Page 1 of Maid of Dishonor
1
VERONICA
I don’t know what Bridget was thinking when she asked me to be her Maid of Honor. Don't get me wrong. She's been my best friend since first grade when Tiffany Nigel laughed at my thrift store clothing and started calling me Veronica “No Money” Mahoney. Later that day, when the nickname really seemed to take off at my expense, Bridget caught me pouring finger paint into Tiffany's backpack. I thought that she would snitch on me for sure, but she ended up taking the blame when the teacher held back the whole class from recess to find out who the culprit was. She told me later that she’d planned to get Tiffany back for me, but I beat her to it. And we’ve been best friends ever since.
Loyalty and honesty are something I value above all else in my relationships. When you grow up with nothing in a rundown double-wide on the "wrong side of the tracks" in a town of haves and have-nots, you find the value in other things that mean the most to you. Bridget showed both of these qualities to me that day and every day of our friendship ever since.
This is why I've been busting my ass to fulfill the role of Maid of Honor for her leading up to her big day—and planning this trip has been no exception.
You’d think that putting together a bachelorette weekend in Vegas with just five people wouldn’t be too hard, but it has seriously tested my Irish temper. If I didn’t know that this was going to be a relaxing and fun weekend, I can’t tell you what would have happened if my smart mouth got the better of me.
“Mike’s not picking up,” Bridget says, switching her phone to airplane mode as the flight attendants have instructed.
The annoyance I already feel towards my best friend’s fiancé is exacerbated ten-fold when he doesn’t have the decency to pick up the damn phone when she calls him.
This type of behavior isn’t shocking from him, but it’s something Bridget seems willing to put up with, despite me and Jessie, our other best friend, telling her that she could do so much better. But when he proposed, and she accepted, I knew that we had to abide by her decision. Even if that meant talking a tipsy Jessie out of saying anything else to Bridget about him over a pitcher of margaritas.
"He's probably at the office, or he's left his phone in his car again," I say, repeating the excuses he’s given to Bridget before.
I’m doing the best I can to keep her from losing it from all the stress of planning this wedding that’s weighing her down. I mean, Mike has been zero help when it comes to any of the decisions or preparations. He wants nothing to do with the helping until he suddenly does. Then he picks some random detail that can't be changed without costing a fortune and digging his heels in until he gets his way. It’s almost as if he’s trying to sabotage all our hard work so the wedding doesn’t happen. Jessie says my inability to trust people has me thinking these thoughts. But I think my gut is spot on about him.
This weekend is meant to be a break for both me and Bridget from planning this wedding. We both need it—desperately. The coordination of everything from flowers to food to the cake to decorations to the dress is seriously testing my ability to manage everything. I have a lot of plates spinning right now, and for the next seventy-two hours, I don't want to think about anything besides gambling and drinking Mai-Tais’ by the pool.
After we finally land in the sunny desert of America’s playground and deal with the debacle at the airport—Jessie having to talk to the airline about losing her bag—we head to the hotel. Bridget’s dad booked the suite despite me telling him it was too much. He said it was his way of saying thank you to me for putting up with Bridget’s mom and her micromanaging of everything I’ve been doing.
“There’s a hot tub.” Jessie points out the window to the balcony and the private hot tub that overlooks the Strip.
The hot bubbly water calls to me, and I'm tempted to skip the club tonight and soak by myself with a bottle of Rosé, but who is going to take the lead if I’m not there? It’s not like Beth, Bridget’s younger sister, and their cousin, Claire, who are the other two bridesmaids in the party, seem interested in helping with any of the planning. Once again, everything falls to me.
I change out of the shirt and leggings I wore to travel in and slip on a maroon tank top and my leather skirt and jacket. Fuck any of the residual desert heat tonight. I want to look hot and ready to kick some ass if I need to.
“Everyone ready?” I call out to the suite.
Beth and Claire are ready first and head down to wait in the lobby while I wrangle Bridget and Jessie out of the suite a few minutes later. Together we all walk down the Strip with the flood of other tourists to Club Dominion.
There’s no mistaking Bridget’s distraction as she checks her phone every few minutes for anything from Mike.
“Are you going to be doing this all weekend?” I ask her as we stand in line.
She frowns at the screen before looking up at me. “I don’t get why he’s suddenly acting like this?”
I can feel the tension of my patience stretching inside me. It's like a rubber band ready to snap. A person can only take so much of listening to the same bullshit excuses before they lose it, even if they are from your best friend.
“I need a shot,” I whisper to Jessie.
She nods like that is already on her mind. Jessie’s been unusually quiet since arriving at the airport. We'd talked yesterday on the phone about our excitement to get away for the weekend, but now she seems out of it, even more so than the fact that the airline sent her luggage across the country.
We get closer to the front of the line, and the intimidating bouncer looks us up and down. He reaches to unhook the rope to let us in but stops when three guys that look like they’ve stepped off the set of a mafia movie stroll up and are waved in without a word.
“What the hell?” I yell over the music drifting out of the club doors. “We’ve been waiting to get in!”
The tall guy in the group stops and turns to look at me, and we lock eyes. I’m sure his stare is meant to be intimidating to me, but I grew up around the shady characters in the crew my dad ran with back in the day. He’s not going to scare me off. When I don't look away or even blink, the corner of his mouth ticks up in amusement, and he leans in to whisper something to the bouncer.
“V, don’t get us kicked out of line,” Bridget hisses at me.
The bouncer unlatches the rope and holds it back to allow us entrance into the club. I glance over my shoulder at Bridget and smile smugly at her. But she’s back to looking at her phone and doesn’t notice.
“Get me all the shots,” I grumble to Jessie as we walk in.
The place is packed, but for some reason, my gaze searches for the guy I had a standoff with at the entrance. Despite the gruff appearance of the guys he was with, there was something about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It didn't hurt that he's the hottest guy in this place—tall, square jaw, and a hint of danger always sends my lady bits a fluttering. Unlike most of the women in this club, my tastes go beyond the frat boy douchebags with daddy’s credit card that seems to litter this place.
I spot him just before he and the two guys he walked in with head into a door that leads to a back room. He glances over his shoulder, and for a fleeting moment, I think that he can see me, but this place is too dark and too packed for him to pick me out of the crowd.
