Page 15 of I Almost Do

Hecouldn’tbear to kiss me. He doesn’t everplanto kiss me. And our marriage is most certainly an arrangement.

I want to go home. Right now. Just take a pair of scissors to this dress, climb into my cotton-candy bed, and pretend none of this is happening. Not Dad being sick. Not this wedding. Not these rumors.

Bronwyn, Janessa, and Franki are waiting outside in the corridor, along with James, his groomsmen, and Dad, who played the part of best man and father of the bride. James has a couple of friends I’ve never met before here too.

There’s no time for anything except to be announced into the ballroom.

By the time the toasts roll around, I’m seriously ready for a drink.

I’ve only ever had a sip or two of alcohol in the past because, duh, good girl. But there’s no time like your wedding to a man who married you as a favor to someone else and can’t even bear to kiss you to get trashed on champagne, I always say.

When the server begins to pour my glass, however, my new husband slams a hand over the top and scowls. “She isn’t twenty-one. Didn’t the planner arrange for sparkling juice or something for her and the girls?”

Heat rises in my face.

“No need,” I say, saccharine sweet. “I’m sure I’ve got some juice boxes in my bag.”

He doesn’t even hear me, too busy signaling the wedding planner, who quickly scurries over to retrieve the glasses of champagne my bridesmaids were served. She whips Bronwyn’s drink right out from under her nose just as she’s about to take a sip.

Bronwyn and I share a frustrated look. Then she makes a great show of looking around for witnesses. Reaching into the deep side pocket of her pink bridesmaid gown, she slides out a silver flask.

She shoots James a fulminating look, then leans over and whispers, “Later.”

I nod. I will definitely take her up on that. A toast to my looming celibate marriage.

My friends are livid right now. Even Franki, who’s always the first to see the bright side of anything, has her phone clutched in her hand like she’s preparing to hurl it at James.

Bronwyn stretches across me and raps on the table with her knuckles until James turns his head back to her, raising one eyebrow in a stiff gesture of annoyance.

A mask falls over him like window blinds closing. His severe expression is the same one he wore when he watched Dad walk me down the aisle.

I remember what he said about being nervous and the way he looked when he hugged my dad. And right then, I realize what I don’t think anybody else notices—my new husband is masking pain. He has been all day. Probably the same pain I’m feeling. He just handles it differently.

James stood there at the altar and married someone he doesn’t love for purely unselfish reasons. And, damnit, this just sucks for both of us, doesn’t it?

Bronwyn leans across my body, practically climbing in my lap as she hisses at James. “I just think it’s funny how—”

I grab her into a full-body hug. She shuts up and hugs me back, clutching me fiercely.

She’s so much shorter than I am that her face hits my neck when we hug, and her breath tickles as she loudly whispers, “Okay.”

We’ve been friends for so long that she responded to my unspoken request before I’d even said the words. But I say them now, anyway. Just to be sure we’re on the same page. I taste hairspray as I talk into her updo. “Be nice.”

“You should file for divorce tomorrow,” she mutters.

“I’m not thinking about divorce at my wedding. And he’s done nothing wrong.”

The hug is going on longer than anyone would consider normal. Another set of arms wraps around the two of us, long and thin and smelling of cocoa butter—Janessa. Then Franki squirms in and asks, “Is this an official meeting?”

Bronwyn says, “We’re supposed to be nice to James.”

Janessa reluctantly agrees. “For you. Not for him.”

Bronwyn nods, face still crammed against me. “But if you ever need me to make him suffer….”

Bronwyn has no fear. She never has. But I can’t have her making an enemy out of my husband.

Everything she knows about James is filtered through the lens of my girlhood crush. Over the years, I’ve waxed poetic over everything from the flex of his forearms to the rasp in his voice. His particular brand of gentle politeness with me has her thinking he's harmless—like a pit bull who looks scary but has a heart of gold.

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