Page 35 of Starry Skies, Stolen Kisses, and My Best Friend's Brother

Then she starts singing “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy).”Luckily my horse likes me and is calm while I wrestle the reins back from her.We make it to the clearing, and Abi dismounts and takes the reins of all the horses.She ties them up before letting anyone dismount.Which is a good thing because three of the four fall off.Only the bride manages to keep herself astride her horse.But even she stumbles once she gets down.

Woo Girl and Horse Lover are on the ground with their arms around each other, singing the theme song to My Little Pony.Loudly.

The bride seems bored, and the weeper is weeping.I sink down next to her.

“Beautiful day for a ride, huh?”

Weeper sniffs.“Yeah.”

“Hey, I forgot my water.Can I have some of yours?”

She doesn’t answer but holds out the nozzle.I take a sip and splutter.Definitely not water.

I wave Abi over.“Wine… Red wine.”

Abi glowers.“Gimme.”

The girl shrugs off the pack.Abi opens it up and dumps the rest of the wine onto the ground.Weeper just sobs more.“You’re wasting all the good stuff.”

“Hey,” the bride yells.“What are you doing?”

Abi holds her hand out.“Give me the backpack.This is dangerous and reckless and completely against the rules.”

“No.”She takes a swing at Abi but misses by a mile.

“Hey,” Weeper yells, tugging on the bride’s arm, “be careful.You don’t want to get arrested like you did at that bar in Staunton.”

Abi pinches the bridge of her nose.“I’ll leave you out here.”

The bride stumbles back a few feet.“You would not.”

“I would.I’ll take the horses and tell them it wasn’t safe for you to ride them back, and you refused to give up your alcohol.Give it to me now.All of you.”

They grudgingly oblige, but Woo girl shouts some very not-nice words at us.Once Abi has rounded up the bags, she dumps out the wine and hands them back.“If you have to pee, go now.We’re heading back right away, and we’re not stopping.I’m tying the horses together so they all walk in a single line, and you don’t have to worry about steering.I’ll have to untie them at the water, but camp is not very far after that.”

They stumble into the woods, and Abi rolls her eyes at them.

“We might be here a few minutes,” I mutter.

Abi nods.“How is your asshole ex doing anyway?”

“Abi.He’s not that bad.You liked him until we broke up.”She and Rick were pretty good friends until that night.

“Yep, and then he dumped you and made you feel bad about yourself.I don’t know why you’re even giving him another shot.”

“Because I love him.And those feelings don’t just go away.”But even as I say the words, I feel the falseness in them.I thought I loved him, but something was always missing.

The women stumble back out of the woods with their arms around each other.Abi and I help them back onto their horses.We manage to get to the river without another incident, except for Woo Girl occasionally cursing us out, and Abi unties the horses.

“Whoops.”Woo Girl laughs as her flip-flops float off in the water.

“I’m going to fall.”Weeper clutches her horse like she’s about to get swept off.

“Nooo,” Horse Lover cries as her phone drops from her hand.The water is shallow but moving fast.I’m not bothering to chase after it.

The bride’s face is pale, and she’s holding onto her stomach tightly.She’d better not toss her cookies right here.

Even as annoying as these women are, I can’t help but laugh at it all.Seth will get such a big kick out of it when I tell him the story.

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