Page 19 of June Bride
“That’s right,” Lizzie said. “If you keep telling yourself that, it will come true.”
“You guys suck.”
Monica snorted. “Go ahead and take your whining out on us, hun. That way when it comes time to make nice with your lady, you can have a clear head.”
Brandy blushed.In all this talk of how defensive Brandy was, she had forgotten to remind herself thatshewasn’t the center of the controversy. It was Sunny, who had kept a secret from Brandy for so long because she was afraid of her fiancée’s reaction.What kind of fiancée am I, anyway? She doesn’t feel comfortable telling me what she really wants.Then again, Brandelyn had never encountered something like this before. Not in her years with Sunny, anyway. The lovely, energetic, amiable Sunny.
Here I was, stomping my foot all over her.No wonder Sunny had to grow a backbone. Brandy had a mighty strong foot.
Chapter 12
SUNNY
The thing about having a bachelorette party at a dive bar? It didn’t matter how few people Sunny invited along. Eventually, the whole town was in on it.
Especially at the lesbian dive, which was full of locals and out-of-towners alike.
“This girl over here is getting married!” Anita snapped a party hat that saidBRIDEonto Sunny’s head and led her through the depths of Paradise Lost, the only bar in town that catered to the overwhelming clientele. The other bar, Wolf’s Hill Dive, was usually Sunny’s preference when it came to the food and drink, but it wasn’t the kind of place to parade one’s gay wedding through like it was Pride.(Not that she couldn’t, per se. The fine folks at Wolf’s Hill Dive were firm supporters of all the gays about town. They simply had more men than women most of the time.)
Cheers erupted. The women enjoying their end-of-the-week drinks and date nights with their gals turned around to lift their beers and spirits. Most of them probably recognized Sunny, one of the two stars of that month’s biggest wedding.Shit, they’re all invited, I bet.Sunny had handed over her list of fifty people she’d like to see invited and allowed Brandelyn to take care of the rest. How that list of fifty people ballooned to three hundred would always be beyond Sunny, who thought they had overlapping friends, concluded that Brandy wanted a proper audience, and that was all there was to it.
“This gal right here,” Anita continued, her own party hat askew as more women gathered around them on the stage, “is marrying the woman who you talk to about your itchy crotches, so you better buy her a freakin’ drink!”
Usually, the erupting laughter would have amused Sunny, who took most things with the kind of good humor that won her more friends than enemies. But ever since she rushed out of the clinic, tears streaming down her cheeks, she hadn’t the heart to think about the wedding. She hadn’t exchanged a word with her fiancée, although not for a lack of trying on Brandy’s part.I barely missed her when she finally drove up to Waterlily House to corner me.That was the day Sunny drove to PDX to pick up her aunt and uncle from the airport.
That aunt wasreallytickled about being in a gay bar on a Saturday night.
“Oh myGod,look at this!” Jill pulled her plastic straw out of her fruity cocktail and waved around the loops that looked like a pair of boobs. “Every bachelorette party I’ve been to before this one has been an utter dick-fest. This one’s going down in the history books, and it’s barely started!”
That was the plan, anyway. Plenty of gratuitous mammaries in Sunny’s face, every vagina joke under the sun, and an array of games, drinks, and gifts that reminded everyone in the room that they were never too young to understand the meaning of the word “carpet” when uttered in a gay bar.
It only got crazier as the drinks filled everyone’s veins.
“Open it!” someone barked from the side of the stage, where Sunny and Anita sat with a stack of gifts by their side. “It’s in an Amazon box, so you know it’s raunchy!”
Sunny grabbed her beer for another drink of courage. She dove for the scissors that had aided her in the opening of other presents, but her shaking hands and falling torso told Anita to leap in and intervene. Good thing Anita had stayed mostly sober that evening.
“Let me get that for you, Sun.” Anita left Sunny propped up on her side on the floor and popped open the box. “Oh… oh my God, who can fit this in their hooha?”
Aunt Jill was the first to shove aside everyone in her line of sight. “Whoa!” she exclaimed, tossing her drink into the air. Red liquid landed on another woman’s head. That woman didn’t look like she had noticed. “Now that’s what I’m talking about! That’s some wedding night shit right there, Sunny!”
Her sister, Sunny’s mother, perked up from her conversation in the corner and nearly died of embarrassment when she saw the behemoth toy in Sunny’s hands.This is not my first time holding a dildo in the same room as my mother.Sunny was too tipsy to remember the last time, but she was pretty sure it was when she and her mother stumbled into a Spencer’s Gifts.
Aunt Jill remained front and center at the stage like she was at her favorite rock concert. Someone refilled her spilled drink and cheered her on for being a supportive family member. Her two thumbs up and giant smile reminded Sunny why she had protested the presence of family at her bachelorette party.
Didn’t help that she felt likeshit.The alcohol was supposed to take the apprehension off her mind. Instead, it made her fixate on what she was doing. Namely, preparing to marry Dr. Brandelyn Meyer sometime the next week.
Sunny overturned a small plastic bag and unearthed a dozen glow-in-the-dark pencil toppers shaped like breasts. She held a neon green one up to the stage light above her and said, much more loudly than she intended, “These will be the biggest tits in my marriage.”
More laughter erupted. Anita gently pointed out that Sunny had perfectly sizable breasts.
To that, Sunny could only reply, “You would know. You stared at them in the locker room during high school.”
The laughter soon turned into gasps of scandalized awe. The only woman in the room who wasn’t laughing was Anita, who checked her blushing, looked to her partner in the audience, and said, “Nobody stared at boobs like you did, Sun. Let me guess. The whole reason you went out with Brandelyn was because you liked how she stacked that white coat.”
Sunny wasn’t surprised to hear some inappropriate murmurs from the audience. Everyone had an opinion about the kind of sexy doctor fantasies Brandelyn served. Even those who didn’t otherwise find her attractive had to admit she had “the demeanor down.”
“Truth or dare,” Anita said to her best friend.
