“There you are!” Bryce charged at me. “Where the fuck have you been?”
Suddenly my best friend sounded like his former, non-wedding planning self.
“Sorry,” I said. “Something came up.”
“Dude, this is my wedding. If it isn’t perfect, Lindsey is going to have my balls for the next fifty years, if she doesn’t kill me first.”
“I know. I’m here now.”
I searched over the insanity that was the staging room. Music played, panty hose ripped, wine bottles toppled. If it wasn’t for the church, I’d have thought the scene was out of one of my old parties.
I couldn’t find Mandy. That didn’t mean anything. Knowing the Prescotts, they tossed her into the rafters to light the candles with flint and steel or ordered her outside to trim the grass with a pair of manicure scissors.
“Where’s Mandy?” I asked. “I gotta talk to her.”
Bryce actually flinched. “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“I thought she would have told you. There was a…problem earlier.”
A problem?
Oh no. My vision hazed, and my heart nearly ripped from my chest.
Something was wrong. What if I got her upset? She was stressed. What if I hurt her?
Jesus fuck, what if something happened to the baby?
The kid was so new to me, but goddamn did it feel real. I’d sulked in the middle of the night, pissed and raging after the rehearsal dinner. I didn’t know what to do, so I hopped in the car and toured Target’s baby section. I bought the cutest damned onesie I could find.
Green, cause Mandy didn’t tell me the gender. Not that it mattered. I just wanted the baby
And I wanted to raise him or her with Mandy.
My voice caught, ragged and pained. “What happened? Is she okay?”
“She had a fight with Lindsey at the salon. She’s kinda…” He apologized with a shrug. “Uninvited to the wedding.”
“What?”
“It’s been one hell of a day.” Bryce slapped my shoulder. “Thanks for showing up. We’re lining up in fifteen minutes.”
Son of a bitch.
I couldn’t stay for this. Knowing Mandy, she’d be goddamned radioactive now. I wasn’t about to let her get upset and endanger herself or the baby.
“I gotta go find her,” I said. “Sorry, Bryce.”
“Nate, no!” Bryce trembled uncontrollably. “Please, dude. Find her after the ceremony. Don’t leave or Lindsey will kill me.”
I already wasted enough time fucking with my own idiocy. I hated to dick around more, but I couldn’t screw over my best friends.
I’d call her. Make sure she was okay. Then, as soon as they said I Do, I’d be gone.
“All right. Josh and I gotta switch tuxes.” I pointed him towards the bathroom again.
“No. Stay here. Sandra has to go over the routine once the ceremony starts. You weren’t at the rehearsal. You don’t know what to do.”
I grunted. “I walk Carmen down the aisle and stand on your side of the altar. It’s not rocket science.”
“It’s a wedding. It’s worse! Change here.”
“What?”
“I swear to God, Nate—”
“Fine.” I waved him off. “Whatever. Josh, strip.”
Josh was a nervous kid who went into accounting because he didn’t like working in open spaces. I hated causing someone’s nightmare to come to life, but we didn’t have a choice. His fingers trembled just unbuttoning his coat.
Our shirts switched first. I kicked off my shoes and unbuckled the pants, but Lindsey’s shriek echoed over the church.
“Oh, no you don’t, pretty boy!”
Bryce panicked upon seeing his bride and turned away, hiding his eyes. I wasn’t lucky enough to have permission to flee.
Lindsey tripped over the layers upon layers of fluffy white lace and whatever they used to puff the wedding dresses out like old-school princesses gowns. She poked a finger in my chest then aimed south.
“Oh no. I know what you’re firing down there. Your pants stay on.”
“These…aren’t my pants.”
“Well, you’re not getting in Mandy’s anymore, so forget it.”
“Thanks…” I gritted my teeth. “But I’m trying to get in Josh’s now.”
Lindsey snorted. “Well, at least he doesn’t have a uterus. Knock yourself out before you knock someone else up.”
If my pants weren’t at my ankles, and if every bridesmaid I’d slept with wasn’t staring at the moneymaker I used to knock up the bride’s innocent little sister, I’d have let Lindsey know exactly what I thought of her damn wedding. Instead I kicked the trousers to Josh and worked on buttoning the dress shirt.