Page 53 of Sister of the Bride

“I don’t know, moral support?”

I roll my eyes, but the truth is that I’m excited to get to spend a little time with Toby. I have to take what I can get these days. There have been no film festivals, no lunches in the garden over the last few weeks. The texts are all I have of him, and that’s making me almost start to like the jokes.

Ugh, curse the thought.

“If you insist,” I say, and he gives a tired first pump and muffles a yawn.

* * *

“Eet ees lovely dress.” Birgit turns to Toby, who is swaying slightly on his sneakers as he stares around at the mountains of white tulle surrounding him. I bet he’s questioning how well he scrubbed all that barf right about now. Birgit points at him. “You like.”

As Birgit turns to march us toward the dressing room, Toby leans in and whispers, “Was that a question or a command?”

“I believe it was a fait accompli,” I reply.

Birgit leads us past the bridal dressing rooms with their expansive wood floors, round pedestals, and gorgeous lighting to a back hallway lined with more typical dressing rooms, each blocked off by a heavy canvas curtain. Birgit pulls back the curtain on the first stall, where my dress is hanging on a cardboard dress form and zipped into a garment bag, which makes the tableau look like a very elegant crime scene.

“You try on, I come back and mark for alterations,” she says, snapping her fingers toward my chest. “You bring correct bra?”

Oh shit.“Uh, I…no?”

Birgit sniffs. I have already failed at this appointment. Her eyes flick down to my chest, which is restrained by a very old Lululemon sports bra that I often wear when I’m working in the kitchen because it absorbs sweat and keeps me from accidentally dipping my tits into pots of sauce when I’m leaning over the pass-through.

“Take zat sing off for alterations,” she says, as if she possesses laser vision and can peer through my stained T-shirt at the ratty undergarments beneath. “You have young, perky breasts. Let zem be free.”

Toby snorts.

“I…thank you?” I say, but Birgit is already striding back toward the shop floor.

“Is she related to the cake baker? Because they both give off big headmistress energy,” Toby says, sinking down onto the bench opposite the dressing rooms. “And not in, like, the naughty fun way.”

“I don’t need to know your kinks, Toby,” I say, stepping into the dressing room. He slumps back, his head hitting the wall with a dull thud. “Just wait there. I’ll be done in a sec. And try not to fall asleep.”

“I make no promises.” He yawns.

I go into the dressing room and slowly unzip the garment bag to reveal my dress. I yank my T-shirt over my head and shimmy out of my jeans. Because I’m the only attendant on Polly’s side, she told me I could pick out any dress I wanted in her color palate, which (as clearly stated on our first visit to Vow’d) includes navy and gold. I opted for a rich golden color that works well with my hair and doesn’t make my skin look like I’ve been locked away in a Bulgarian boarding school for a long, cold winter. The dress is made of layers of delicate, gauzy fabric with a deep V at the neck, thin straps, and a nipped-in waist. As I step in and slip the straps over my shoulders, I realize that Birgit it correct. My breasts do look pretty perky, although if I go sans bra, I’m going to have do something about my nipples. It’s cold in here, and the fabric is thin enough that I’m putting on a bit of a show. I make a mental note to add pasties to my I-To-Do checklist.

The delicate straps of the dress crisscross over my back, a hidden zipper to close it up. I reach back to pull up the hidden zipper; it takes a little bit of warming up and stretching to even get close, and when I start to pull, it quickly snags on the fabric.

“Fuck,” I mutter, trying to gently tug the delicate, gauzy material out of the teeth of the zipper. If I rip it, I’m absolutely screwed. There’s not enough time to get another dress in and get it altered, and this material isn’t the kind you can just sew up if you rip a giant hole in it.

“Toby?” I call through the curtain.

“Yeah?”

“Are you awake?”

“What do you need?”

“The zipper’s stuck. Can you, um…help?”

There’s a pause, and then the curtain slides to the side enough for Toby to slip inside. I do my best to hold the back of the dress together. He freezes as he surveys the dress and me in it. His eyes pause at the neckline, and my nipples pebble even more. His gaze quickly flicks back up to mine. He looks like he’s working to hold himself very still, his only movement the hard flex of his fingers at his sides.

I glance down at the bright fabric of the dress, then back up at Toby. “Is it…okay?”

Toby’s lips part, then press closed. He swallows hard, the cords in his neck working. When he opens his mouth again, a little huff of a sigh escapes. “Yeah. It’s…damn, Pip. It’s incredible.”

My cheeks heat. “It’s just a dress.”

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