“Respect, Katie.” Meredith offered her a fist bump, and then it only took three seconds after their knuckles knocked for someone to squeal, “Let’s play!”
The bed full of bridesmaids cheered, and I heard myself cheering right along with them. Was I nervous? Yes, my pulse was pumping, but with both nerves and excitement. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed games like this.
“Truth or dare?” Amanda asked Yasmin.
Yasmin considered, then said, “Truth.”
“Booooo,” Katie and Meredith crowed.
Amanda shushed them, then returned to Yasmin. “Hmm…who was the last person you searched on Instagram?”
“Oh my god, that’ssucha softball,” Courtney said.
But nevertheless, Yasmin blushed and answered so quietly that everyone went, “Huh?”
“Bieber,” she spoke up. “Justin Bieber.”
Meredith promptly whacked her with a pillow.
“I’m not going to apologize,” Yasmin said through giggles. “Call me a Belieber, his concerts are life-changing!”
“Sorry, but Justin Bieber isnoHarry Styles,” I said as I helped myself to a slice of Brie. “Harryween at Madison Square Garden will go down in history as the most mind-blowing concert of all time. My thirteen-year-old-self lost her voice for two days.”
“And I lost mine for three,” Reese said. “So I completely cosign that.” She mimed dashing off her signature.
“Truth or dare?” Courtney asked Paige.
“Dare.”
“I dare you to go rearrange Aunt Stacy’s spice cabinet.”
Katie cracked up and fell back against her pillows.
“You two areevil,” Amanda breathed. “She is going to lose her shit…”
Paige smirked. “It’s done!” she announced after disappearing downstairs for five minutes. “Everything is officiallyun-alphabetized.”
“Katie!” Meredith said brightly. “Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” Amanda answered for her.
Meredith took a sip of her rosé and then scratched her chin, pretending to think. “Okay, I dare you…” She paused to build the suspense. (Admittedly, I barely took a breath.) “To put Stephen’s hand in a bowl of warm water.”
Katie blinked. “What?”
“You heard me,” Meredith said, lips curling into a smile.
“You want me to make your husband wet himself?”
Meredith nodded. “I do.”
The rest of us took that as permission to cackle, and we cackled harder when Katie gingerly got off the bed and moved at snail speed toward her bedroom door.
Austin is going to die, I thought as I filmed her slo-mo exit. Maybethiswas one of the things he loved about Katie. Her willingness—or, in this case, unwilling willingness—to step up to a challenge.
“Oh my god,” Yasmin said a few minutes later, still wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Meredith—”
Whatever she was about to say got cut off; suddenly the door flew open and Katie ran through it, water sloshing out of the bowlshe held. “I didn’t even make it to the bed,” she told us. “Let alone pick up his hand.” She looked at her friend. “He knew it wasn’t you based on my footsteps alone; he knows yours by heart.”
