Page 39 of Our Big White Lie
I swallowed, which took work. “I think that’s all it is. I hate lying to people.” As I’m lying through my teeth to one of my closest friends. Ugh.
He quirked his lips.
I silently begged him to let it go. Don’t push me into saying what we probably both knew. Yes, I had feelings for Ava that made this all messy and complicated, but putting a name on those feelings and saying them out loud? That would make things even messier and more complicated. I couldn’t do that. Not to Ava, and not to Gail. Not now. I had to follow through with this for them, and if there were difficult emotions to unpack later, I’d cross that bridge when I got to it.
For now, all I could do was hope I could get through this without losing whatever sanity I had left.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ava
“So, I found another reason to feel weird about everything.”
I lowered my coffee cup and raised my eyebrows. This had to be about last night. We hadn’t talked about that yet, and we hadn’t talked about much at all since then. Not the wedding. Not dinner plans. Not even Tucker’s latest antics. It was only a matter of time before we broke the silence, and the sooner the better, I supposed.
“Do I want to know?” I asked.
“Probably not, but…” Tori shrugged and barreled on. “My cousin texted me last night asking about our gift registry.”
I stiffened. That was not what I’d been expecting. “Oh. Yeah. That.” I grimaced, my stomach flipping over. Great. Now we hadtwouncomfortable things we needed to iron out. “Shit. That’s an… awkward topic.”
“Right? So…” Tori made a face and chafed her arms. “And like, is it just me, or does it feel really squicky to expect gifts for this wedding?”
“No, no, it’s not just you.” In fact, I’d been mentally avoiding the topic and procrastinating the hell out of even thinking about registries or answering my mom about a joint bridal shower.Couldn’t avoid it forever, apparently. “Question is, how would we even tell people we don’t want gifts without tipping our hand?”
Tori chewed her lip. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be a big faux pas or anything.” She blew out a breath as she reached into the cupboard where we kept the coffee cups. “Every Reddit thread or internet post I’ve seen about gift etiquette violations is about people demanding too much. Like that one bride who required everyone to send proof of purchase to one of her bridesmaids to confirm they spent enough?” She wrinkled her nose. “I had the worst secondhand embarrassment reading that.”
I laughed, which loosened up some of this renewed tension. “Oh, I remember that one. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone get torched that hard in the comments.”
“I’ve always wondered if that post was fake.” Tori grinned. “Like the poster had a humiliation kink or something.”
Giggles tumbled out of me. “Right? Oh my God, that would be so… Do you think someone would do that?”
She shrugged. “It’s the only explanation I can think of for some of the things people post on there.”
“Hmm. Good point. Either that or they’re just going for clout and shock value.”
“I like the humiliation kink theory better.”
“Of course you do.” I laughed, rolling my eyes. “And that’s why you comment the way you do, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah.” She shrugged and met me with an innocent look that shouldn’t have been that cute. “I’m either putting them in their place for being a twatwaffle, or I’m giving them what they want. Either way…” Another shrug.
I giggled. “You’re such a dork.”
“Eh. I can’t argue with that.” She winked, which screwed with my balance. What was wrong with me?
I cleared my throat and tried to pull the conversation back on the rails. “So… what do we do about this whole gift thing?”
“Well…” Tori leaned against the counter, cradling her coffee between both hands. “I mean, remember when Molly got married? She and her husband were pushing forty. They had everything they needed.” She shrugged. “So they just said ‘no gifts’ and nobody batted an eye. With us? I don’t know. But we could just do the same, couldn’t we? We’re a lot younger, but we’re pretty well-situated, you know?” She gestured around our rental house. “We might not have a bougie stand mixer or matching crystal wineglasses, but I can’t think of much we actually need.”
“There is that.” I sipped my coffee. “We’re ordering invites this week, but I haven’t finalized the text yet. I can just add a line about no gifts.”
She nodded. “Easy enough, I guess?”
“Exactly. Then nobody gets upset if the truth comes out later.”
“And we don’t feel guilty about collecting gifts under false pretenses.” She made a face. “Because wow, I feelsuperweird about that.”
