Meanwhile, I sat in the back seat, trying not to think about how my childhood friend was engaged to a jerk and how my first love was three feet away, looking more like a model than the eighteen-year-old who broke my heart.
“So,” Serena said, twisting in her seat to face me, “You think the country club is too stuffy, right?”
“I think it’s very… country club,” I muttered diplomatically.
Teddy snorted. “That’s Margot-speak forfull of old people.”
Serena swatted his arm. “It’s elegant! And it has a view of the water. Plus, Jesse loves it.”
Jesse. I tried not to grimace. I’d spent so long attempting to scrub that night from my memory, and now every time she said his name, another unpleasant puzzle piece rose to the surface. The latest one being how he insisted on selecting the mostexpensive wine on the menu, then waited for Serena to leave for the restroom before demanding I pay half the bill.
Still, she looked… happy. And that counted for something, right?
“I just don’t know,” Serena sighed. “It’s beautiful, but I always pictured getting married at the beach. Something simple—barefoot, string lights on Main Street, a small reception.”
“Then do the beach,” Teddy said easily.
“It’s not that simple,” she replied. “Jesse’s parents are paying, and they already booked the rehearsal dinner here.”
“What aboutyou?” I quipped, frowning at her. “You know, most people think the wedding should be for the bride, not the groom.” Teddy met my eyes in the rear view mirror. I shrugged.
She cleared her throat. “Well, I think it’s nice his parents are willing to pay.”
I pressed my lips together, refusing to push further. Serena’s parents died when we were thirteen. They were quiet, and always seemed strangely distant with her at soccer games and school drop-off. Those years were shaded with so many streaks of charcoal, sometimes my friends’ tragedies blurred with my own.
Serena carried on effortlessly after the fact, even under the thumb of her older-brother-turned-guardian.
Perhaps I could add it as another feather in my cap of friendship failures.
Teddy glanced at her after an extended stretch of silence. “You sure this isn’t about you being scared to tell him what you actually want?”
Serena threw him a look. “I’m not scared.”
“You’re a little scared,” he teased.
“I’m not!”
“Serena,” I cut in lightly, “youliterallybroke out in hives when you told your brother you wanted a dog.”
She groaned, whipping a pair of sunglasses from her purse. “You two are the worst.”
“Correct,” I replied, lips twitching into a smile.
Truthfully, watching them together again—bickering and teasing and poking each other’s buttons—made something twist painfully beneath my ribs. We hadn’t been like this in years. It felt easy and impossible all at once.
The country club lay just beyond the farms and the pumpkin patch, on the outskirts of the Cove but before the highway to Port Camden. It looked exactly as I remembered it: sprawling white columns, manicured hedges, a long gravel drive lined with Japanese maple trees brimming with dark burgundy leaves. The Cove’s richest visitors came to stay there, some for months at a time.
My heels clicked against the shining marble floors as we followed a wedding planner through the building. Everything, from the crystal chandeliers to the mahogany dining tables, gleamed with a too-perfect sheen.
“This is the main ballroom,” the planner said. “It seats up to two hundred guests comfortably.”
Serena’s polite smile already began to fade. “Uh-huh.”
“And out this way—” The planner gestured to a terrace. “—You’ll see the ocean view. Ceremonies here areveryhighly sought after.”
We stepped outside. It was crisper here, with a strange lack of brine in the air, but the horizon washed in pale gold and the manicured, absurdly green grass had a certain allure. I could admit—for a wedding venue, it was stunning. But it didn’t look like what Serena wanted.
Teddy must’ve thought the same, because he leaned toward me and murmured, “No way she picks this.”
