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“You calling me a moron?”
My jaw drops. “No, of course not?—”
Bee’s head floats up towards me, revealing a wicked grin. “I’m kidding, Wren. Chill.” She goes back to her nails with a soft smile still playing on her lips. “I wanna make sure I get the right dress, so you’re gonna have to be honest with me, okay? Can I trust you to be honest?”
The pressure builds like a volcano. I can feel my panic and guilt start to bubble over the top and it all comes out in one torrid, breathless stream. “I’msosorrybutIhadsexwithDmitriyesterday.”
She freezes over her big toe, her gaze snapping to me, her lips parted. Is she pissed? Shocked? Annoyed? Hurt?
Then laughter bursts through her nostrils. She keeps going, having to set the brush down so she doesn’t spray nail polish everywhere, and laughs until tears stud her eyes.
“Why are you laughing?” I ask incredulously.
Finally, she sighs and relents. “Partly because you looked like you were about to poop yourself if you held that in for a second longer. But mostly because you felt the need to tell me at all. I mean, quite apart from the fact that this has been brewing for a while now, I heard you guys loud and clear last night. Sounded like you two had an—” She gives me a cartoonish wink. “—explosive time.”
“Oh, God.” I bury my face in my hands. I might just stay like this forever.
“Never apologize for good sex, hon,” she chides, rapping me lightly on the back of the head. “It’s one of the few joys we get in this cursed life.”
Mumbling between my fingers, I say, “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Why on earth would you be sorry?” When I peek out, I see she has an eyebrow arched in amazement. “It’s about freaking time the two of you got it on. The sexual tension was killing me.”
“You’re not… mad?”
“Wren,” she says tiredly like she’s talking to a small child, “you were there for the conversation where I told you that this whole wedding thing is a sham, right? I mean, that was you I was talking to?”
I protest, “Still, we didn’t have a conversation about?—”
“About what?” she interrupts. “Me explicitly giving you permission to fuck my fiancé?” I blush hard, but she just laughs at my discomfort. “Babe, seriously. There are a fuck ton of things to feel awkward about in this whole sordid affair. This is not one of those things. You wanna fuck Dmitri? By all means, go right ahead. He needs to be good and fucked. Hopefully, it makes him less grumpy. Win-win-win, baby.”
I swallow. “Right. Yeah. Okay. I mean… thanks.”
She snorts and goes back to painting her toenails. “No need to thank me. He was never mine to hand over to you. It was never my place to give you or him permission.” She finishes up, checks her handiwork, and then kicks her feet up on the ottoman. “We can leave when my nail polish dries.”
We sit there in silence for a moment. Then, suddenly, I’m laughing, too, and laughing, and laughing, and laughing. It completely dissolves the stress sitting on my shoulders.
“Let me in on the joke,” Bee insists with an elbow dug into my ribs.
I shake my head. “I just can’t believe this is happening.”
“Yeah,” she agrees with a chuckle. “Now, just imagine how he feels.”
Then we’re both laughing, and the world doesn’t seem quite as heavy as it did just a little while ago.
47
WREN
“Well?” Bee asks, twirling around so that I can get a better look at the Caroline Herrera she’s wearing.
“Beautiful.”
“I sense a ‘but.’”
“I preferred the Vivienne Westwood. The off-the-shoulder, crepe silk A-line.”
“That was a good one,” she agrees, turning to look in the mirror and check the angles. “But I think I want a more fitted silhouette. A-lines feel too romantic for me. I want sexy.”
