I walk and look up, seeing someone smile at me, and I smile back awkwardly, wondering if we met the last time I was here. I put my hand to my stomach, and the anger starts to fill my body.
"What kind of masochist invites the girl he used to love to his wedding?" I look over at Rachel, and her eyes widen. "Think about it? If I would get married, do you think I would send him an invitation?"
She’s about to answer me when I hear someone call my name and turn to see Jake and Frankie coming toward us, both of them in a suit. "Oh my God," Jake says, leaning down and kissing my cheek. "Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?"
"There is nothing wrong with your eyes." I point at him. "How are you?" I move toward Frankie and kiss his cheek while Jake says hello to Rachel.
"Not too bad," Jake replies. "Where are Lydia and Victoria?"
I stand here with my clutch in my hand in front of me, and I can feel my body start to fill with nerves again. "They should be here soon. What about Chris?"
"He arrives any minute, and he’s coming straight here," Frankie explains. "This is crazy," he says and then looks at me, and I feel so awkward being here now. I know in my head I was adamant about coming, but maybe, just maybe, I should have said no.
"We should get inside," Jake says and holds out his hand for us to walk up the steps toward the ceremony.
My heart beats so hard in my chest I don’t even know how I’m breathing, let alone functioning. "Here goes nothing," I mumble when the doors open, and I step in.
Chapter 4
Travis
"How do I look?" I turn around to look at my best friend, Bennett, who stands beside me. The collar of my shirt feels like it’s getting tighter and tighter. I put my finger between my collar and my neck. The tan linen suit was supposed to be light and airy, but it suddenly feels like a weighted blanket pushing my shoulders down.
"You look like you are being carted off to the middle of town where they are going to hang you." He tries not to laugh. "Almost like you have a noose around your neck." He wears the same suit as me, except his tie is in his jacket pocket for now. He promised he would put it on right before we walked down the aisle. Since kindergarten, the two of us have been best friends, and when we got into high school, we did everything together. We tried out for the same sports teams, were in almost the same classes. Even though we went to different colleges, I knew that I could count on him for everything. Now that we are back living in our hometown, it is just like before we left.
"You’re a dick." I shake my head and look around the ceremony space, standing to the side. My sisters really outdid themselves. Gold folding chairs fill what used to be a run-down barn that they restored and made into a church. The back of the barn has floor-to-ceiling windows letting in all the natural light. An arch in front of the chairs looks like vines wrapped together with white roses stuck into them. Soft candles float in vases all down the aisle with vines wrapped around them. "This shit is too tight." I take a second to look around the room and see my mother at the front of the ceremony space, greeting some of the guests she knows. The smile on her face looks fake and stressed, but that could just be because the fire department deemed the kitchen unusable two hours ago. She tries to look calm, cool, and collected, but the meltdown she had this morning was anything but cool. People are coming in, and some have even taken a seat to wait for the main event.
The doors open again, and I suddenly feel a shift move in the space. My eyes go to the door, and everything stops inside me. I blink my eyes ten times to see if I’m dreaming this. "Oh my God," Bennett says from beside me, and what sounds like a herd of horses running through the field fills my ears. I feel like my body is detaching from my bones. "Is that who I think it is?" My hand falls from my neck as if it weighs a thousand pounds. "That can’t be,” Bennett still beside me, and then I see Jake and Frankie with her. "Why the hell would you invite her?" He was the only person I confided in when I broke up with Harlow. He was the one who drove during the middle of the night to get to me and make sure I was okay. I was not. The minute she walked out of the room, I felt my heart shatter to a million pieces. The pain was as if I was being stabbed over and over again. It was practically unbearable. I kept staring at my phone, waiting for her to call me back, but nothing, and after two days of sending her messages, I found out that she blocked me.
"I didn’t," are the only two words that come out of me. My eyes don’t move from her as she laughs at something Jake is saying, and I want to throat punch him. "What the fuck?”
"So, it’s not just my eyes," Bennett says from beside me, and I force my eyes away from her and then turn to him. The shock on his face is apparent when he puts his hand over his mouth. "I can’t believe you invited her." He looks back at her, and even though my head tells me not to look over at her, I do it anyway. It’s even worse than before. I feel as if someone just kicked me in the balls, and my stomach has been pushed to my throat. She’s even more beautiful than she was four years ago. I shake my head and look around.
"Shelby," I say when I see her off to the side hidden in one of the rooms, and I storm over to her. Bennett follows me. "Shelby," I say when I step in the room and see that my sisters are all huddled and look like they are in the middle of a serious situation.
"Oh, hey," Clarabella says, trying not to show how much she’s panicking, but you can see her eyes move around the room.
"Can one of you explain why the fuck you sent an invitation to Harlow?" My voice goes from low to high, and Bennett jumps back to close the door. I turn back to my sisters, lowering my voice into a hiss. "Who the fuck invited Harlow to my wedding?"
"I told you that I was inviting your friend group from college." Shelby points out to me. "I wanted to go over the list with you, and what did you tell me?" She glares at me. "I don’t care, just invite whoever, go over it with Mom, so I did."
"Harlow?" Presley says. "Like Harlow, ‘the love of his life’ Harlow?" She looks at Shelby and then at me while I glare at her. "I mean, not your whole life." She puts her hands up. "The love of his life before Jennifer." She laughs nervously.
"Nice save there," Bennett quips, and she gives him the finger with a sweet smile.
"Okay, the question everyone needs to be asking is why is she here?" Clarabella asks, walking over to the door and opening it, and sticking her head out. She comes back in with her eyes wide. "Damn, not only is she here, that dress." I hold up my hand, and I’m biting so hard on my teeth I think that my teeth might actually shatter in my mouth.
"Clarabella." I growl her name through said clenched teeth.
"I’m just asking." She puts her hands up. "Is she here to object to the wedding?"
"I will kill someone," Shelby says. "There is no one objecting to anything. This fucking wedding is already a wedding that if you weren’t my brother, I would say to reschedule, but." She smiles, and I can see it’s fake. "We are going to make the best of it."
"What the hell does that mean?" I say to her, and she looks at my sisters, and neither of them wants to say it. "Guys, would you please?"
"Okay, well, the kitchen situation is somewhat handled," Shelby starts to say. "If only Clarabella would call Luke and beg him to cater it."
"I would rather get my asshole bleached with lesions." She folds her arms over her chest.
"What is wrong with you?" Bennett looks at her.
"One, he broke up with best friend." She holds up her hand.
"Ex-best friend," Presley corrects her. "Your ex-best friend."
"Whatever, it’s girl code." She throws her hands up to the ceiling.
"Wasn’t she cheating on him, and that is why you stopped talking to him?" Presley asks her.
"It doesn’t matter. He’s cocky and arrogant, and I don’t want to call him. You call him," she tells Shelby.