Page 41 of Brenna, Brat

“I’m fine,” I wrote back in our group text. “I’m with a friend and watching hockey, relaxing.”

“No way. Where are you really?” Juliet immediately demanded to know and I got so infuriated that I almost jumped to my feet. Except, there was a comfortable, warm, gorgeous man currently in my lap, so I stayed where I was.

“I’m watching hockey just like I said!” I told her. “Why are you calling me a liar?”

“She’s surprised because you’ve never been much of a sports fan,” Addie conciliated. “We’re all glad you’re ok, Brenna.”

Juliet said yes, that was right, and she was really glad. I frowned as I looked at the phone, and then a separate text outside of our chat came in from that same sister.

“I need your help.”

Well, now her concern for me made more sense. I sat and looked at her words for a moment. She needed my help, me, stupid little Brenna? The skinny, flat-chested girl that she’d claimed (for years) not to know?

Hm.

I thought of her fiancé, Beckett, and how he had looked the last time I’d seen him. I considered how she’d written, “Thanks, Bren,” because I’d asked how he was, and I thought of himhelping Campbell, the guy currently unconscious on my lap, when he had needed a lawyer.

“With what?” I typed, and Juliet told me what she wanted from me. I thought about it for a while, and I figured that it just might work. I could do this for her.

Then I looked down at the man still asleep, still happily cuddling with me. Maybe this moment was all the start of something amazing. Maybe the fire today was some kind of cleansing thing, like when my mom had walked through her house with a smoldering, smelly stick as she chanted in a language that I was sure she didn’t really speak.

“Mmm,” Campbell rumbled. “Olives.”

“You’re fine,” I told him. And so was I.

Chapter 9

“Ihave total confidence that it will be perfect.” I paused, and cleared my throat. “I just need to figure out what I’m doing a little.”

“Holy—”

“Sophie, don’t start!” I barked at her. “You know what a good job I did with Addie’s. It was beautiful.” It hadn’t been quite what I’d envisioned, but that was due to Addie and Granger disregarding some of the good advice I’d given them. If they had fallen in line, things would have gone even better.

“You weren’t her planner,” my sister reminded me. “We all worked on it, and Addie had tons of time. Both she and her husband were hands-on and they did a lot themselves.”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“I’m saying that it’s going to be much harder this time around,” Sophie explained, her voice rising in pitch and volume.

“Yes, it will be harder if Juliet and Beckett butt in and get in my way.”

“It’s their wedding!” she exclaimed. “They can butt in all they want.”

“But they should be focusing on other things, like how he’s…” I trailed off, thinking of when I’d met with them both to hear about what they wanted for their big day. Beckett had been resting on the couch and Juliet had clearly been so worried about him that she looked sick herself. It had been stressful and awful.

Sophie also got upset. “He’s going to be fine. They’re listening to the doctors and doing everything right. It’s going to be fine,” she repeated. She checked her phone and read something which I assumed was an adoring message from her own husband because she got a gooey expression, smiling a little and then flushing as she wrote back. She put her hand over her lower stomach where their baby was growing.

That kind of behavior was a little sickening. “Did you have something specific that you wanted to discuss right now, or are you just wanting to complain that I might mess up sometime in the future?” I asked her. “I understand that this is a big job, ok?” Obviously, I knew that it took a lot to get a wedding squared away in a month, which was the time frame that Juliet had set forth when she’d hired me as her wedding planner. I’d agreed to do it the night that the gallery had burned down, and I’d been nose-to-the-grindstone ever since.

“You need a job and I’ll pay you for it,” she’d written as I played with Campbell’s hair. It was so soft, and he’d sighed so contentedly…

“Brenna Amy, are you listening?” Sophie demanded now.

That was correct: my middle name was Amy. That made my initials BAC, Blood Alcohol Content. It was so charming, and my parents were so—

“Brenna!” she exclaimed. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes, but I wish that I hadn’t,” I told her. “You’re saying that I’m going to ruin JuJu’s wedding.” I felt enough doubt in myself right now that I didn’t need to hear it from my sister, too.

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