Page 38 of Our Big White Lie
“Oh, I like that idea. I think Ava will too.” I paused. “Do you think her mom will be upset if we don’t want a shower? And she wanted to take us out to sign up for our registries…”
Marco seemed to think about that. “If she’s really insistent on doing a shower, just change it up a bit. People are modifying traditional stuff left and right these days. Say you just want a little party with your friends and family, with all the booze and games that bridal showers entail, but minus the gifts.”
“Kind of defeats the purpose of a shower, though, doesn’t it?”
“Sounds like a feature, not a bug,” he said dryly.
“How do you figure?”
Marco tsked. “Changing parties from ‘everybody show up and gimme shit’ to ‘let’s all just get together and have a good time’?” He raised an invisible glass. “Sounds perfect to me.”
“Hmm, yeah. I can see that.” I wrinkled my nose. “I’m not a big fan of that whole thing—asking people to come to stuff just to give us all gifts. It’s weird.”
“Especially because people keep inventing more reasons to host shakedowns.” He scoffed and shook his head. “Like, do I really need to bring you a present for your kid’s gender reveal? Do I really?”
I giggled for real. “I feel like anyone who invites you to a gender reveal is just asking for a twenty-minute speech about how gender is a social construct and gender reveals are absurd.”
“Pfft.” He rolled his eyes. “Like I couldn’t condense that into afive-minute speech, thank you very much.”
“No, you definitely couldn’t.”
That earned me a middle finger.
I just laughed, relieved to have gotten some of this off my chest. I wasn’t sure how I felt as I realized Marco understood me and wasn’t telling me what an idiot I was or that I needed to snap out of it. He was exactly the type who would tell me those things, too, if it was what I needed to hear.
So if Iwasn’tan idiot anddidn’tneed to snap out of it… I mean, what the hell was I supposed to do with all these feelings?
I chewed my lip. “What do I do now? Besides talk to Ava about nixing gifts?”
He seemed to think about that for a moment. Then he sat up and clasped my hand in both of his. “Listen. There’s a reason no one was surprised to hear you two were engaged. You’re amazing together. You’re perfect for each other.”
My throat started to get tight again. A lot of uncomfortable emotions really, really wanted to come out, but I didn’t know how to articulate them. And maybe, on some level, I was afraid I’d get exactly what I always did from Marco: the perfect advice to resolve the situation. I was scared of that because all flow charts led to telling Ava the truth. I couldn’t stomach that. There was too much at stake now—the wedding, her mom’s happiness—on top of the potential to lose the friendship I treasured most in the world.
Maybe it made me a coward, but I kept those feelings to myself. Though I’d asked him over here so I could get advice from him, now I was too damn afraid to hear that advice.
After a moment, though, Marco said, “I need you to be honest with me about something.”
Uh-oh.
“Okay?”
He tilted his head. “Exactly how fake is this wedding?”
I straightened, pretending my stomach hadn’t somersaulted. “What… What do you mean?”
“I mean, literally no one is surprised to hear that you’re getting married. You’re practically a married couple already. Like even if this wedding was real, how much would actually change between the two of you if you get married?”
I fought the urge to shift nervously. “Um. What do you mean?”
He tsked and started ticking off the points on his fingers. “You already live together. You already support each other through thick and thin. You already absolutely adore each other.” He shrugged. “The only thing missing is being on each other’s insurance, filing your taxes jointly, and doing—well, whatever it is you’d be doing in bed together.” He made a playfully disgusted face.
I laughed and gave him a shove as I rolled my eyes, grateful he’d finally dropped in some levity. He wasn’t actually grossed out by lesbian sex or by the female body. Hell, he’d lost his virginity to a girl in high school. It was just one of those things he liked to tease me about because he was a brat—I dished it right back when my brain was on the rails—and right now, the snark was exactly what I needed to find my breath again.
As I sobered, I said, “I mean, we’re best friends. But that doesn’t mean…” I shook my head.
The skepticism in his eyes was unmistakable, and knowing him as well as I did, I fully expected him to push harder. Or try to talk me out of this whole thing for a laundry list of reasons.
After a while, though, he sighed and shrugged. “Well, you two know what you’re doing. But if it’s bothering you this much—I mean, are you sure it’s just because you’re afraid you’re doing something wrong?”
