Page 8 of Maid of Dishonor

Maya blinks, looking surprised, as though the word “fiancé” is a shock to her.

It doesn’t bode well for her upcoming nuptials.

“Uh,” she says. “Well, you know his name is Chet”—what a ridiculous name—“and he’s twenty-five. We met when we were both working at Joey’s”—the restaurant Sam and I just came from, which Maya introduced us to back in the day—“and sort of hit it off. We’ve been together for not quite a year.” She shrugs.

Sam nods slowly while I bite my tongue to avoid ranting about the name “Chet.” Also held back are my feelings about her being with a guy four years older. That argument has never gotten me anywhere anyway.

“And whose idea was it to get married?” Sam says.

“Mine,” Maya admits. “I sort of had to talk Chet around earlier, but he agreed before he left to blow off some steam. As long as—” She breaks off, her eyes darting to me, and it causes a little alarm bell to ring in my mind.

“As long as…what?” I say, feeling suddenly suspicious.

“Nothing,” she says quickly.

I grit my teeth. “Maya, please.”

She gives a little sniff and attempts to sit up straighter while somehow still keeping herself hunched over—it must help her stomach. “We agreed to maintain the open nature of our relationship.”

“The…open nature?” I repeat. No. No way.

Sam frowns. “You guys were in an open relationship?”

I watch as Maya swallows thickly. “Apparently we were,” she says.

“Apparently,” I say flatly. “As in, you didn’t know?”

She clears her throat. “That’s…that’s correct.”

“That’s not an open relationship, Maya! That’s just cheating!” I say, throwing my hands up in the air and resisting the urge to punch the nearest wall. I rub my hand over my face instead. “You need to go get tested. Immediately. I’m pretty sure you can pass STIs to your baby in uteroandduring birth.”

“I already set up an appointment,” she says, looking miserable.

I sigh, relieved. That’s something, at least.

“Maya, do youwantan open marriage?” Sam says gently.

Maya gives a nearly inaudible sniff, blinking her eyes rapidly. “It’s not…ideal”—she clears her throat—“but I acknowledge that Chet is a free spirit and can’t be tied down to one woman.”

Several strongly worded replies hover on my lips, but I keep them in. They aren’t going to help.

“It must have hurt, finding out that he’s been seeing other women,” Sam goes on, looking concerned.

Maya sighs. “I was pretty upset, yeah. But he promised to be more transparent and to always…” She clears her throat, looking more miserable still. “To always use protection.”

No. No, no, no. This is not happening. Not to Maya. Her words are saying she’s okay with this arrangement, but literally everything else about her says otherwise. I open my mouth to reiterate once again that this is a terrible idea, but Sam jabs me with her elbow hard enough that I shut right back up.

“Okay,” Sam says. “Well, provided you’ve thought this through, we want to help, of course—”

Wait. We do? No, we don’t. Is she nuts?

But Maya is already running with the idea. “Oh, will you really?” she says, sighing with relief. “Thank you.Thank you.”

Sam nods, elbowing me again and making me grunt.

“Right. Yeah,” I say, though I am not at all happy about this. “Sure. Yeah.”

“In that case,” Maya says, “Sam, would you—I mean, only if you want—would you be my maid of honor? And Carter, you’ll be a groomsman?”

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