“Neither do we,” Skye says, smug. “So it’s perfect.”
Alis’s phone pings on the table. She glances down, then tilts the screen toward us. It’s a photo: Otis asleep, half on Dexter’s foot, half on a book, under a throw blanket Sunny clearly swipedfrom our couch last time she was here. Dex’s caption:Mes monstres préférés. “My favorite monsters.”
“Seriously though,” Skye says, smiling at Alis. “I love him. Like, for you. I love him for you.”
Alis’s smile is so big, and her eyes lit up with pure, undiluted happiness. “Last night he made shepherd’s pie and saved me the corner so it gets crispy. He’s the best.”
“Okay,” I say, clapping once softly to get both their attention. “This is girls’ night, and we have action items. One: wedding spreadsheet. I’ll build a prototype tomorrow at work—budget, vendors, tasks, color-coded tabs that will make you wet.”
Skye perks up in the way only she does at the wordspreadsheet.
Alis asks, “Can there be a tab for vows? Not like… to write them, just to collect ideas. Quotes. Lines from books.”
Skye fans herself. “If you don’t put a line from a smutty Regency novel in your vows I will riot.”
“Action item number two,” I continue, ignoring her. “We pick a standing girls’ night once a month. Literally put it in the calendar. Like, right now.”
Skye snatches her phone and starts a new event calledSHE-WOMAN MAN HATERS CLUB—because of course she’d call it that. “First Thursday?”
Alis nods. “First Thursday.”
“Three,” Skye says, wagging a finger at me, “Tori lets her friends help. No Lone Rangerette mentality. You put your attorney meetings on the shared calendar so we both know about them.”
I open my mouth to argue and then close it. “Fine. Yes. Okay.”
Skye looks unbearably pleased. “Growth.”
Alis chimes in, “I don’t need all the details, but just so I’m caught up: that ball is rolling and the things are happening?” I nod in affirmation.
“Her attorney’s office is, like, right next to my shop, so it’s hella convenient for me to attend all the meetings,” Skye says. “Even theones she ‘forgets’ to tell me about, since my phone pings whenever one of you shows up in my vicinity.”
“Mmmm, yes.” My voice is not at all laced with sarcasm, nor are my shoulders lifted up to my ears. “I love the stalker setting on our phones so, so much. It’s my favorite.”
“Shut up,” Skye chastises, standing and snagging the empty wine bottle off the table.
We migrate to the kitchen for tea because we’ve hit that age where two bottles of wine means death tomorrow. The kettle clicks on; the tile cold under my heels. Skye hums to whatever indie-pop music plays on repeat in her head while Alis stacks plates, rinses olive juice from her fingers, and lines everything on the drying rack like tiny dominos.
“Tell me one fun thing about wedding plans,” I say over the kettle, nudging her shoulder with mine. “Anything. Color palette? Cake flavor? Will Otis wear a bow tie?”
Alis soft-smiles. “Sunny wants constellations somewhere. She keeps drawing them on scrap paper and telling me which one is ‘Sunny’s Star.’” She shrugs. “I like the idea of something in the night sky watching us.”
“Babe,” I say, throat thick for half a second in a good way, “that’s perfect.”
Skye bounces on her toes. “We can do starry escort cards. Or a constellation seating chart. Or tiny cookies shaped like moons that say dirty things in French, just to see who knows the language and who doesn’t.”
“Absolutely not,” Alis says, scandalized. “You forget that my in-laws will be there.”
“Thus the basis of its appeal!” Skye quips back in her best impression of Kat Stratford.
Alis starts pulling tea bags from canisters—mint for her, chamomile for me—but stops when she realizes the Earl Grey is empty.
Before she can ask what Skye wants in its place, we turn to see she’s already popped a new cork and is filling her mug with wine.
“You don’t want tea?” Alis asks.
“No, thanks. I’m recently monogmugamous.”
“Monogmu… what?” I, too, have no idea what she just said.
