Chapter 1
Chapter One
Emma
“ Y ou guys ready?” Hallie’s voice filters in from the dining room of my best friend Julie’s house.
I’m sitting in the sunroom with Julie and our other friend Molly, waiting for Hallie’s big entrance. The sunroom is covered in the kind of organized chaos only Julie Parker can pull off. Napkin and tablecloth samples are folded neatly in one corner, and an array of party favor options fill another. A large whiteboard is set up against one wall holding meticulously lettered notes and to-do lists, and the biggest binder I have ever seen sits on the coffee table, full of color-coded folders and dividers. And a tri-fold mirror dominates one entire side, put there specifically for today’s mission.
Marrying former Pittsburgh Renegades quarterback Asher Hansley in a surprise backyard wedding last month might have softened my once ultra high-strung friend, but when the task at hand is planning Hallie’s wedding to the love of her life—who happens to be Julie’s twin brother Ben—Lawyer Mode Julie is fully activated. Today, that includes deciding that the boutique where Hallie bought her wedding dress is too impersonal a location for a dress fitting and talking the store owner into fitting Hallie’s dress right here in Julie’s house, which has been dubbed Wedding Central for the past few weeks.
“Get in here, Hal,” Molly yells.
“Let’s see it,” calls Julie.
I say nothing, just keeping my eyes glued to the doorway where Hallie will be making her appearance.
“Oh boy, okay.” Hallie’s voice filters into the sunroom, punctuated by the click of her heels on the hardwood floor.
When Hallie walks in, my breath catches in my throat and tears flood my eyes. Molly clasps my hand, and Julie’s breath hitches.
“Hallie,” Molly breathes, seemingly at a loss for words, probably for the first time in her life. Julie says nothing, stunned completely silent.
“Is it…okay?” Hallie asks nervously.
Butterflies swarm my stomach like I’m the one standing in a wedding dress instead of watching my best friend try on hers. It’s a reaction I’m used to—I’ve always been able to feel other people’s emotions deeply, ever since I was a kid. To understand what they need, even when they might not know themselves. A therapist I saw for a while during a particularly difficult year in high school called me an empath, said it was a reaction to losing both of my parents when I was eight and being surrounded by so much grief and emotion at such a young age. But I’ve never cared much about the reason why, and I’ve never shied away from it. For me, it’s a way of connecting with the people I care about. And there is no one I care about more than the three women sitting in this room with me.
There was a time in my life when I never thought I would have a real family. Being here with my three best friends—my sisters in every way except blood—and being a part of all the goodness and love coming into their lives, and paying close attention to how they feel through it all so I can support them in the best way I know how, is the best part of mine.
The nervous look on Hallie’s face has me letting go of Molly’s hand and standing up. Facing Hallie, I put my hands on her shoulders and turn her towards the mirror. Gold-rimmed and vintage looking of course, because Molly was in charge of sourcing the mirror and she is not acquainted with the concept of low key.
“Look at yourself, Hal. What do you see?” I ask, my throat clogged with emotion as I watch Hallie study herself in the mirror. The dress is sleeveless ivory lace, dipping low in the front and back, and falling straight to the floor in a soft A-line that skims Hallie’s curves perfectly. But it’s not the dress itself that has me emotional. It’s the look of awe and wonder on Hallie’s face as she looks at herself.
“I see the dress I’m going to wear to marry Ben,” she whispers. “Holy shit. I’m getting married.” Light fills her eyes, and she glows as joyful tears spill down her face, her gaze still glued to her reflection in the mirror.
“You are,” I say. “And you are perfect. Everything is going to be perfect.” Hallie and Ben got together last year after Ben confessed to having feelings for her since they were in high school, and they are beautiful together. There is no way their wedding is going to be anything but amazing.
“Of course it is,” says Julie, getting up from the couch and coming over to stand next to me. “I’m doing the planning.”
“Do you want us to bow to you or something?” Molly snarks, joining us on Hallie’s other side. “Call you queen of wedding planning?”
There was a time not that long ago when Molly would say something like that and it would devolve into full on bickering, but that’s been happening less since Julie fell in love with Asher and opened up a few months ago about how she has been suffering from severe anxiety for most of her adult life. There is a new lightness to her now that makes her laugh and say, “Well obviously. Respect must be paid.”
“Hallie, everything about this dress is perfect. Ben is going to lose his mind when he sees you in it,” Molly says.
She laughs a little. “That’s not saying much. Ben loses his mind when he sees me with unwashed hair and leggings I’ve worn for three straight days.”
“Lucky bitch,” Molly mutters. “You too, queen of wedding planning,” she says, pointing at Julie. “I saw the way Asher looked at you last week when we came here after Pilates. He was thirty seconds away from devouring you whole and you were gross and sweaty and not even wearing a cute workout outfit.”
Julie and Hallie’s eyes meet in the mirror, and I can feel the understanding pass between them. The kind of contentment that comes with the confidence of rock-solid love and a man who adores every inch of you. I’m so happy for my friends, and I loved watching them both fall in love. And if there is a small part of me that wonders whether I’ll ever find the kind of love they found with their partners, well, I’m only human. I keep that part of me close, only taking it out and examining it late at night when I decide it’s a good time to torture myself with what ifs and bad memories.
“I know it seems crazy to be getting married in two months, but once we decided we were ready to set the date, I just didn’t want to wait.” Hallie’s eyes are still on her reflection as she speaks. “I’m so ready to be married to Ben.” Her voice wavers a little and she reaches back for my hand. I squeeze hers in a gesture of support, my own eyes filling again, Hallie’s emotion palpable.
“We can do it.” Julie’s voice is firm with the confidence and certainty she typically saves for her clients at the law firm the four of us own together. “You don’t need months and months to plan a wedding. That’s what the wedding industrial complex wants you to think so you end up all stressed and strung out and do stupid shit like spend fifty thousand dollars on flowers. Two months is plenty of time. My best friend is marrying my brother, and I won’t allow it to be anything but perfect. Trust me.”
I reach for Julie’s hand too. “If I ever go to war, I want you leading the charge, Jules. Seriously, you could rule the world.”
“Fucking right, I could. But I don’t really want to. Just maybe my little fiefdom right here, making sure we have a successful law firm and really well-planned weddings.”
Molly snickers. “Now that you’re no longer radiating anxiety all the time and understand the meaning of the words down time, I think you do a really good job keeping us all in line at the firm.”
“Mol, I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Yeah, well, it’s Sunday so you’re not ordering us around at work, and Hallie is standing here in a wedding dress. I’m feeling my feelings.”
“Just for that, I’ll plan your wedding too, when the time comes.”
“As if,” Molly scoffs. “No wedding for me, babe. Why settle down with one man when there are so many men to have fun with. Looks like your wedding planning side hustle will end with Emma’s wedding.”
My stomach twists at Molly’s words but I cover it up with a snort. “And who am I marrying?”
Hallie’s eyes meet mine in the mirror, and hers are full of amusement. “I’m pretty sure there’s a tall, dark, and handsome former hockey player who would volunteer as tribute, if you ever stop turning red and getting flustered whenever he tries to talk to you.”
“You can’t deny he’s liked you for years, Em,” Molly says. “You should put that poor boy out of his misery and just talk to him.”
I sigh, tired of the long-standing Jeremy likes Emma but Emma can’t talk to Jeremy bit, but I’m unwilling to put a stop to it because that would involve telling my friends the truth about what actually happened between Jeremy and me, and that’s something I’m not ready to do yet. Maybe ever. Probably never.
Eight years is a long time to ruminate over a one-night stand, but when you have one amazing night with the seven-years-older man you had a two-year-long crush on, and then he runs out the next morning with a guilty face and haunted eyes, that tends to stick with you. And when that seven-years-older man is a part of your friend group and also one of your clients, there’s no escaping him.
I do fine when he’s client Jeremy and I’m sitting behind my desk dispensing legal advice and telling him what to do. But when he’s flirting with me or tossing a heavy arm around my shoulders or remembering that I like sugar instead of salt on the rim of my margaritas, my brain re-plays our night together and the way his face looked as he walked out of my bedroom. I end up red-faced and stammering with a mixture of simmering anger and deep humiliation and a touch of guilt that I didn’t make him tell me the real reason he was running away. Because there was absolutely a real reason, I’ve just never been able to work out exactly what.
I was twenty-two and didn’t know how to start that particular conversation with him, so I never said a word. The more time that passed without me bringing it up, the harder it got to say anything, so I didn’t. And now here we are, eight years later, and the awkwardness between us is weird and uncomfortable and you would think, as a grown ass adult, I would be able to figure out a way to fix that. But I haven’t. I’m all too aware of what the issue is but have no fucking clue how to solve it.
Self-awareness is a bitch.
I shove those thoughts to the back of my mind. Today is Hallie’s day.
I paste a grin on my face and turn to my friends. “He’s not for me. I think I need someone a little less…intense.”
The words taste bitter on my tongue because his intensity is one of the things that first drew me to him—one of the things that still draws me to him, despite the anger and humiliation of it all.
Molly’s brow furrows in thought. “Jeremy’s not intense. He’s, like, the opposite of that.”
I realize my mistake, but it’s too late to do anything about it. They don’t think Jeremy is intense because they only see what he wants them to see. I see more. I see what’s underneath that gregarious, charming, former athlete perfection he shows to the world, but I can’t tell them that because then I would have to explain how I know what I know, and that’s definitely not happening.
“I meant all the former athlete cockiness. It’s not for me. I like my men a little…quieter. Outgoing means going out and talking to people, and you know how much I hate that. I’ll leave the former athlete thing to you, Jules. You do it so well.”
“Damn straight, I do. But he makes it easy.” She looks down at the rings on her finger and I know she’s thinking about Asher. The love painted all over her face is so raw that I almost have to look away. I’m grateful when Julie snaps back into wedding planner mode.
“Okay, enough gossiping. We have a wedding dress to fit,” she says as the seamstress walks in from the dining room. “But before we get started, Paula, would you mind taking our picture?” she asks, holding out her phone.
“Of course. Hallie, you look spectacular. You’re going to make my job easy,” Paula says, as she holds up Julie’s phone. We all lean in towards Hallie and smile, our arms around each other.
“I love you guys,” Hallie whispers, her voice brimming with emotion.
“Love you back, Hal,” I say, leaning my head against hers, thinking that no matter what happens, I’ll be able to get through anything as long as I have my friends by my side.