Page 35 of Sister of the Bride

“It does, though. You’re moving in with Mackenzie.”

Polly sighs. “Did you think I was going to live in the attic with you forever?”

“No.”Maybe. “But now Mackenzie will be your person.”

“And Toby is yours.”

My mouth drops open. “No he’s not!”

Polly shrugs. “Well, Toby’s always been the one you call in a crisis. The one you tell all your secrets to first. I get them, but only after you’ve workshopped them with him first. We’re sisters, and we’ll always be sisters, but Toby’s your person.”

Okay, I guess maybe she’s right about that. Polly is my twin sister and I love her, but Toby is my best friend. He’s the one I told when I failed AP calculus. He’s the one I turned to when Nick Furman dumped me a week before prom. He was my first call when Dad died. Polly is the friend I was born with, but Toby is the friend I chose.

“Unless he’s something more?” Polly’s voice rises, her eyebrows right along with it.

I groan. “You’ve got to stop that, Pizza. Seriously. All the teasing and innuendos are really screwing with my head.”

Polly grins. “How so?”

I stare into the bubbling water, wiggling my toes. I have always gone to Toby first. But I can’t go to Toby withthis. And maybe that’s part of my issue at the moment. This is one problem I can’t spill to him, and so I’m left with it swirling around in my head, stewing in my bones and infecting every part of me with these pesky thoughts. Maybe pouring it out to Polly will help me exorcise these dirty thoughts I’m having about Toby.

Or maybe it’ll just add fuel the fire.

Either way, I need to do something, because my dirty dreams of him are only getting more vivid.

“Toby is a salad,” I say finally. And then I explain my salad theory to her, about pictures of salads and how they’re messing with my head. I tell her about the zap I felt when he held my hand in the hospital. About how he kissed my knuckle just like he did when we were eighteen, but suddenly it felt different.

And I tell her—not in too much detail—about the dreams.

“But it’s obviously all just a mental mindfuck,” I say, “because Toby is a salad, and I want asteak. I’vealwayswanted a steak. And this is where my metaphor breaks down, I’m sorry, but in this instance, a salad would be very bad for me.”

Polly blinks at me, her brow furrowed. “Let me get this straight. You seriously think your feelings for Toby are just your brain misfiring due to the power of suggestion?”

“Yes.”

“And it has nothing to do with the kind, smart, funny man who is hot as shit and, oh yeah, adores you?”

My mouth presses into a firm line, then I grind out, “As. A. Friend.”

“Are you sure you’re not using the whole salad thing as an excuse?”

I throw my hands up, then panic that I’ve ruined my fresh manicure. “An excuse for what?”

“To feel your feelings!”

I shake my head. “I don’t have feelings for Toby.”

Polly’s phone vibrates, a text from Mackenzie appearing on the screen. She picks it up and swipes to read.

“You have feelings for Toby, Pepperoni. Just not the feelings you think,” Polly says as she taps out a reply. “Now, before I fully accept your apology, there’s one more thing you have to do.”

* * *

I’m sitting at a table outside Bartley’s in Harvard Square across from my sister and an investment banker.

Okay, I know she’s notactuallyan investment banker, but I truly have no idea what her job really is. Maybe today is the day I’ll figure it out.

Polly is in a casual, brightly colored sundress while Mackenzie is in a navy pencil skirt and a white Oxford, a pair of leather loafers on her feet. She looks like her next stop after this lunch is a meeting of the Harvard Debate Club. I feel wildly underdressed in a pair of ripped jeans and a T-shirt with Harry Styles’s face on it, even though my outfit fits in a lot better at Bartley’s than Mackenzie’s. We chose this lunch spot because Polly has a meeting with her dissertation advisor, who’s at Harvard for a conference, and Mackenzie has an office over in Kendall Square by MIT.

---