Page 23 of A Happy Endings Wedding
Mad laughed. “Nope!”
She felt the lacy thing, giving it a tug. “It’s stretchy.”
“Try your head,” Claire’s throaty husky voice called out.
Headband. She slipped it on. “Next, hurry!” She didn’t want to miss out on the cool stuff, but she didn’t want to barf all over it either. She was sure Lucy was taking pictures, along with her friends.
“What’s the hurry?” Mad asked, handing over something silky.
“It’ll be funnier if I put it on in a hurry.” She tied the silky thing around her neck. “Next!”
She moved as fast as she possibly could without standing, putting everything around her head, neck, shoulders, and wrists while battling nausea. “Is that everything?”
The blindfold was ripped off. Mad grinned. “That’s everything. Stand up and model it.”
She stood, felt the telltale lurch of her stomach, the burn in her throat, and dashed for the rail, tossing her cookies into the sea. Then she just stood there, leaning over the rail and panting, hoping that was the last of it.
“Hailey,” Mad said and knocked into her when the boat suddenly rocked.
Hailey tipped right over the rail and into the water. It happened so fast she didn’t have time to yelp. One minute she was panting through nausea; the next she took a dunk.
She came up sputtering.Are you fucking kidding me?It was frigging cold, her clothes were heavy from being soaked with water, making treading water difficult, and Mad was laughing.
“Are you okay?” Mad called, still laughing.
Hailey smacked the water, furious after a long line of bridal things gone wrong. “You don’t throw a pregnant woman overboard!”
“Oh my God, you’re pregnant!” Mad hollered.
Everyone rushed the rail, gaping at her. Lucy snapped pictures.
The first mate tossed her a life preserver, and she kicked back to the boat and made her way up the ladder. Then she just stood on the deck, soaking wet and spitting mad.
“Are you really pregnant?” her mom asked, a hand to her throat.
“Yes, Mom, I really am,” Hailey bit out. Like she would just go around telling everyone she was a pregnant bride when she wasn’t.
“I need to sit down,” her mom said in a shaky voice. She retreated to the bench seat and stared at Hailey. “I’m going to be a grandmother?”
Hailey wrung out her dress. Ruined. Everything was ruined. The reporters had gotten an earful, she’d let Josh down by blabbing their news when they’d said they’d wait, and now her mom was freaking out. “That’s how it works, Mom.”
“Congratulations!” Mad exclaimed.
Her mom smoothed her hair and looked up at Hailey. “How did I get to be so old?”
“That’s right, Mom, it’s a-a-all about you. No one worry about the pregnant bride with the wedding from hell!”
Dead silence. Everyone stared at her in shock.
Mad broke the silence. “Just because you fell overboard doesn’t mean your wedding is ruined.”
Hailey lifted both hands and ticked off on her fingers all the ways it had gone horribly wrong. “I’m on my second wedding gown! Furry wedding preempt! Flowers are shit! Rings are literally shit! Caterer is on strike! And now my secret is out. I’m the pregnant bride, everyone! There’s your headline! The wedding planner’s wedding is falling apart!” The absurdity of it hit her all at once and she just started laughing like a loon. “This wedding is cursed!”
The women spoke all at once.
“Someone call Josh.”
“Get her back to shore!”
“Holy crap!”
Somehow Hailey got from point A—soaked and shivering on a party boat—to point B, tucked into bed in her pajamas. Claire commandeered her, though the details were fuzzy between the nausea, the chill, and the sinking despair of knowing not just the wedding was cursed, she was cursed. And her career was sunk right along with it. No one would ever hire her again after this disaster of a wedding.
