Page 33 of Somebody To Love

“Hey, Penny.” Charlie waved from her seat on the couch. “Ready to try on our potato sacks?”

Cassie scowled. “You said you liked the dresses.”

“Of course I did. Because I’m your best friend and maid of honor and you said you loved them. It’s my job to lie and pretend I love dressing up in blue taffeta.”

“It’s a poly-cotton blend. Not taffeta. What the heck even is taffeta?”

“Hell, according to my mother.”

Penny stifled a chuckle, listening to the two women banter back and forth. A slight ache grew in her chest. She loved being best friends with BJ, but sometimes the fact that he was a man. and she was a woman came into very stark contrast in their friendship.

Yeah, like when he suggests you sleep together.

Dang it! Now she was thinking about that again. Stupid brain. She needed to talk to someone about this whole situation. Problem was, she would normally talk to her best friend. But he was the situation!

“Besides,” Charlie continued, rising from her seat to come over and wrap an arm around Cassie. “You’re the bride. It’s your day. You will be the most beautiful woman in the world and the rest of us are supposed to look like cat puke.”

Lovely visual image there. She didn’t think the dresses were that bad. In fact, she kind of liked hers. The pale blue color accented her fair skin tone without drawing attention to her orange mop of hair like darker blues did.

“But I don’t want you to look like cat puke. That will ruin the pictures.”

“You can always Photoshop new dresses on top of us. Or replace us completely with actual cats. It’ll go great with the cat toss.” Two sets of eyes turned to stare at her. “It’s…um, a thing on the web. This older meme where people remove the flowers in the bouquet toss picture and replacing it with a cat.”

Oh crap, she’d done it again. Opened her mouth and spouted out something only she and a bunch of dudes living in their mom’s basement would find funny.

“Did—did you just make a joke?” Charlie’s lips twitched with amusement.

“Uh, yeah. Kind of.”

“BJ always tells us you’re funny, but I never believed it ‘til now.”

BJ told his family she was funny? Why did that make her heart warm and her cheeks heat?

“Do people really do that?”

She nodded at Cassie’s question.

“Holy shit, you have to show me. That sounds hilarious!”

The two women crowded around her, each grabbing an elbow and dragging her to the sofa. They all sat while Penny removed her laptop from her purse. She never left home without it. They were in the middle of laughing at dozens of cat-tossing memes when a woman in a black pencil skirt, crisp white tailored button-up and three-inch heels came into the room wheeling a dress rack behind her.

“Here we are, ladies. The final adjustments have been made. They should fit perfectly, but if they don’t, we can do some last-minute adjustments. Let me know how they fit. Once you give the okay, Ms. Brown, we’ll have them steamed and ready for your wedding.”

“Thank you, Missy.”

Missy nodded, a smile on her face, and left them to it. They were in a small private room. One dressing partition stood in the room's corner. Charlie stood, stripping out of her black T-shirt with the phrase “I don’t smile, I bite” written on it. The woman had been raised with three brothers and wasn’t shy when it came to…anything, really. Charlie was a badass Penny secretly looked up to. She wished she had the confidence and screw-off attitude Charlie possessed.

Not as comfortable undressing in front of others, Penny took her garment behind the partition and changed. The bridesmaid dresses were cocktail length, hitting right above the knee. Hers went over one shoulder and had beautiful fabric flowers cascading down the strap. It tucked at the waist and flared out a bit in the skirt. Overall, it was comfortable and pretty. She would have to wear a strapless bra with it, but since the dress had padding in the cups, she might forgo the bra entirely. Not like she really needed one.

As she came out from behind the partition, she saw Cassie smacking Charlie’s hand away as the woman tugged at the bodice of her own dress. Charlie’s was completely strapless. Something Penny could never pull off, considering she had nothing to hold up a strapless dress. Charlie had plenty.

“Stop tugging at it.”

“It’s squishing my boobs. The boys can’t breathe!”

“Who the hell makes their breasts guys?” Cassie sighed.

“I do. They’re big, annoying, always getting in my way, and making life difficult. Hence, guys.”

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