Page 1 of Love Unavoidable
Prologue
Sadie
I know by drink three I’m not marrying Aaron today. But I wait until drink five to do anything about it. Rather, let Tenley do anything about it.
Tenley’s my best friend, and it’s her fault I am calling off the wedding anyway. She’s always stirring up trouble and never feels bad about it after.
“It isn’t too late to back out you know,” she says as she pours our third drinks. A bourbon Old Fashioned since she made us switch from Champagne to hard liquor a couple hours ago. “You aren’t in love with him anyway.”
Now, if that ain’t stirring up trouble, I don’t know what is.
As I tie the third cherry stem in a knot with my tongue, her words start to sink in, and I realize she’s right. I never should have said yes to Aaron’s proposal to begin with. Not to mention gone ahead with any of the planning and preparations that led to today.
The problem was me continuing the ruse of this relationship and not being honest with Aaron or myself long ago when I realized I wasn’t in love with him. Letting it go so far as to where I plan to flee the scene in full wedding attire, wasting tens of thousands of dollars, and devastating a man who always deserved someone much better than me, is just heartless on my part.
I am a horrible person.
In my defense, what little defense I have, by drink three I don’t much care about what I’m doing anyway. Tenley and I are seasoned drinkers. We do it often and we do it well. But, I haven’t eaten all day. I woke up this morning still a little drunk from the night before—also Tenley’s fault—so when we started with a bit of the hair of the dog, it was satisfying and effective.
Which is how we made it to drink five in record time. And almost to drunk by the time we are standing outside the ballroom, waiting to walk down the aisle. It’s bad enough the other bridesmaids already traipsed down the aisle, leaving Tenley, as my maid of honor, and me alone in this cavernous hall. And the musicians have played the wedding march all the way through while waiting for me to make my grand entrance.
Twice.
That alone is sufficient to put all three hundred guests waiting inside on edge, not to mention the wedding party.
The groom.
We stand in that hallway sipping bourbon from a flask trying to make sure there is no sobriety in sight. But guilt and adrenaline keep getting in my way and clearing my damn head. Drunk sounds so good right about now.
I sit down on the floor and lean back against the wall, my legs straight out in front of me, clapping my feet together. The rhinestone bow that arches over my toes twinkling in the overhead light. The god-awful tulle dress my mother made me wear billows around me.
Which is when Tenley says something that changes everything.
“We need a plan,” Tenley says as she passes me the flask. She’s pacing in a very small line, just four steps in either direction.
“You’re the smart one,” I say, trying to flatten random bunches of dress that seem to lift off the floor on their own.
“I am the smart one. So, shut-up. I need to think.” One. Two. Three. Four. Turn. One. Two. Three. Four. Turn. “It’s my duty as your maid of honor to make sure you don’t get married irresponsibly.”
“Irresponsibly? You make it sound like safe sex.”
“You know, looking at him, I’m willing to bet sex is super safe with Aaron, if you know what I mean.” She raises her eyebrows up and down as she says this.
“Tenley! Don’t say that, someone will hear you.”
She looks at me, eyes wide and expectant.
“Fine, sex is of the vanilla variety. And I know I’ve told you that before. But all I have are movies to compare it with and that’s always staged.”
“Well, as someone who has had movie worthy sex . . . hell, I’ve had porno worthy sex, you can’t spend your life with vanilla. It just ain’t right, Sadie-soo.”
“Okay, okay. I’m not doing it anyway. Quit trying to make me feel worse than I already do. Just tell me what the plan is.”
“Give me the flask. I’m still not drunk yet.”
“Right.” I reach up and hand her the flask.
She takes a long drink. “Okay, taxis are always outside, right? Because this is a hotel.”
