“No, I’m not!” she said indignantly.
“Yes, you are. The excessively long meetings, the discussions about trivial inane details…”
“No detail is too small for the perfect wedding!” Brea protested.
I leaned over the table, palms pressed flat against it. “You’re trying to live your dream of being a bride vicariously through Liz.”
“Never.”
“Admit it.” I jabbed a knife hand at her, since it was rude to point after all. “But there’s one thing you sorely miscalculated on.”
She glared at me, and I smirked at her. “I was in the Marines. All I did, all day long, day after tedious fucking day, was suffer through boring meetings complete with hideous text-heavy PowerPoint presentations. Now that I run a company, I spend my day in more boring, tedious meetings. I’m not going to be the one who quits. You are.”
11
Brea
“Why are there men at this bridal tea?” Elsie asked a week later, wrinkling her nose as she arranged an elaborate tier of tea sandwiches on the buffet table.
“There aren’t supposed to be,” I said in shock. I had spent the last week carefully planning a tasteful feminine event with imported teas from Asia and Russia and light games.
Now there was a group of tall, dark-haired men in suits crowded around the front of the room next to one of the alcohol tables.
“Oh, Brea, don’t be mad!” Liz said. “I had to bring Wes. I hardly ever get to see him. And he was only going to come if he was allowed to bring reinforcements.”
Mark took up one of the champagne flutes, each with a plump raspberry for decoration, and drained it.
“I think the raspberry could have been sweeter,” he drawled, coming over to me. “I would have thought you would have caught that.”
“You can’t be here. We don’t have enough food,” I said flatly to Mark.
“Another demerit against your so-called excellent wedding-planning skills,” he said, loading up a plate of sandwiches.
“You need to put some of those back.”
Mark leveled his gaze at me and turned the plate over. The little sandwiches bounced onto the tiered glass platter. I bit back a curse and hastily rearranged them.
“That green one is in the wrong spot,” he said, watching me.
“It’s a cucumber sandwich,” I shot back. “And you’re supposed to takeoneof each. This party is providing light refreshments, not a meal.”
“Hm,” Mark grunted. “I figured it would be one of those parties where the food was more decoration than anything else. Fortunately, I brought snacks,” he said as he walked away.
“You—” My eye twitched, and I trotted after him. “You brought outside food?”
Elsie was going to kill me! She wasveryserious about her catering and would take it as a personal insult if someone had brought other food in. As it was, I knew she was fuming that I hadn’t told her that four large, hungry men were going to be at the party.
Mark sat down at a table and opened up a large pink-and-silver gift sack he had with him then began placing carton after carton of food on the table. A glob of glistening barbecue sauce dripped on one of the white linen tablecloths.
I hastily wiped it off with my hand. I didn’t have a napkin, so I just stuck my finger into my mouth.
“Kinky,” Mark said, and I kicked him.
“Is that barbeque?” Liz asked, eyes wide with pregnancy cravings. She made her way over. She wasn’t quite big enough for it to be a waddle, but she was starting to do a pregnant-woman shuffle.
That baby is going to be huge, I thought, looking between her and Wes.
“We have tea sandwiches,” I told Liz. But as I smelled the smoked meat, even my mouth was watering.
