*eye roll emoji* Probably because he’s driving.
What’s your ETA?
Does it matter? Last I checked, I’m the bride and this thing can’t really start without me.
I glareddown at my phone. Danielle wasn’t actually late… yet. I was sitting in the conference room of the small stone church I’d found in a tiny town nearly an hour outside of Boston where I was supposed to get married in less than an hour.
“Relax, Blake,” Freddie said from the armchair across the room. “I can feel your anxiety from here.”
“Fuck you, Rossi,” I muttered, not loosening my death grip around the device in my hand.
“Seriously, man, if she doesn’t want to marry you, it’s better you find that out now.”
I glared at him, turning all my stress into anger at my best friend. One of the only two people I’d allowed to come to the wedding.
“Dude, calm down. She’s going to show, and you’ll be riding off into the sunset before you know it,” Orlando—the second person—added. He was leaning against a round table that held a completely untouched bottle of champagne. I was going to be stone-cold sober when I got hitched.
“There isn’t going to be any riding off into the sunset. This is fake, remember?”
“Like the rock my sister said you put on your girl’s finger?” he asked with a smirk. He knew damn well that rock was as real as they came.
“It wouldn’t be a very believable marriage if I didn’t give her a ring.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Shut it, Amato.”
“I didn’t even say anything,” he protested, hands in the air.
I glanced down at my phone again, not really sure what I was hoping to find. I hadn’t even answered Danielle’s last message, but I couldn’t shake the restless feeling, like I was waiting for her to pull the rug out from under me. Because somewhere in the back of my head, I still couldn’t believe she’d actually agreed to marry me.
“Where was she getting ready?” Freddie asked.
“I don’t know.” And maybe that was part of why I was so anxious.
After her girls’ night—that Miles was somehow invited to—Danielle had agreed to let Caleb drive her where she needed to go under the condition that I didn’t keep tabs on where she went. I was the one who signed Caleb’s paychecks, and if I asked, he’d probably tell me (maybe), but I was trying to respect Danielle’s wishes.
Freddie’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead.
“She didn’t tell me,” I said, a tad bit too defensively.
“And you didn’t ask?”
I had asked, but she’d told me getting ready for the wedding was a girl thing. Translation: it wasn’t my business.
“It’s up to her what she wants to tell me,” I said.
A snort came from the direction of the table. “Man, I never thought I’d see the day.”
“What?” I growled at Orlando.
“That Hayden Control Freak Blake bowed to a woman.”
I flipped him off and returned my attention to the phone in my hand.
Me
Please tell me you’re almost here. I need you to save me from my asshole friends.
