl in my family. The youngest in a family of five kids. I had three brothers and one sister. All of whom were crazy and out of control. You didn’t have a family of crazy siblings and end up crazy. You ended up as a good kid. You ended up as the kid the parents were thankful for. You ended up as a Goody Two-shoes. I’d been a Goody Two-shoes all my life.
Up until college.
I went away to college, determined to have some fun. And fun I had. Though it wasn’t thesexing a different hot guy every weeksort of fun. It was thesmoking a joint in a dark room with three of my friends and talking about hot guyssort of fun. Don’t get me wrong; I wanted to be one of those confident girls who just went out and got laid with whomever she wanted. Only I didn’t have the sort of personality that permitted that.
Instead, I’d had three long-term relationships, with three average, safe guys, with some average, safe sex. I’d graduated with a bachelor’s degree as a single twenty-two-year-old, feeling like I was just as boring as I’d been when I started school. I was determined for that to change once and for all. I wanted to live a life worthy of a classy reality show, though I wasn’t sure if that was possible.
Even if that meant making a spectacle of myself at Joanna’s wedding.
“Don’t forget—five big ones, baby.” Alice grinned at me as we walked into the church the next afternoon, both of us slightly tipsy from the free mimosas we’d had with our breakfast. “Just think of all the things you can do with the money.”
“One hundred dollars isn’t going to make me a millionaire.” I rolled my eyes at her as I laughed. “I thought you’d forgotten about that stupid proposition.”
“I had, but then I just saw Luke and Joanna, and I wanted to gag.” She made a face. “It would make me feel a lot better, knowing that someone hooked up at her wedding.” She grinned. “It would be like this dirty little joke that no one knew about, but me.”
“Well, I’d know and the guy would know as well.” We stood next to the pews awkwardly and continued talking. “Also, I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation to have in front of God.”
“God isn’t happy with Joanna either.” Alice made a face and then sighed. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” She quickly made the sign of the cross and screwed up her nose. “Fine, don’t hook up with anyone and don’t make me feel better.”
“My hooking up with someone shouldn’t make you feel better anyway, Alice.” I laughed and then looked around. “Should we sit? I feel like we’re kind of early.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She shrugged. “Or we could just ditch and go get some more mimosas. That sounds like an even better plan.”
“We can’t ditch.” I laughed at the suggestion, though I wasn’t altogether sold on having to sit through the wedding of two people I didn’t really like.
“Please.” Alice made a hopeful face at me.
I laughed again as she made a drinking motion. This time, my head fell back as I laughed, and I could feel someone staring at me. I looked to the left, and there I saw a tall, brooding man with dark hair and a frown on his face, about two hundred yards away from us. I attempted to give him a smile, but instead of smiling back, he gave me a disdainful eyebrow raise and looked away. He then looked back at me and smirked, like he knew I thought he was hot.
“That guy is an asshole,” I whispered to Alice, the laughter gone from my voice.
“What guy?” She turned around and looked toward the entrance of the church, but the rude man had gone, and a group of older women were walking toward us.
“There was a guy up there just now, who was looking at me as if I were some commoner on his estate or something.” I could feel my face flushing red with anger as I remembered his superior look. “I’m not sure who he thinks he is, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with laughing in a church.”
“Yeah, that’s weird.” Alice nodded. “Maybe he’s related to Joanna or something. I think her entire family is full of snobs. No one is good enough for her.”
“I don’t get why he was glaring at me,” I said. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“Forget him. He probably needs to get laid,” Alice said loudly, and I groaned as I saw a priest behind her.
“Good afternoon, Father,” I said meekly, my face burning in shame now.
“Good afternoon.”
