C H A P T E R 4 6
?Before she says I do, let's have a drink or two.?
As weeks passed, Heather and Amelia's excitement for their friend's wedding knew no bounds. If I hadn't known better, I would've assumed it was their own wedding.
We were in California now, two days before the wedding.
Two weeks ago was the bridal shower which was attended by everyone. After that event, we were all too busy arranging a bachelorette party for the bride-to-be.
Heather and Amelia had said that a simple one is what Brooke would prefer so they had booked a nice resort along the beach for the weekend which was about two hours or so away from the hotel we were staying at.
A lot of planning went into the party. We booked a stretch limo for two days and Heather looked after the decorations at the resort. Amelia was tasked with coming up with fun activities and games to play during the party.
Apart from myself, I knew six of the fourteen girls who were going for the bachelorette party. Among those who I knew were Olivia, Heather, Amelia, Ashley, Rachael and Rebecca. Those who I didn't know were Brooke, Claire, Vanessa, Zara, Pipa, Ruth, Eliza and Callie.
Thankfully, apart from Brooke Juliet never met any of the other seven girls.
At the day of the party, everyone had decided to meet up at Brooke's mansion at around four and then from there we'd go to the resort.
When we reached, I saw that there were two cars already parked in the driveway out of which seven girls stepped out.
We met up with them and together we entered the sprawling mansion. It was as grand as the mansion owned by the Jenson's but it had a different style to it, still elegant nonetheless.
Amelia introduced me to the seven girls.
She told me that Claire was Brooke's best friend in high school but they got separated due to college and Vanessa and Zara were in Claire's college so they became friends there.
Pipa and Ruth were Brooke's friends from her college and Eliza and Callie were the friends she made during the time when she was struggling to make her dad's old company dealing with manufacturing of engineering goods and services stand up to its original position in the charts where it was years ago when she was just a kid.
I admired how all her friends were there when she had nothing and still were when she had everything.
A woman who looked to be around mid-twenties greeted us in the living room.
She was wearing a crop top and palazzo. All the girls flocked to her and she hugged each and every one while asking how they had been.
There was a man next to her who had his arm latched around her waist but she had to push him off to greet the girls.
So they were Brooke Parker and Brian Smith.
They chattered excitedly and congratulated them on their upcoming wedding. When it was my turn, the woman gave me a tight hug and asked me where I disappeared off to for nearly two years.
"I was going through a hard time and needed a breather," I told her.
"But didn't you run away because your parents refused to buy a boy for you?" She asked and Brian chuckled next to her.
"N-no! I was stupid, I did ask them to buy a boy at that time but that wasn't the reason why I ran away." I turned red as everyone chuckled at my expense.
"Oh but Mrs. Charlotte told me that you ran away because of that boy." Brooke jabbed an elbow into Brian's side softly because he was snickering next to her and wasn't being subtle enough.
"I never told anyone the real reason apart from my friends. So they just assumed that it was because they didn't buy the boy for me."
Brooke chuckled and squished my cheeks together while Brian ruffled my hair. "You really are something."
I smiled at her, not knowing what else to do.
Soon after the stretch limo was here, we piled in with our bags and necessities. It was a good two hour drive to the resort.
Brooke and Brian seemed to take forever to say goodbye. We had to wait in the bus for at least fifteen minutes before Brian finally let her go. It was cute to see them together and stuff but I really wanted to get to the resort.
"You sure you don't want me to go with you?" Brian asked just as the door of the limo was about to close.
"Yes, I'm sure I don't want you there. It's called a bachelorette party for a reason. And if you come with me, then what will happen to your bachelor party?" She rolled her eyes at him.
He shrugged. "I don't care."
Brooke rolled her eyes and most of the girls groaned and told Brian to get off.
"Okay, okay. Geez, you girls are heartless. Taking my soon to be wife away from me and not even allowing me to bid a proper goodbye to her," he whined.
And then they kissed for another five minutes and only stopped when Claire threatened to throw her flip flops at their attached faces.
After then we were finally on our way. The driver drove at a decent speed for which I was thankful otherwise if it would've been fast then I would've most likely puked.
Throughout the journey we sang songs, heard Brooke's story about how she was proposed, ate food, dozed off and clicked pictures with everyone.
It was fun and by the time we reached it was already seven in the evening. We first decided to settle down in our rooms and have dinner after which we would gather in Brooke's room for some fun.
We had a room to ourselves and didn't have to share it with anyone.
The dinner was in a big hall in which only us girls were there along with the staff members. Heather had booked the entire resort for the party for two days and I wasn't even surprised she did that.
They chatted about a lot of things but Olivia and I didn't participate much in the conversation as they mostly recalled old times which we knew nothing of.
After that, Rachael put Rebecca to sleep in her room and joined us in Brooke's room.
"So what're we going to do?" Vanessa asked as soon as we settled down.
Amelia grinned at her. "Indoor scavenger hunt!
A Fifty Shades Of Grey style at that. Now I'll make two teams and the one who gets the most number of items will win!
And as it is a Fifty Shades Of Grey style scavenger hunt, I don't think I need to tell you what you have to find.
" She smirked. "Now, Team A has Brooke, Vanessa, Pipa, Eliza, Juliet, Amelia and Rachael.
Team B has Claire, Zara, Ruth, Callie, Olivia, Heather and Ashley. "
There were some protests against the groups made to which Amelia responded with, "We don't really know Brooke and Claire's friends much so I think this is the best way to break the ice." After that everyone finally agreed to play with the team they were assigned to.
"Now, Team A will search for the items in rooms of girls who are in Team B and Team B will search in Team A rooms. The total number of items is same for both teams, that is five items in each rooms but the team that finds all the items first wins.
Team B, make sure you don't disturb Rebecca's sleep when searching in Rachael's room. "
There were a chorus of 'okay's from Team B.
My team members gathered around and we decided who will go in who's room to search for the items and I was assigned with Ruth's room. Everyone quickly dispersed in the direction of their assigned rooms and I made my way to Ruth's.
I entered the room and started searching for anything that would give me Fifty Shades Of Grey vibes.
We had fifteen minutes to search for the items. Ruth's room was pretty neatly kept so I thought it wouldn't be much difficult to find those things but I was wrong. I searched under the bed, upturned the sheets, went through her closet and suitcases and what not.
Finally after twenty or so minutes, I found all the items. There was a handcuff which was at the very back on top of the closet.
Two sex toys - one was stuffed in a pillow and the other was in one of the drawers which was filled with Ruth's makeup and skincare products.
I found a head harness hidden in Ruth's clothes and a blindfold which I luckily found when I switched on the fan because I was feeling hot and the blindfold was strategically placed on one of the fan blades, hidden from view.
So when I switched on the fan, it fell to the floor and thus I completed searching for all the materials.
"I'm done! I'm done!" I announced once I was in Brooke's room. We were told to wait there if we completed searching for the items. I saw that from our team Brooke, Eliza, Amelia and Rachael were finished. Only Pipa and Vanessa were left.
From Team B those who had completed were Olivia, Heather, Claire, Ashley, Zara and Callie. Ruth was still searching. Olivia told me that she had searched in my room.
After a minute or so, Pipa came out with her items. So both teams were now on the same level.
"Goddamnit, what's taking Ruth so long?" Callie groaned anxiously.
"She hasn't even watched Fifty Shades Of Grey or read the book so I think she's probably not sure what she has to find exactly." Callie explained.
"Oh no," Olivia groaned.
That was advantageous to our team. I just hoped Vanessa wasn't as clueless as Ruth.
"Uh...I hope I have the right things." We heard Vanessa's voice.
"Yeah, you do have the right things!" Amelia confirmed after going through the items.
"So team A wins!"
We cheered at our win. Ruth looked at her teammates sheepishly.
Amelia, out if nowhere, pulled out a life-sized picture of Ryan Gosling and set it firmly against the wall.
"What is this?" Eliza questioned.
"Well, I know how much Brooke adores this guy. He's like her celebrity crush. So we're going to play a little game of Kiss The Lips. Okay, so who'd like to go first?" Amelia asked.
"The bride!" Everyone said in unison.
Brooke got up and put on red lipstick after which Amelia blindfolded her.
She approached the picture and put her hands out to touch it. She pressed her lips and we all craned our necks to look where the lipstick mark had landed. Brooke was pretty tall so she had kissed half his nose and half his cheek. She removed her blindfold and pouted.
The next to go was Claire. She ended up kissing his chin.
Then Vanessa went up and she kissed him right on the lips. She was the first one to do so.
This was a pretty fun game and I couldn't wait for my chance.
The other went up one by one. Out of Zara, Pipa, Ruth, Eliza and Callie, only Ruth and Callie were able to kiss the lips. Zara kissed his forehead. She was the tallest out of all the girls and if she had stood to her full height, I was pretty sure she would've ended up kissing his hair.
"Sometimes I hate that I'm tall," Zara grumbled as she walked back to her seat.
Pipa was able to kiss a little of the lips but mostly the cheek. Eliza pressed her lips just above his lips.
Then it was finally my turn. I picked a shade of dark pink for my lipstick as many of the previous girls had chosen different shades of red.
Amelia blindfolded me and I walked towards the poster. After thinking a little about where the lips might be located, I finally pressed my lips to it.
I immediately took off the blindfold and to my disappointment, I had kissed him right below his lips.
The next were Olivia, Heather, Amelia, Ashley and then Rachael. Olivia, Amelia, Ashley and Rachael managed to capture the lips perfectly. Only Heather didn't as her lips ended up at his eyes. She must have thought she was really short so she reached up way more than was required.
"This was so fun. I'm going to keep this picture with me." Brooke said. "Thanks everyone who put efforts into making my bachelorette party so memorable. "
"Why are you thanking us for that? It's your last, well second last day as an unmarried woman so of course you deserve a great bachelorette party," Heather said, putting an arm around her and Brooke beamed at her.
"So what do we do next, Amelia?" Pipa piped in.
"We get to quote a line from a movie and the others should guess which movie that line is from! The one who answers first most number of times will get a gift."
"I want to go first!" Callie burst out as soon as Amelia finished talking. We looked at her and then chuckled at her enthusiasm. Looked like she was a movie maniac.
"Okay," Amelia said and handed her a hairbrush to act as a mic.
Callie took the hairbrush mic. "Okay," she said.
We waited for her to say the dialogue. Half a minute passed by.
"Tell us the dialogue," Vanessa said.
"Okay," Callie said and we concentrated for when she'd tell us the line.
Another half a minute passed by.
"What're you doing? Why aren't you telling us the dialogue?" Ruth asked.
"You dummies, the dialogue is 'okay'," Callie said.
Oh.
"The Fault In Our Stars!" Brooke answered first followed by others who said the same. It was too easy.
"Correct!" Callie said and passed on the mic to an eager Rachael.
"I'll make him an offer he can't refuse."
"The Godfather," Olivia was the first to answer.
After that, Olivia was given the mic. She took a few seconds to decide on a dialogue and finally said, "I am big! It's the picture that got small."
Yup. We were all thinking up old movie dialogues.
"I know which movie this is but I don't remember the title," Claire groaned.
"I'm hearing this dialogue for the first time," Eliza said. "And the first three words totally made me think about something I'm pretty sure is nowhere related to what it actually means."
"I don't understand. What did you think of?" Ruth asked innocently.
Eliza shook her head and caressed her head. "You innocent one."
"Sunset Boulevard!" Ashley shouted and startled us with her outburst.
"Correct," Olivia said and passed the mic to her.
"I see dead people," Ashley said.
"The Eye," Ruth said just as Ashley finished quoting the dialogue.
"Wrong."
"What? Isn't it a story about a girl who can see dead people? Oh, wait, no. She sees the people who are about to die. Right. Sorry," Zara said in realization.
"The Sixth Sense," Brooke said after a minute.
"Correct."
Brooke didn't want to say the next dialogue so Pipa took the mic. "I'm not much into movies so it'll be very easy for you guys."
"Okay, bring it on," Amelia encouraged.
"Why so serious? Let's put a smile on that face," Pipa said.
"The Dark Knight," Brooke said first. I had a feeling everyone was not telling the answers quickly purposefully so that Brooke could win.
"Correct. Told y'all it would be easy."
The game continued on for about thirty more movie dialogues.
In the end, Brooke was declared the winner as she got the most dialogues right and my suspicions were confirmed that it was all planned to let the soon-to-be bride win.
We had a lot of fun. We played more games like Ring Toss, Prosecco Pong, Lingerie Shower Bingo and The Bride Quiz.
The last one was hard for me. I was questioned about how much I knew about the bride, which wasn't much.
I think Brooke got suspicious of me because of this game.
I wasn't able to answer most of the questions about her which Juliet apparently knew.
Brooke kept eyeing me for the rest of the night and I was uncomfortable because of that.
After all of these games and clicking a few dozens of pictures with the bride in a photo booth which was set up by the resort for us who also provided us with a photographer, we partied a bit with everyone getting drunk but within their capacity.
Everyone especially paid attention to Brooke so that she didn't drink past her limit.
A wedding with a hangover would not go well.
The next day, we had a spa appointment. We spent the entire morning after breakfast getting massages, manicures and pedicures, skin and hair care routine.
Finally, we decided to leave after lunch. Brooke liked what we did for her and she couldn't stop gushing about how much fun she had with us.
She had planned on spending the rest of the day with her family. We reached her mansion around five in the evening and she personally said her goodbyes to everyone.
When she came to me, she said something that left me stunned in my seat. "Goodbye, Julie. I'll see you at my wedding."
And with a smirk directed at me, she exited the bus.
Amelia chuckled from beside me. "She knows. She asked Heather and I about why you couldn't answer questions related to her last night and we had no choice but to tell her."
"Oh, I assume she won't tell anyone." I asked hopefully, not entirely sure.
"Of course, she wouldn't. She promised us."
I breathed a sigh of relief.
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