Page 33 of Make Me Want it Too

The woman goes back to her task, shaking her head.

“How is it going with your mom here?” I whisper to Bex.

Bex rolls her eyes. “Wonderfully. Can’t you tell?”

I top her mimosa glass with some more champagne and hand it to her.

“Oh my fucking god, thank you.” She takes a big gulp. “You know Beverly. She’s hardly talked to me since I moved out because she doesn’t agree with my lifestyle”—Bex says the word lifestyle in air quotes—“but now that I’m marrying into a wealthy family of doctors, lawyers, and politicians, she suddenly wants to be a part of everything. They’re all pricks, if you ask me. Jake is the only decent one in the bunch.”

I smile and nod, but I feel my ears getting hot.

Bex’s eyes go wide. “Oh, no offense…about Spencer. But I mean, he’s a complete douchebag, and no one can disagree with me. Exhibit A, he broke up with you. What kind of asshat wouldn’t want to be with you forever? Douchebag. Anyway, you totally upgraded.” She leans in and lowers her voice. “I bet Wood’s way better in bed. Like…” She gives me a mischievous smirk. “How is it?”

My cheeks heat. “It’s new.”

“So, you guys haven’t…?”

“Of course we have. I’m not a puritan. I just don’t want to talk about it...right now.”

“Okay, fine.”

I take Bex’s empty mimosa glass and fill it with only champagne this time.

“And that’s why you’re my maid of honor,” she says as she takes it. “But you’ve got to spill the details soon, okay? I need to know everything. From the beginning.”

“Soon,” I say.

“You wouldn’t want to come to lunch with me and run interference between Saundra and Beverly, would you?”

I’m not sure which mother is worse. She can read my expression before I even answer.

“Didn’t think so,” she says with a laugh. “It’s okay. I’ll see you at the docks at two.”

This wedding is going to kill me.

The sun. It’s playing the long game, but the sun is definitely trying to kill me. I’ve been on the dock for thirty seconds, and already my bare shoulders are hot and turning pink. I don’t tan. I am either white or lobster, nothing in between, unless you count the freckles. Freckles which multiply every summer, worse than the year before. A plague of freckles.

Even in my thinnest sundress and my big hat for shade, the August sun has sweat dripping down my back. I might be an actual lobster by the end of the day. Roasted by the sun, basted in my own sweat. Delightful.

“You look so pretty!”

I turn to see Margot walking down the steps to the dock in a neon yellow bikini top and cutoff jean shorts with rhinestones that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.

Okay, I might have been overdramatic about the sun. The Hayes family, collectively, will be the death of me.

“Thanks,” I say. “So do you.” And she does. I could never pull that outfit off.

She comes up to me, eyes shifting around. “Is your new boyfriend around?”

A knot twists in my gut. A little angry one. “He’ll be here any minute. He just had to run back up to our room to get something,” I say, holding my smile as best as I can.

She steps closer and looks up at me, pushing her bottom lip out. “I always thought of you as a sister—always thought you would be my sister—so I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but are you sure? I mean, about you and Spencer? You two are just perfect for each other. Are you sure you won’t give him another chance?”

I’m not sure what to say. I can’t tell if my face is burning from her questions or the heat.

“I’m pretty sure he’s the one who broke up with me.”

“That’s not how he made it sound when I spoke to him last night.”

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