Chapter 40 Misty
MISTY
“Not being able to fit into your wedding dress is an omen. A bad one.”
“Just help me, Sienna,” Lucy huffs.
My younger sister has her foot braced against the wall and is trying to tighten the corset snug around my waist.
Sienna crosses her arms. “I’m not aiding and abetting Misty’s terrible decisions. I will not hold you as you cry when he inevitably breaks your heart again. And if I see anything resembling an Austen love box, I’m throwing it in the nearest dumpster and setting it on fire.”
“I can’t get it much tighter,” Lucy grunts.
“Just try the buttons.” I press a hand to my rib cage as Lucy fastens up two more buttons, then can’t get the third.
“It’s okay. I have two days until I’m going to be married. I can slim down. I’m going old school—cabbage diet and lemon water.”
“That’s going to be a fun wedding night.” Sienna snorts.
“Maybe it will scare Austen away long enough that he won’t get her preggo, and she’ll stop ovulating and come to her senses and run back to Talbot.” Lucy tugs at the dress.
“Talbot lied to me. He doesn’t love me. He was just using me.” I sniffle.
“I’m stuck in a horrible Christmas Groundhog Day. Austen’s going to leave her at the altar, and then we’re going to start this same horrible year over again.” Sienna flops back on my bed.
“You don’t understand,” I cry. “This might be my last shot at having a happily ever after, of a baby and a house with a Christmas tree and family photos in matching pj’s.”
“Alright, what’s the plan, girls?” Granny Keagan slams the bedroom door behind her. “I’m ready to run interference. I can keep Pamela out of the way so Talbot can off Austen on the night before Christmas.” She rubs her hands together. “How’s he taking him out? Poison?”
She bustles around the room. “I gotta say, I’m glad to see you taking an initiative. Girls can do everything a man can do, including killing their own exes.”
“No, Gran. Talbot’s gone. He’s not killing Austen. I’m marrying Austen for real.”
Gran throws a paper-wrapped garlic-and-cheddar roll at me.
“Ow!”
Cocoa rushes to eat it.
“Shame! Sienna, how could you let this happen?” Granny Keagan thunders. “I don’t want great-grandchildren with Austen’s nose and his tiny pecker.”
“I’ll still work at the café, Granny.” I wrestle the bread away from Cocoa and unwrap it.
“I don’t care if you work at the café anymore.” Gran swats at me with a pillow. “I’d throw a party and even invite Pam if you rode off into the sunset with that hunk of Christmas beef.”
“The fact that you just ate half that garlic-and-cheese roll tells me that you secretly don’t want to marry Austen,” Sienna tells me pointedly.
“I only had a bit. I didn’t—oh.” I look down at the half-eaten bun. “Where did that go?”
“We can just put one of these big bows from the Christmas tree to cover up the part that doesn’t close.” Lucy holds it up.
“Signs. I’m seeing signs everywhere. The apocalypse is nigh.” Sienna throws up her hands.
“See, it mostly covers it up.” Lucy fluffs out the bow. “With the veil, I don’t think most people will notice.”
“Yeah, they’re going to be too shocked thinking they time traveled back to last year,” Sienna grumbles.
The ring on my finger sparkles. “Austen means it this time. Everyone goes through a rough patch.”
“Yeah, and his rough patch was supposed to end with him bleeding out on the floor. What happened to self-respect? What happened to taking charge of your destiny?” Gran shakes her fist at me.
“I am. I’m getting married.”
“You forgot Talbot that quickly? I saw that man’s dick.” My grandmother shakes her head. “A woman doesn’t forget something like that.”
Sienna fist-bumps her.
Gran continues, “It’s because it hasn’t even been a week since she last rode his sleigh. Once we head into three weeks, she’s going to seriously regret—”
“So I guess this means you’re not helping me cater my wedding?” I ask Granny Keagan.
“Oh, I’m catering the wedding, but only because I’m holding out hope that it’s gonna turn into a funeral. I believe in Christmas miracles.”
I stand at the kitchen island, putting the final frosting holly flowers onto the cake. I decorated it to look like a pile of presents that a man might give his new bride for their first Christmas together.
The bows are made out of icing and dusted with gold powder. Tiny edible silver balls are carefully placed on the bright-red frosting of the presents into little star and snowflake patterns. They glitter under the light from the island pendants.
I should be happy. I’m getting married tomorrow.
“Don’t try to stop me. I’m not staying here any longer.” Brielle. She storms down the hall, her and Ryan’s voices echoing. “I’m staying with Lauren, and I’m never coming back here.”
Is this the end of the loving daddy-daughter relationship? Hardly. When we were teens, this was a bimonthly thing with Brielle. She’d blow up at her father at a perceived slight, leave for a couple days, then she’d be back when Ryan either gave her money or caved on whatever her demand was.
“You believe Lucy over me, and what? You’re going to walk Misty down the aisle? You were supposed to be walking me down the aisle, Daddy. I’m never coming back here again! I’m never speaking to you again if you walk her down the aisle after she stole my boyfriend.”
“He was going to walk you down the aisle after stealing Misty’s boyfriend,” Lucy screams from the top of the stairs.
“Fine, then you and that cow you married can walk her down the aisle. And when I do find true love and get married, you won’t be there, Dad.”
The whole house shakes as the front door slams.
“I have a mini dog-friendly cake for you, Cocoa. Don’t worry.” I spread whipped-cream frosting on the vanilla cake.
Ryan has dark circles under his eyes when he comes into the kitchen. He shakes his head, slightly shocked to see me there. “You’re making your own wedding cake?”
“It’s a wedding the day before Christmas. The best I would be able to do is buy a cake from Costco, and that’s not going to work. Oh, for the buffet, I made sure to make the seafood chowder puffs. I know it’s your favorite.”
He cringes, looks guiltily towards the front door. “I, uh, suppose Brandon can’t make it from New Zealand on such short notice?”
“No. I was thinking maybe Cocoa would walk me down the aisle, you know, just to help lighten the mood since I’m sure it’s going to be a little awkward.”
Ryan’s shoulders relax and sag. “I think that’s a really clever idea, Misty. Cocoa, are you ready for the wedding?”
“She wants her wedding cake.” I set a dog treat cut into a Christmas tree shape on the floor for Cocoa.
The wedding still seems abstract, even though I’d dreamed of the day I’d marry Austen since I was a little girl then dreamed for the past year of the day he would wake up and remember that he loved me.
Except the past couple weeks, for the first time in my life, it wasn’t Austen I imagined standing waiting for me at the end of the aisle—it was Talbot.
Suddenly, it hits me.
I don’t want to get married. Not to Austen.
What I want is to be a normal girl from a normal family who met a normal boy at a normal Christmas party, and he thought she was pretty and she thought he was handsome and funny and kind, and they fell in love.
Instead, I have this monstrous pageant of a romance.
But I’m going to marry Austen anyway.
I hope I don’t regret it.