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"Tate is keeping us all supplied with wine. Not sure how it happened, but we all have a fully stocked bar.”
“Except me," Kimberly said. "I'm lucky my apartment in Paris has a bedroom separate from the kitchen. Accommodations in that city are seriously insane, lots to be desired."
"What is everyone having?" Reese asked. "Wine or cocktails?"
"I want a cocktail," Kimberly said. "Actually, you know what, sister? You can sit there, and I'll prepare the drinks for everyone. Just tell me what you want, and I'll find the recipe online. And if you don't have the ingredients, I'll just improvise."
I loved Kimberly's energy. She seemed like she was up for fun at any time.
"I want a margarita," I said. "I like simple drinks, and a margarita is great.”
“I'm pretty sure I've got frozen berries. I've got a lot of frozen fruit. I mean, I've got ice cream as well, but I don't think that counts as fruit," Reese said, and we all laughed. "Lexi, I also have some fresh fruit in the pantry. Do you mind helping me bring some?"
I pressed my lips together. This was the second time tonight that Reese was trying to get Lexi away from the group so we could plot.
Lexi started giggling. "Okay, the jig is up. I know you want to plan my bachelorette party tonight."
I gasped. Kimberly stopped in the act of pouring frozen berries into the mixer. "How do you know that?"
“Tate said something about me not having strippers. And then I started to question what he knew."
"I can't believe it. The guys blabbed about this?" I was shocked. "Do they always do this?”
"No clue. I believe they consider this to be a special occasion," Kendra said. "Tyler was also very bossy, insisting I shouldn't even think about strippers."
"Who do they think they are, bossing us around like that?" Liz asked. "And yeah, Declan gave me the speech as well."
Reese burst out laughing. Kimberly shook her head. "Girls, we're sorry, but this does sound like our cousins' bossy nature." She put her hand on her hip, tapping her foot. "But you know, this gives me an idea. I mean, we could bring a stripper, just to see their reactions."
"I think not," I said, "because I believe their reactions would be to throw everyone over their shoulders and carry us home. Luke, at least, might do that."
"Yeah, Declan too,” Liz said. “You should have seen him a couple months ago when I burned my hand and still wanted to go to work. He went all bossy on me, and we weren't even dating at that point."
Kimberly started making cocktails. I moved behind the bar too, following her lead so we could be quicker. I mostly did prep work, crushing ice in a blender and slicing limes.
After we were done, we toasted the evening together. "Lexi, we're going to talk another time about your party."
"Let’s do it now. I don’t like surprises."
“Really?" I asked.
"Yeah. That was Tate's excuse for talking to me about the bachelorette party.”
“I organized one before, and I have a couple ideas about locations and activities we could do. The first thing we have to decide on is whether we want it to be a one-day event or a weekend thing."
The more I thought about it, the more I liked the fact that Lexi wanted to be part of the planning. Sure, the element of surprise wasn't going to be there, although we could sneak something in that we didn't tell her about. But like this, you knew the bride was having fun.
"Okay, everyone," Kimberly exclaimed, "brainstorming officially starts now. You're all good to go with cocktails. The pizza is going to arrive in about five minutes. If you want to be sensible, wait for the pizza and drink after. I'm definitely not going to be sensible. Besides, it's got fruit in it, right?"
"Counts as food," Reese said.
"Here, here," I exclaimed. I ate a croissant on the way here, so I wasn't too hungry. I sipped from my cocktail, humming. "This is delicious."
We started brainstorming right away. When the pizza arrived, we immediately opened it. Even though I wasn't hungry, I got down half a pizza in less than ten minutes. It was delicious.
"Hey, I think we have a good plan," I said, writing all the ideas on a piece of paper. I'd declared myself the official organizer somehow, but this was fun, and I wanted to do it. We had plenty of ideas. We just needed to arrange them in a schedule that would fit.
Lexi leaned in closer to me. We were all on the floor, and I was lying on my belly with my feet up in the air.
