It should have been weird, lying in bed next to a woman I wasn’t even really friends with, but something aboutWren and Miranda felt welcoming. I wasn’t part of the team, but I wasn’t an outsider anymore either.
“Grab that remote,” she said to Miranda. “Let’s put on some TV. We’ll see if Sylvie can stay awake for more than ten minutes.”
The screen opposite the bed flashed, and I winced.
“Close your eyes if it’s too bright,” Wren said from beside me. “Just listen.”
Miranda flicked through channels, stopped on one. A smiling bride stood in a wedding dress salon, surrounded by an entourage. Miranda sat back with a satisfied smile and set the remote on the table beside her. “Perfect.”
Wren leaned forward and looked around me at Miranda, her face twisted in a scowl. “Seriously? There’s not, like, an action movie on or something? A good R-rated comedy?”
“I like this,” Miranda said, ignoring Wren’s pushback. “Look, everybody’s happy. The only problem they have is finding the right dress, and they’re in a store with a thousand of them. Problem solved. Plus, I get the fun of looking at pretty dresses without having to try any of them on.”
“Hmm. That’s a point,” Wren said, sitting back. She studied the very curvy bride on the screen, showing off a gown with more bling than fabric. “But that dress is…uh. Can a wedding dress be skanky?”
I cracked my eyes to peer at the screen and saw a bride with what looked like solid double-D cups spilling out of a corset-style dress made of mostly transparent lace. “That one is,” I said.
“She looks hot,” Miranda said as the bride turned for her family to see. “Stripper hot, but still hot.”
We all watched the mother of the bride have conniptions over the dress while the bridal salon staff tried tonegotiate peace between the bride, who wanted to show her stuff, and the mother, who wanted her covered from head to toe.
“That one wouldn’t be my choice,” Miranda added as the bride finally agreed to try something else.
Beside me, Wren scoffed. “If you ever get married, I’m pretty sure you’re going to do it in an olive-green T-shirt and cargo pants.”
“I would not,” Miranda said. “They’d be black cargoes. Definitely. Weddings should be formal.”
“There’s formal combat gear?” I wondered aloud in a raspy whisper.
On either side of me, I heard a giggle in stereo.
“For Miranda, there is,” Wren said. She curled on her side, re-plumping the pillow under her head. “I think I could rock a wedding dress.”
“What would you get?” Miranda asked.
I let my eyes drift closed and listened to them talk.
“I don’t know,” Wren mused. “I’m short, so no ball gown. Maybe a minidress. I like that one.”
I cracked my eyes to see a tall, dark-haired bride walk out in a dress that was entirely polka-dotted tulle and cut a few inches above her knees. It was pretty. Kind of.
I let my eyes slip shut again and whispered, “No. Slinky.”
I sensed Miranda shifting in her chair, maybe to look at Wren more closely. “Syl’s right. You could pull off slinky,” she said. “You’ve got great legs and a nice rack. Not too big, not too small.”
“Says you.” Wren laughed. “I think they’re too small.”
“They fit your frame,” Miranda countered. “You’d kill in a slinky wedding dress, but you have to find someone to marryfirst.”
A bark of a laugh came from Wren. “Nah. I’ll just take the dress. It’s easier to find one of those. A husband sounds like too much trouble.”
If Miranda responded, I missed it. I woke later to find they’d moved on to a pottery show where everyone had British accents and were terribly polite—and still viciously competitive. It looked like they were making fish. Or teapots. I wasn’t sure.
Miranda coaxed me into eating some of the now-cold toast. I managed almost a whole piece and the rest of the tea before I drifted off, the throb in my head better but not gone.
Before I passed out again, I managed to ask, “Eli?”
Miranda just shook her head. “Mad’s got him. They’re still out there, looking.”
