Page 8 of You're so Bad

“Eight months ago,” she says, rocking aggressively in the chair. “They got engaged after three months of dating. Colter and I were together for two years.”

“Amateurs. So what are we going to do to destroy their joy?” I grin at her. “Tie-dye the wedding linens, crash-bomb the cake, fill them with crushing doubt? Ooh, you want me to seduce the bride?”

She shoves my arm. “Why would I want you to do that? Then she’ll think she can steal anything she wants from me.”

“Huh. Guess you have a point. Too bad. I’m envisioning Bianca as this Type-A blond chick. You’d be surprised how wild they can be.”

“You’re gross,” she says, giving me a look of disgust.

“Never claimed otherwise. You didn’t say I was wrong about the Type-A blond thing.”

“This is a bad idea,” she blusters.

“Probably. If you don’t want to go through with it, you can always say you’ve changed your mind about being in their wedding. Might want to add that it was pretty fucked up of them to ask in the first place.”

“I won’t give them the satisfaction,” she says tightly, and the look of determination on her face reminds me of her grandmother. Constance is one tough broad, and I respect the hell out of her. Shauna too. “Especially not Bianca.” She purses her lips for a moment, thinking, then says. “I haven’t really told anyone this part, but it’s like we’re playing a game of chicken, and she’s daring me to be the one who taps out.”

“She wants a reaction from you.”

“Yes,” she says, leaning forward. “She wants me to cry and put up a fuss. I don’t understand why, because we were close before shit went down, but it seems like she wants to destroy me. I mean…there’s the wedding date for one thing—”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “That it’s so soon?”

“Sure,” she says, blowing out a breath that makes her bangs sway. “And then she asked me to be a bridesmaid.”

I whistle.

“And not just any bridesmaid—her only bridesmaid, which makes me the de facto maid of honor. She said it was because I’d introduced them. But it goes deeper than that. She’s having all these wedding-related events at places I love, and she’s inviting me to them. That’s fucked up, right?”

“Deeply.”

“I can’t give her what she wants.”

“No, you definitely can’t let her see you break,” I agree.

She sighs and takes a sip of her beer. “It still hurts, though. I mean, I thought she was one of my best friends.”

“You get manicures together?”

She rolls her eyes, then lifts a small, undecorated hand. “I work with clay, so nothing ever stays on my nails.”

There’s something sexy about her bare hands, no rings or polish, just her soft, smooth skin and a small scar near the base of her thumb.

“But sure, we did some girly shit if that’s what you’re getting at. We also drank bourbon and closed down bars, had crafting competitions, and made-up scavenger hunts for things we could find around town. We werefriends. We let each other in. I mean…she had this competitive streak that could be a bit much, and sometimes she could be mean to people, but I never thought she’d turn it on me.”

“Maybe she feels bad about the whole thing, and it’ll boost her ego if you flip out and act crazy. She could be trying to drive you to it.”

“Maybe,” she grumbles.

“You seem like you care more about what she did than what Dumbass did.”

“Because I do,” she says, picking at the skin near her thumbnail. I’m tempted to stop her, but I don’t. “He wasn’t right for me anyway, so it was just a matter of time.”

“But you thought she was forever.”

She nods, her jaw tight. “It hurts worse because I have to keep pretending I’m bored of the whole thing.”

“I’ll bet you give a good bored face,” I comment.

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