Page 33 of Cabin Fever

“Yeah, I was concerned with that, too, but I was a pre-teen. And⁠—”

“She had the hots for Finn.” Dahlia holds out her glass to me, but I don’t clink it.

“I may have been a little preoccupied.”

Priya sets her glass on the table. “With Finn. And nipples.”

“Both. Yes.” I groan and lean back in my chair. “And now he’s seen them.”

“Kay, but after the nipple comment, then what?” Priya asks.

Then what.

I reach for my glass. “Well, I cupped my boobs with my hands and said, ‘I get first shower.’”

They gape at me.

“You just walked away?” Dahlia asks.

“Ran is a more accurate description.”

Priya grips my freshly shaven thigh. “Girl. Why in the hell didn’t you just kiss him?”

Because that already happened.

Dahlia watches me like a hawk, and I pretend to have something caught in my throat. I’ve been asking myself that question all day. When I avoided him in the morning, when I found any reason to not be in the room for the past twelve hours.

“Because what would that even accomplish? Finn has his business in Denver, I’m on the West Coast. What, we’re supposed to just sleep together this week, and then each go our separate ways?”

“Yes!” Priya shouts.

Dahlia knows better than to suggest that. Neither of us has ever been one to have any interest in flings. Sure, it sounds exciting for a second, but we’ve both learned from a young age how important it is to be careful with our hearts.

“But what would that accomplish?” I say. “Then I’d go home sad and alone and heartbroken⁠—”

“Well, only if it’s more than physical.” Priya lifts her glass to her lips.

I scoff and take a gulp just as Marisol calls out from the entryway. The girls have arrived.

* * *

Priya runs games the way generals run campaigns. There’s a point system tracked on a whiteboard she either packed with her from Arizona or acquired from Pam, and within forty minutes she has fifteen grown women screaming over a game called “Dahlia or Lie-lia” in which contestants must determine which outrageous facts about the bride are true.

Dahlia once got a personal thank-you letter from the Columbus Zoo.

True.

Dahlia has been banned from an Applebee's.

Also true.

Really, if it sounds ridiculous, the chances of it being true are over ninety percent.

Bev is wearing a sash that says HOT AUNT that nobody provided for her, and she keeps raising her glass and saying things like, “In my day we didn't have parties like this, we just got knocked up and signed papers,” and doing shots of what the bartender calls Purple Devil.

Renata has mentioned her own engagement eleven times already and counting. “This is so fun,” she says. “It's giving me so many ideas for my shower—” and Dahlia looks over. We both drink.

Dahlia sits in the middle of all the crazy in her little white dress, letting the love hit her from all sides. When Mom stands up and dings her glass, my sister's eyes soften.