We get back to my place, and the first thing I do is grab Fluffernutter and carry him into my room.
“You okay?” Mila and Isla ask, sitting at the end of it. Heidi makes her home on my couch in the corner, her arm hanging over the side.
“I’m getting married,” I tell them, dumbfounded.
Mila smiles. “You’re getting married!”
And I start to panic. “What the fuck am I doing?”
She shrugs as Isla flops down, her eyes glassy as she stares at the ceiling. I’m fully aware that she’s probably staying there the whole night. “You’re living. You’re getting out there. And I’m proud of you.”
She grabs my hand, kissing the back of it, and tears well in my eyes, my chest tightening. “I feel like we’re all growing up too fast.”
And I know that I’m drunk. I know that I’ve hadfarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtoo much to drink. But even in my hazy state, I can see the sadness in her eyes. “I think some of us are.” Her smile is tight.
Before I can ask her what she means, she gets up, only to come back a few minutes later… I think.
“Take this, and drink this whole bottle of water,” she demands, forcing a cold bottle into my hands. I open my mouth, and she drops two pills into it.
Rolling Isla over, Mila demands the same, sitting her up and placing the pain medication into her mouth before holding the bottle up to her lips.
And finally, she does the same with Heidi.
We down the water, and I ask Isla if she wants to getunder the covers with me. She lets out a string of words I don’t think anyone would understand, and wiggles herself up the bed, nearly falling out as she crawls under the covers.
“Heidi?” I ask.
She slowly picks her head up, looking at the bed. “I think I can fit at the end.”
I’m too tired to argue with her, or say that we’ll cram together like sardines. The one thing I said when I got my own place was that I wanted a king bed. I looked for apartments that specifically had a big enough room. I have a giant-ass cat who loves to take up half the bed. I wasnotsettling for anything smaller.
Without a word, Heidi falls onto the end of the bed, and Fluffernutter mews, leaving my side to curl up with her.
Mila watches us, and when she’s about to get up and leave, I catch her hand. “Can you stay with me too?” I ask.
It takes her a second, but she nods. “Let me just make sure Briar and Zara are okay, alright?”
My eyelids feel the weight of everything that I’ve gone through this past week. The interviews. The challenges, which were really just puzzles I had to do that resulted in me ranking how hot different public figures were, or ranking what I find most hot in a person. Apparently, they were designed to match us with someone who scored nearly the same.
And today. Knowing that tomorrow, I’ll be walking down a damn aisle to a man I don’t know, wearing a pretty dress, and surrounded by my friends and family. My family who’s tried to talk me out of it every single time I’ve spoken to them, which of course, was every day.
What feels like thirty minutes later, I feel Mila crawl in next to me, the bed vibrating with Fluffernutter’s content purrs.
“I love you guys,” I mutter, and the two of them reach for my hands.
“It’sss the t—three of sss alwayssss. Gottt it?” Isla slurs.
“Always and forever,” Mila confirms.
“You could never get rid of me,” Heidi whispers at the end of the bed.
“Remember when we used to have sleep overs like this?” I smile, my brain feeling a little less fuzzy at the memory of our small little bodies all crammed into bed, watching mid-2000s romcoms all night. Eventually, we’d fall asleep with the TV still on. I was almost always the first one up, unable to move until they eventually stirred.
I can feel Mila smile. “We should do this more often.”
I nod, and it’s the last thing I remember before sleep takes me.
CHAPTER 10
