Page 6 of Hands off his Dudette

Cassie giggled. "My family said they'll be there, and Carter's mom loves the idea. Trick's mom says she can't make it, which is kind of the point, and Lucy's family is more or less out of the picture. It should be doable. But we'll need all hands on deck, so to speak."

And then some.

"So, all of this to say, would you be my bridesmaid, pretty please?" Lucy asked. "Piper's my maid of honor, and Maya is going to be flower girl for Cassie and me."

She'd been a bridesmaid once, for one of her cousin back when she'd been fifteen. She was pretty sure that this time, the job was going to entail more than binding herself in a ridiculous dress and showing up.

Anna groaned. "How bad is it going to be? You're using a wedding planner, right?"

Lucy nodded. "Yes. He's already found a venue that had a cancellation and sorted out the food. We're not going to need to run around too much. But there's food tasting, checking out the florists, selecting wedding gifts...it's a long list. We figured, if all of you could pick up like, one thing, we can get this done without any bloodshed."

One item. That didn't sound so bad. Besides, now that they had submitted their creative brief, things weren't too crazy at work for a little while; there were no nights spent at the office in her immediate future.

"All right. I'll do it. Of course, I'll do it," she amended. "And congrats. It's going to rock, you hear?"

She was inundated with thank yous, and when the waitress finally turned up at their table, Cassie insisted on picking up the tab.

Anna had always been a beer girl, but the girls had introduced her to little fruity cocktails that were as delicious as they were traitorous. They tasted like fancy fruit juice, and then, moments after finishing a third, Anna suddenly couldn't remember how to walk straight anymore. But one of them always remained stone cold sober during their evening out, to make sure everyone got home safely. This time, it was Piper. She often volunteered, because Piper didn't feel comfortable getting drunk; she had a seven-year-old at home.

Anna had loved seeing her change over the last year. At first, she had volunteered every single time, never touching a drop of alcohol at all, but around April, she'd started to relax, drinking one cocktail or two when she wasn't the designated sober friend. Last August, Piper got properly tipsy once. Anna wasn't sure the woman had noticed that progression. She'd changed as her relationship with her partner became more serious. Piper had barely mentioned Bennet in the winter; by spring, she'd said boyfriend a time or two. In the summer, she'd asked the girls advice, because Bennet had asked if she and Maya would move in with him. That was in July. By August, she was entirely comfortable leaving her precious little girl to Bennet's care for an evening.

Anna felt a small pang of jealousy in her chest. She couldn't help it. She'd never really felt the need to have a guy in her life, but that was before she'd started hanging out with women who had real relationships. She had to admit that she wanted some companionship like that.

She generally knew better than to admit it out loud in this crowd, but three drinks in, Anna's mouth was spilling out things about online dating and stupid dick-pics.

"I've come to believe that you girls have snatched up every decent man in the city," she said.

Amelia, Helen, and Erin raised their glasses. "Hear, hear."

"I call bullshit," Cali protested, rolling her eyes.

The smallest among them, seeming shorter yet because she was one of the only ones not wearing heels—even Anna's Docs had a couple of inches—Cali was also the sweetest, with a round face, an adorable pouty mouth, and generous curves. Anna wondered if she'd ever heard her say "bullshit" before.

"Amelia, you give a fuck off vibe, and act like you might eat their head off. Helen, you're a workaholic. Erin, most of the guys you meet are under eight."

Erin was an elementary school teacher.

"And Anna," she said, "even if you actually left your house more often, you'll never give a chance to a guy while being in love with your best friend."

Anna's jaw fell. Her eyes widened. She'd never seen that coming.

"Oh, that's low."

Cali, still seemingly sweet, shrugged unapologetically. "If the shoe fits."

She took a big swig of her cocktail, before protesting, "I'm not in love with Finn. At all. Just because you and Wren ended up together doesn't mean that every roommate should."

"Of course not," said Cali, quite reasonably. "You shouldn't end up with Finn because you're roommates. Just because you love him."

"I do love him," she replied. "Like I love Trick, and my own siblings, and even my annoying cousin."

"Yeah, right," said Cassie, taking Cali's side.

"Hey, off her back," Lucy said firmly. "She says she isn't in love with Finn, end of story. Don't annoy my bridesmaid."

"We're all your bridesmaids," Piper reminded her. "But that's fair. If you want to date, rather than going online, how about you let me arrange something with my cousin? I don't see Nick often, but last time I did, he was saying it's hard to find women who aren't psychos in the city."

Anna would normally have declined, based on the fact that she didn't like the kind of guys who called women psychos, but she had a feeling that if she did so now, she'd only make Cali insist that it was because of her feelings for Finn. Dammit.

So, instead, she said,"Sure. Why not? Sounds great."

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