Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 22746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 114(@200wpm)___ 91(@250wpm)___ 76(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 114(@200wpm)___ 91(@250wpm)___ 76(@300wpm)
“I’m Daphne’s plus one.” He throws his heavy arm across my shoulder.
“Her plus one?” she parrots. Mom’s eyes dart suspiciously up to Jack’s face and down to mine a few times before she rests her gimlet gaze on me. “Where’s Brad?”
“We broke up.”
Mom scrunches her nose like something smells. “Goodness, and you dragged poor Jack along to pretend to be your date because you were too embarrassed to tell me earlier this week you were dumped again.” She presses her lips together and shakes her head in dismay. “If you had just fessed up when we spoke last week, I could’ve let your cousin Sara bring her date. Your aunt is going to pitch a fit. Well, nothing we can do now. Jack, feel free to hang out in the lobby with the boys. We need to get Daphne into hair and makeup. You look a mess.”
I run a self-conscious hand over my hair that I spent thirty minutes blow drying with the round brush this morning. “I thought only Wendy was putting her hair up.”
“She is, but it doesn’t mean you have to look like you rolled out of bed and didn’t bother to comb it.”
“I think it looks nice,” Jack offers, trying to be helpful.
Mom sends him a look of pity. “Jack, if you’re a true friend, you need to be honest with her. It does Daphne no good to have people in her life that are constantly telling her falsehoods and giving her a false sense of security. I thought you were better than that.”
Jack’s body becomes stiff as steel behind me although I don’t know if it’s because of Mom’s insult toward him or the insult toward me. Despite his tenseness, his words come out easy and light. “Actually, Mrs. D, Brad broke up with Daphne because he knew if he didn’t, I was going to break every bone in his body.”
Mom’s draw drops slightly. Leave it to Jack to oversell this. I elbow my friend in the ribs, but the danged man doesn’t even flinch. “Brad and I realized we were moving in different directions,” I explain.
“She was moving in my direction. Finally,” he says and plants a kiss on the top of my head. “I’ve been waiting for Daphne to come to her senses.”
Again, Mom’s eyes ping back and forth between Jack and me. Her furrowed brow finally smooths out as she arrives at a conclusion that makes sense to her. Laughing lightly, she taps Jack on the arm. “Jack, you’re too good to Daphne. Imagine getting all dressed up to make sure my eldest isn’t pitied. When are you going to find a nice girl and settle down?” She loops her arm through his. “Come inside and tell me again what type of girl you like. There is bound to be someone here we can pair you up with. At least half of the wedding party is single ladies.” She drags him away, calling back instructions to me, “Hustle into the prep room and get your makeup done. Make sure you wear some lipstick. You’re looking ghastly pale.”
Poor Jack looks over his shoulder helplessly as my mom grills him on his dating preferences. I feel bad for him, but he volunteered for this duty. I vow to buy him something nice like a new suit. He’s had that single suit forever, and I can’t believe he still wears the black tie I gave him when he got his detective’s badge.
Or maybe cologne. Yeah, I should get him a bottle of cologne and then buy myself the same scent and I can spray it all over my sheets and pretend—I slap myself on the cheek. What kind of creepy, stalker shit is going on in my head right now?
I’m seriously losing it. I really need to get a grip on myself or I’m going to end up doing something embarrassing. Drinking is definitely off the table. Also, no crying during the ceremony. Jack will feel compelled to comfort me which means physical closeness, and given the state I’m in currently where I’m contemplating buying two bottles of cologne so I can mimic him sleeping in my bed, I can’t be trusted to touch him.
This, obviously, makes it more challenging to pull off a fake dating scenario, but based on my mom’s response, it doesn’t seem like I was going to sell it in the first place. I walk out of the chapel and into a hallway leading down to the small antechamber that my sister is using as her preparation room.
I find my sister sitting in a chair in front of a mirror wearing a fancy-looking corset dripping with lace and faux pearls and—I squint at the sparkles of light bouncing off her torso—sequins? She’s really going all out. I guess you only get married once. Or, at least, that’s the hope.