“I know these are just the typical fears of something going wrong, but what if it does? What if neither the wedding dress nor any of the bridesmaids’ dresses fit properly? What if someone snags a heel on their dress on the day? Or, God forbid, what if you guys suddenly hate your dresses and decide you want to change them?”
“This is us you’re talking about. The girls,” I said soothingly. “We love our dresses. They’re going to fit just fine, and if someone snags a heel, I’ll make sure we’ve got some things to fix or cover it with. And nobody, and I do mean nobody, is going to be making any more changes to anything.”
Meghan’s casual wave caught my eye, and when she jerked her head toward the armchair, I moved my gaze over to Olivia only to realize that she was on the brink of bawling her eyes out. “Oh, brother.”
“What now?” Teddy asked worriedly.
I took her by her shoulders and turned her gently to face the other way, toward the shop assistant who was striding over to us with a brilliant smile on her face. “It’s nothing. Why don’t you let her get you settled and I’ll break out the bottle of sparkling wine I brought along? Then I’ll get Meghan and Olivia into their dresses as well.”
The shop assistant heard me talking and smiled even wider. “I’ll have some glasses brought over for you right away. How are we doing, ladies? Are we ready for the grand reveal? Apart from any final alterations you might need to have made, your dresses are ready and waiting.”
I’d planned on resorting to the sparkling wine only after I tried some more of my schoolteacher tactics to calm them all down, but this situation was beyond saving. Meghan was rubbing Olivia’s back and trying to shield her from Teddy’s view with her body by sitting on the arm of the chair Olivia was in. She kept widening her eyes at me, and I knew she was silently asking for my help.
Meanwhile, Teddy herself seemed to be on the edge of hysteria as the shop assistant kept yammering on about the dresses instead of just showing them to her. A girl carrying a tray of glasses came out the back, and I abandoned my intention of hanging onto the wine until we had gotten dressed.
I took out the sparkling wine as well as the sparkling grape juice I’d brought along for Olivia. I filled our glasses to the brim and handed them out. As soon as everyone in the bridal party had a glass, I raised mine for a toast.
Olivia stopped crying, getting up and looking deliriously happy as she raised her glass as well.Damn, her pregnancy hormones are even crazier than my Colt-induced ones.
Meghan let out a relieved sigh and came to join our little circle while the shop assistant told us she’d fetch the dresses. I smiled at my friends, the ragtag group of girls who I would want with me on my own wedding day.
“Here’s to Teddy and Scott. To love and family, and to making it work even when it means you have to lure him to rural Ohio if he really wants to marry you.”
It was a running joke between us all that Teddy had made Scott follow her here instead of doing what seemed to have been expected and moving to the big city after him and his potentially high-powered career. The reminder of where they’d started and how far they’d come seemed to do the trick, and they all giggled even as Olivia’s eyes started shimmering with tears again.
A few swigs of the sparkling wine later, everyone—even Olivia—seemed to have calmed down enough to be excited for the fitting again. Us girls went first, while Teddy sat on one of the chairs in the waiting room with the seamstress and sipped her wine as we modeled our dresses for her.
They were a gorgeous, pastel purple and each of us had chosen our own style. Olivia’s was an empire waistline with thick straps to accommodate her growing belly. It would be able to hide the straps of a bra with proper support as her breasts got heavier, too. Meghan’s was strapless and super fitted. They were both beautiful, but mine gave me butterflies.
It was a lighter shade than theirs, having an almost pearly shimmer to the fabric to make it the perfect barrier between Teddy’s white and their purple. I’d asked for thin straps even though my fitted bodice had a bra built into it, and it hugged my curves all the way to my hips before it flared out with a soft chiffon that hung to my ankles.
I was in love with my dress, but when Teddy finally came out in hers, I couldn’t help but wish that I was the one in the big wedding gown instead. While I never said much about it, I wanted to get married and have a family one day. It was one of my heart’s deepest desires, but the reason I didn’t harp on about it was because I’d secretly always been hung up on Colt.
Maybe it was just because I’d already had a crush on him when I’d realized it was what I wanted, but in the back of my mind, I’d always imagined it being him waiting for me at the end of the aisle when it was my turn. I knew it was silly and that I should move on and find someone else before it was too late, but now that I was around him again, I wanted him more and more—not less.
The sad reality was that I still wanted it to be him I walked toward if I ever wore a wedding dress. Even after he’d left and never even called once. Even after he’d stayed away for so many years and hadn’t made the effort to see me when he had finally returned. Even after he’d been engaged when he had eventually returned.
It was dangerous for me to have him here, pining after him all over again when he would only be leaving again right after the wedding. What I should’ve been doing was focusing on the boys who were going to stick around, but I couldn’t.
It was a bittersweet realization, and one that definitely made it less fun when we went to the salon afterward for manicures and pedicures. Olivia was still gushing over Teddy’s dress, which I should’ve been doing as well.
“Scott is going to faint when he sees you,” she chattered excitedly. “Ten bucks says he’ll be whisking you away to consummate your marriage before you even get to the reception. Just do yourself a favor and use some protection before you end up with a carb-loving nugget in your belly as well.”
Meghan laughed and draped her arm over Teddy’s shoulders, pulling her in for a quick hug. “And thank you for letting us choose the styles we wanted for our own dresses. Yours is gorgeous, obviously, but so are ours. Scott isn’t the only one who’s going to faint. Steve might just try to put another baby in Olivia’s belly that night and Roger is going to make me wear that dress for him for years to come.”
She didn’t say anything about me, of course, but how could she when I didn’t have a man to speak of? Roger had asked her out around the same time Colt and I had started fooling around, and they’d been together ever since. Steve and Olivia had promised each other that they’d get married back in the sixth grade, and they had. Teddy and I had been the only single ones but then she’d gone to visit Colt, and the next thing I knew, I was the odd one out.
Feeling more left out than ever as they talked about their men and how they expected them to react to their dresses, I leaned back in my chair and fought off a wave of loneliness. I was foolish for having carried a torch for Colt for so long, and now I was paying for that foolishness. I desperately needed to find a way to get over him once and for all.
When he left again this time, that was exactly what I was going to do.
13
COLT
“Thanks for giving me a ride,” I said to Scott and my sister, leaning forward from the backseat to speak to both of them. “I bet you never thought you’d have a tagalong to your own rehearsal dinner.”
Teddy laughed. “You’re the best tagalong of them all. You can ride with us any time. Besides, we were all coming from the same place. It would’ve been silly to come in two cars.”