Page 33 of Without a Hitch
“Delaney Marie Daniels. You cannot seriously be on board with this?”
“Tilly Elaine Camden,” she mocks. “It’s thirty thousand dollars.”
Inhaling through my nose, I raise my hands to my temples and rub small circles around the migraine forming. When the three of them start murmuring and agreeing, their hands moving a mile a minute, I sink into the sofa and put an arm over my eyes.
“Okay, Hades, what kinds of bridesmaids are there?” Eli asks.
“Ah, I mean, I’ve never been one.”
This has me moving my arm to peek at her. Hadley has the heart of a giant, but she’s also painfully shy. She’s the most genuine person I’ve ever met, and it’s always made her an easy target for mean girls. She’s the reason I know that even at almost thirty years old, some girls never left high school.
“You’ll be in all our weddings, Hades,” Delaney promises.
Hadley rolls her eyes, but her cheeks turn pink, and she adjusts her glasses.
“I’ve only been in my sisters’ weddings,” Eli commiserates. “But we’ve all watched every movie with a happy ever after known to man, and Delaney has been in at least ten weddings this year alone. So, let’s compile a list.”
“A list?”
“Yes. If we list every type of potential disastrous bridesmaid, we can make a plan for handling them.”
Hadley nods. “Yes.” She waves her hands excitedly. “This is good. She’ll have a game plan heading in before she even talks to the bride.”
Delaney dumps all her supplies on the end table, then reaches up on her tiptoes and writesbridal baddiesin magenta, her favorite color, on the posterboard.
Peeling myself off the couch, I walk to the corner and grab her stepstool. The rest of us are average height, but Del is on the other side of five feet and fights for every quarter inch. I place it by her feet. She shrugs and hops on with a sunshiny grin so sweet it could make your teeth ache.
“Okay. We can do this. What type of relationship did the last two baddies have?”
“I don’t know. Frenemies,” I tell them, standing with my arms crossed as I watch the controlled chaos unfold around me.
Hadley takes the marker from Delaney and writesfrenemieson the posterboard.
“You know, we have computers for this,” I tease.
“Nah, I’m with Del. I like the colors, and it’ll help us work out a plan of attack together,” Hadley states. She pushes her glasses up. Again. It’s a habit she’s had as long as I’ve known her. It allows her to break eye contact without feeling so insecure. “I’ve got one.” Underneathfrenemies, she writesthe one-upper.
“Ooh, good one, Hades. The rapacious one.” Eli smirks.
Delaney turns her head over her shoulder. “Greedy,” she whispers.
“Thanks.” I roll my eyes. “How about the insensitive one?”
“Oh, that’s totally one.”
I’m getting into it now as we list off every possible type of baddie. Most come from personal experience, unfortunately, but Eli’s right. With our combined experiences, we’ll know how to handle them all.
“The unreliable one.”
“Macy Jones.” Delaney laughs.
“Talebearer,” Eli says with an eyebrow raised to the sky.
“Ugh. Mary Ward. She could spread gossip faster than the internet.”
“The pessimist.”
“The superficial.”
