Page 21 of Offside Bride

“What?” Emily cries, looking around defensively.

I fight the urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all. “Well, that explains why my blushing bride is MIA.”

“I didn’t want her to feel pressured!”

“Pressured?” I repeat, incredulous. “It’s not like we’re asking her to donate a kidney.”

Owen sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Em, I love you, but sometimes your empathy is a bit…misplaced.”

“I was just trying to be a good friend!” Emily protests.

Before anyone can respond, the front door flies open with a bang that nearly gives me a heart attack.

There, in all her tardy glory, stands Maggie, looking bored and aloof.

“Sorry I’m late but,” she announces, breezily. “I didn’t want to be here.”

“Well, isn’t that just peachy?” I say, even as I lay my eyes on the Venus in stilettos standing before me. She’s the kind of beautiful that makes you forget how to breathe, and right now, I’m pretty sure my oxygen is dangerously low.

She’s stunning in a simple cream wrap-around dress. The kind that falls to the floor in a cascade of fabric with one pull of the sash—the only thing keeping it on her body. She glares over me up and down. “Hello, Sawyer.”

I smirk. “Glad you could grace us with your presence, sweetheart. I was starting to think you’d come to your senses.”

Maggie narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t tempt me. I just couldn’t decide which outfit would best compliment my look of disdain.”

“Well, you nailed it. The‘I’d rather be anywhere else’vibe is really working for you.”

Maggie plants her palm on her cocked hip. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Barely,” I quip. “Though I’m not surprised you’d try to crush my hopes.”

She shoots me a look that could melt ice. “Oh please, like you have hopes beyond your next beer.”

“You wound me.” I clutch my chest dramatically. “And here I thought we were getting along.”

“Oh, shut up and let’s get this over with. I’ve got a date with a lobotomy later so I can forget this whole disaster.”

“What? We’re not spending our wedding night feeding each other cake and watching hockey highlights?”

“In your dreams.”

I wink at her. “Every night, darling.”

The judge looks between us, utterly bewildered. “Are…are we still having a wedding?”

I’m practically in Maggie’s face as say, “We can hardly wait. Isn’t that right, sunshine?”

She doesn’t take her death glare off me. “How could I possibly resist such a charmer?”

“S-s-so…that’s a yes?”

“That’s a yes, that’s a yes,” says Bruce. “Everyone in your positions. Hannah? Where do you want them?”

Hannah leaps into action, corralling Maggie and me across the room. “Okay, so we’re selling this as an intimate ceremony with only close friends. You didn’t want the public to know, okay? But now that it’s out there, we’ll post some photos for the fans.”

She waves the judge over in front of the green screen. “It will go on Sawyer’s official social media accounts even though he doesn’t manage them himself.”

“I have social media accounts?”

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