My stepmother patted me on the shoulder. “Your father is who he is.”
“He’s a dick.”
“You’re his son,” she said. “Besides, I’m sure you were off somewhere cooling off.” She smirked at me.
I screwed up my mouth. “I was trying to clear my thoughts,” I growled.
“And now that they’re gathered, surely you can go through with marrying Camilla.”
“Excuse me? No, I will not be marrying her. In fact, she needs to vacate my condo.”
“You’re so dramatic,” Imogen, my half sister, said. She was at Mika’s kitchen island, flipping through images of flower arrangements for her own upcoming wedding.
“You tell Camilla next time you see her,” I told her. “She needs to get out.”
“Tell her yourself.”
“I’m never going to talk to her again. Or Dad for that matter.”
“You’ll see him at my wedding.”
Mika and I looked at her askance.
“You can’t be serious,” Mika said.
Imogen turned on her, snapping, “It’s my wedding, it’s my big day, and I want my father to walk me down the aisle. If you can’t handle it, then you don’t have to be in my wedding party!”
“Now Imogen,” her mother soothed, “you have already removed too many bridesmaids.”
“I didn’t remove them, they abandoned me!” Imogen shrieked.
A headache started; I was getting flashbacks of Camilla.
“They weren’t being supportive. I can’t have a bridesmaid who isn’t supportive of me,” Imogen continued.
“You’re hyperventilating,” Mika said, handing her a brown paper sack.
Imogen slapped her hand away. “I can’t have a smaller wedding party than Serena’s,” Imogen said then started crying.
I looked around for the exit. But before I could escape, Imogen grabbed my sleeve. “You have to be in the wedding party,” she said, hiccupping.
“I’ll be one of Teddy’s groomsmen, sure.”
“No,” Imogen said, shaking her head. “You have to be my man of honor.”
“Uh—”
“She fired her maid of honor,” Mika said to me under her breath.
“I didn’t fire Kaitlyn, she quit!” Imogen yelled. “She got pregnant, and she cannot be a maid of honor if she’s pregnant, because she’s going to take all the focus off me, and it’s supposed to be my special day. She could have waited to get pregnant; a real friend would have.”
“Why can’t Mika be the maid of honor?” I suggested.
Imogen glared at Mika. “She’s the matron of honor. She’s too overweight to be the maid of honor.”
Jesus.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, backing away.
