Well Played, стр. 10

Between Saturday morning and getting ready for brunch with Emily and April on Sunday, I checked my phone roughly a hundred times. It had been more than twenty-four hours since I’d sent that first regrettable message, and he hadn’t answered. Relief mingled with disappointment, and I couldn’t decide which emotion was stronger. No response meant not having to own up to my drunken words, and I was all for not being held accountable for my actions. But no response also meant that he wasn’t interested, which, let’s face it, sucked.

I sighed a long sigh, tied back my hair, and put on some pink lip gloss. This wasn’t that big a heartbreak, after all. Nothing a little brunch couldn’t cure.

•   •   •

I adored brunch. It was relaxing, a meal meant to be eaten over a good hour or two, savoring drinks and coffee and carbs in all forms. But brunch with Emily Parker was something else entirely. She had a paper planner already stuffed with printouts and brochures, and her tablet was on her Pinterest page of wedding dresses, which we flicked through while we waited for our waffles and eggs.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get married in costume?” April shook a sugar packet into her coffee before stirring in the cream. “You’d look so cool as a pirate’s bride.”

Emily shook her head, not looking up from her tablet. “Simon vetoed that pretty much immediately.”

“Too bad.” April sighed dramatically. “Because that would have made Stacey and me your . . .” Her voice quavered, and when I looked over at her, she was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “. . . your bridesmateys.” She barely got the word out before she sputtered into a laugh, and my own giggle burst out before I could check it.

Emily snorted a laugh of her own but shook her head. “You’re the worst,” she said around a grin. “Now, can we look at these dresses, please?”

“You’ve been engaged for like a week,” I said, wonderingly. “How did you do all this?”

“I work fast.” Emily flicked through her tablet before passing it to her older sister, April. “This one!”

April frowned at it. “You’re too short for that.”

I took a sip of coffee to cover my laugh, and Emily tsked at her sister. “I am not! Show Stacey; she’ll back me up.”

April passed me the tablet, and it was my turn to frown at the picture. It was a relatively traditional wedding gown, but April was right. The model in the photo was easily half a foot taller than Emily, if not more. Lots of lace, a train, and puffy sleeves . . . Em would be lost in a dress like that.

“Sorry, Em. I have to go with April on this one.” Thankfully the waiter arrived with our mimosas to soften the blow, and I tipped mine to April in acknowledgment. “I mean it. It’s very pretty, but you’ll look like you’re drowning in your grandma’s linen closet if you wear that. You want . . .” I could imagine perfectly the kind of dress she should wear, but none of her choices matched the vision in my head. I set down my drink to head down a Pinterest rabbit hole, tapping and swiping and tapping again until I found a good approximation. “Something like this.” I passed the tablet back to her. She peered at my choice, April leaning over her shoulder, and I chewed on my bottom lip and tried to read their faces.

Emily’s face hardened at first, and my heart sank. But then she tilted her head, and the more she looked at the picture, the more her face softened. “You think? It doesn’t look too . . . I dunno, casual?”

“Nope.” I shook my head with no hesitation. “Think about it. You’re getting married outside, so you don’t want something that’s going to drag all over the ground. Not to mention, it’ll be what, July? August? The hottest time of the year. You don’t want all those layers of fabric.”

“I like the skirt.” April gestured in an up-and-down zigzag motion. “It calls attention to the lace better than that other dress.”

“I do like the lace.” Emily bit her lip. “And the skirt is really cute.”

“Exactly,” I said. “The handkerchief hem shows off the lace better, and when it’s in a couple layers like that it’ll give you a fair amount of swish.”

“Swish?” Em looked up at me now, her eyes twinkling. “Is that a technical term?”

“Sure is.” I grinned back at her over the rim of my mimosa flute.

“Yeah, I think Stacey’s right,” April said. “But maybe more of a halter style up top, and keep the silhouette close. It looks like something . . .” She shrugged. “I dunno, like in a fairy tale. If you’re getting married at the Ren Faire next summer, that’s not a bad look to emulate, right?”

“And you have to have flowers in your hair,” I said. “Like a flower crown. Or maybe a tiara would be better.”

A smile played around Emily’s mouth. “I like flowers. Good idea.” As our food arrived she looked down at the picture again. When she tapped on it to save it to her board, I felt a surge of triumph.

“You’re good at this,” April said. She watched me carefully while she took another sip of her mimosa. “You’re one of those people who’s been planning their wedding since they were four, aren’t you?”

I had to laugh at that. “Hardly.” Weddings weren’t my thing. But clothes were. And I knew what looked good on people. To me it was automatic. One look at someone and I knew whether they should be wearing a ballerina or sweetheart neckline, a tea-length or a maxi skirt. It came together as a picture in my head, complete and sudden, like a snapshot. It was a talent that I didn’t get to use a whole lot these days, so when I had the opportunity, I pounced on it.

“You are good at this, though,” Emily