Bailey held out her hands, and the girls took one each, then guided them to a rack bursting with different-colored dresses, her smile growing bigger as they oohed and aahed at every poofy option. Joey immediately grabbed for the biggest dress on the rack, a pink ruffled princess-looking gown with a skirt so wideit required its own gravitational field, while Andi hovered a step behind, eyeing the simpler, shorter, satin dress.
The shop was alive with the sound of giggles, the crinkle of fabric, the buzz of a steamer somewhere out of sight. I tried my best to stay out of everyone’s way, but it was hard not to feel like a bull in a boutique. I drifted to the wall, where an oversized black-and-white photo froze the Bliss family in a moment from decades ago.
There was Grandpa Bill, mid-laugh, his hand on a young Bailey’s shoulder. Grandma Betty looked regal, like a movie star, her arm looped through a man’s arm I assumed was Billie’s father, but I’d never met the man. And there was Billie, maybe twelve years old, in a party dress and clutching a bouquet of peonies, her gaze intense even then. Birdie and Bailey flanked her on either side, Birdie’s smile sweet and sincere, and Bailey’s softer but determined. It was difficult to reconcile the tiny kids in the photo with the accomplished women running this operation now, but all the same, some things never changed. You could tell, even in that old picture, that Billie was the sun everyone else orbited.
I was so focused on the photo that I didn’t notice the hush fall over the room until I heard the clatter of heels on the stairs, followed by a chorus of “Wow”s from the girls and a low whistle from Bailey. Birdie descended first, her arms full of white satin. It took me a second to realize she was trailing a wedding gown behind her, and then, a step behind, came Billie.
The sight of her hit me like the aftershock of a car accident—delayed and then overwhelming all at once. I’d seen Billie dressed up plenty of times before: school dances, parties, even the time she’d been forced to be a bridesmaid for a third cousin. But I’d never seen her like this. The dress hugged every inch of her, the bodice structured and sharp, but with thin straps that made her collarbones look impossibly delicate. Her hair wasdown in glossy, loose waves, grazing her bare shoulders. The makeup was a little heavier than I was used to—smudged liner and something shimmery on her eyelids—but it didn’t feel like a mask. It just made her green eyes seem brighter, more focused. Like she was seeing through me and everyone else in the room.
She didn’t so much walk as glide, and every molecule in my body seemed to zero in on her, tuning out the chaos of the shop, the music, and my daughters shrieking with delight over their sparkle shoes. Billie stopped at the bottom of the stairs, hands loosely clasped in front of her, and waited for someone to say something. Anything. I tried to speak, but my voice shorted out, my brain running through a series of error messages.
“What are you doing here?” Billie’s tone was harsh, as if she’d caught me in the act of robbing the register.
I swallowed, tried again, and managed, “I…the girls?—”
Billie’s jaw twitched, but Bailey rushed in to rescue me. “When I texted Cole about the boys, I asked him to see if the girls would mind coming and filling in since we lost the flower girls, and they said yes. Isn’t that great?” she said, aiming the last part at Billie, whose face had gone still, unreadable, shut down.
It was then that Birdie noticed me, or at least pretended to just have. She shouted and wrapped me in a hug that was surprisingly strong for someone built like a ballerina. “Adam! Oh my god, it’s so good to see you! And are these your daughters?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just released her hold, then swung me by the elbow so I faced the girls. “They are the cutest! Hi, I’m Birdie!”
I tried to pay attention as Birdie introduced herself to the girls, but all I could think about was how ridiculously gorgeous Billie looked.
“Adam?”
I blinked at the sound of my name and looked over at Bailey, who was now standing with a man holding a camera.
“Would you?” Bailey asked.
“Would I what?”
“We thought we’d have to lose all the wedding shots because we lost the groom, but since you’re here, would you mind being the groom?”
“No, I don’t think—” Billie answered.
“Sure,” I said at the same time.
“Great!” Bailey looked at her sister and then back at me. “Let’s get you in a tux.”
I walked past the storyboard for the campaign and saw that the shots seemed to be centered around the couple at the altar exchanging vows, and some were out in front St. Jude’s, the church on the corner. I’d been back in San Francisco for less than forty-eight hours, and I was going to be playing Billie Bliss’s groom for the day in a photo shoot.
One might say this was karma, I just wasn’t sure if it was the good kind or the bad kind. From the look on Billie’s face, I could definitely tell which one she was leaning towards. It was not the good kind.
13
BILLIE
Adam was my groom?This has to be some sort of sick fucking joke. How was this my life?
I already had hives on my chest. Now what? Were they going to spread up on my arms, hands, neck, and face? We had sort of disguised them with makeup, which was possible on my chest since the redness could be camouflaged and the inflammation wouldn’t be as noticeable, but if they showed up on my arms, hands, neck, and face, that was going to be impossible.
“Are you okay?” Birdie instantly sensed my shift in mood as she helped me into my next dress in the fitting room. My baby sister was highly attuned to energy, and she was also an empath.
“I’m fine.” My tone was short and clipped, but thankfully, that was very on brand for me, typically, so it shouldn’t raise too many alarm bells.
“I know you hate this, but at least now you’re not doing it alone. Adam’s here, it’ll be just like when we all used to play dress up." Birdie was a half-glass full person. She always saw the best in people, chose to see the bright side of every situation, and never dwelled on the negative.
If the world were filled with Birdies there would be no war, no famine, no problems. Everyone would help each other, give each other anything anyone needed, and be in good moods all the time. She was the purest, best soul in the entire world, but right now, I wanted her to get the fuck out of the fitting room so I could have a mini breakdown.
Although, I had to admit, despite the urgency growing in my core to self-destruct, a grin lifted on my face at the memory of Adam’s many adventures in cosplay. He was such a good sport, he’d been a prince countless times. A dragon, pirate, cowboy whatever the girls wanted him to dress up as.
