I’d been doing a pretty good job of making myself scarce, but I happened to be home that Friday afternoon when, out of nowhere, Belly needed me. She was sitting on the living room floor with that stupid binder, papers all around her. She looked freaked out, stressed. She had that worried grimace on her face, the look she’d get when she was working on a math problem and she couldn’t figure it out.

“Jere’s stuck in city traffic,” she said, blowing her hair out of her face. “I told him to leave earlier. I really needed his help today.”

“What did you need him to do?”

“We were gonna go to Michaels. You know, that craft store?”

Drily, I said, “I can’t say I’ve ever been to a Michaels before.” I hesitated, then added, “But if you want, I’ll go with you.”

“Really? Because I’m picking up some heavy stuff today. The store’s all the way over in Plymouth, though.”

“Sure, no problem,” I said, feeling inexplicably grati-fied to be lifting heavy stuff.

We took her car because it was bigger. She drove. I’d only ever ridden with her a few times. This side of her was new to me. Assured, confident. She drove fast, but she was still in control. I liked it. I found myself sneaking peeks at her, and I had to force myself to cool it.

“You’re not a bad driver,” I said.

She grinned. “Jeremiah taught me well.”

That’s right. He taught her how to drive. “So what else about you has changed?”

“Hey, I was never not a good driver.”

I snorted, then looked out the window. “I think Steve would disagree.”

“He’ll never let me live down what I did to his precious baby.” She shifted gears as we came to a stoplight.

“So what else has changed?”

“You wear heels now. At the garden ceremony, you had on high heels.”

There was a minute hesitation before she said, “Yeah, sometimes. I still trip in them, though.” Ruefully she added, “I’m like a real lady now.”

I reached out to touch her hand, but at the last second I pointed instead. “You still bite your nails.”

She curled her fingers around the steering wheel.

With a little smile, she said, “You don’t miss a thing.”

“Okay, so, what are we picking up here? Flower holders?”

Belly laughed. “Yeah. Flower holders. In other words, vases.” She grabbed a cart, and I took it from her and pushed it in front of us. “I think we decided on hurricane vases.”

“What’s a hurricane vase? And how the hell does Jere know what one is?”

“I didn’t mean Jere and I decided, I meant me and Taylor.” She grabbed the cart and walked ahead of me. I followed her to aisle twelve.

“See?” Belly held up a fat glass vase.

I crossed my arms. “Very nice,” I said in a bored voice.

She put down the vase and picked up a skinnier one, and she didn’t look at me as she said, “I’m sorry you’re the one stuck doing this with me. I know it’s lame.”

“It’s not—that lame,” I said. I started grabbing vases off the shelf. “How many do we need?”

“Wait! Should we get the big ones or the medium ones? I’m thinking maybe the medium ones,” she said, lifting one up and checking the price tag. “Yeah, definitely the medium ones. I only see a few left. Can you go ask somebody who works here?”

“The big ones,” I said, because I’d already stacked four of the big ones in the cart. “The big ones are much nicer. You can fit more flowers or sand or whatever.”

Belly narrowed her eyes. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to go find somebody.”

“Okay, yeah, but seriously, I think the big ones are nicer.”

She shrugged and put another big vase in the cart.

“I guess we could just have one big vase on each table instead of two medium-size ones.”

“Now what?” I started to push the cart again, and she took it from me.

“Candles.”

I followed her down another aisle, then another. “I don’t think you know where you’re going,” I said.

“I’m taking you on the scenic route,” she said, steering the cart. “Look at all these fake flowers and garlands.

Good stuff.”

I stopped. “Should we get some? They might look good on the porch.” I grabbed a bunch of sunflowers and added a few white roses to the bunch. “This looks kind of nice, right?”

“I was kidding,” she said, sucking in her cheeks. I could tell she was trying not to smile. “But yeah, that looks all right. Not great, but all right.”

I put the flowers back. “All right, I give up. From now on, I’ll just do the heavy lifting.”

“Nice effort, though.”

Back at the house, Jeremiah’s car was in the driveway.

“Jere and I can unload all of this later,” I said, turning off the ignition.

“I’ll help,” she offered, hopping out of the car. “I’m just gonna say hi first.”

I grabbed a couple of the heavier bags and followed her up the steps and into the house. Jeremiah was lying on the couch watching TV. When he saw us, he sat up.

“Where have you guys been?” he asked. He said it casually, but his eyes flickered at me as he spoke.

“At Michaels,” Belly said. “What time did you get here?”

“A little while ago. Why didn’t you wait for me? I told you I’d be here in time.” Jeremiah got up and crossed the room. He pulled Belly toward him for a hug.

“I told you, Michaels closes at nine. I doubt you would have made it in time,” she said, and she sounded pissed, but she let him kiss her.

I turned away. “I’m gonna go unload the car.”

“Wait, I’ll help.” Jeremiah released Belly and slapped his hand on my back. “Con, thanks for pinch-hitting for me today.”

“No, problem.”

“It’s after eight,” Belly said. “I’m starving. Let’s all go to Jimmy’s for dinner.”

I shook my head. “Nah, I’m not hungry. You guys go.”

“But you didn’t have any dinner,” Belly said, frowning.

“Just come with us.”

“No thanks,” I said.

She started to protest again, but Jere said, “Bells, he doesn’t want to. Let’s just go.”

“Are you sure?” she asked me.

“I’m good,” I said, and it came out harsher than I meant it.

I guessed it worked though, because they left.

Chapter Thirty-four

At Jimmy’s, neither of us ordered crabs. I got fried scallops and iced tea, and Jeremiah got a lobster roll and beer. The server asked for his ID and smirked when he saw it, but he still served him a beer.

I shook a few sugar packets into my iced tea, tasted it, then added two more.

“I’m wiped,” Jeremiah said, leaning back into the booth and closing his eyes.

“Well, wake up. We have work to do.”

He opened his eyes. “Like what?”

“What do you mean, like what? Tons of stuff. At David’s Bridal they were asking me all these questions.

Like, what’s our color palette? And are you going to wear a suit or a tuxedo?”

Jeremiah snorted. “A tuxedo? On the beach? I probably won’t even wear shoes.”

“Well, yeah, I know, but you should probably figure out what you’re going to wear.”

“I don’t know. You tell me. I’ll wear whatever you and Taylor want me to wear. It’s your guys’s day, right?”

“Ha ha,” I said. “Very funny.” It wasn’t like I really cared what he wore. I just wanted him to figure it out and let me know so I could check it off my list.

Through a mouthful of food, he said, “I was thinking white shirts and khaki shorts. Nice and simple, like we said.”

“Okay.”

Jeremiah gulped his beer. “Hey, can we dance to “You Never Can Tell” at the reception?”

“I don’t know that song,” I said.

“Sure you do. It’s from my favorite movie. Hint: we had the soundtrack on repeat in our frat house media room all semester.” When I still stared at him blankly, Jeremiah sang, “It was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well.”

“Oh, yeah. Pulp Fiction.”

“So can we?”

“Are you serious?”

“Come on, Bells. Be a sport. We can put it on YouTube.

I bet we’ll get a shit ton of hits. It’ll be funny!”

I gave him a look. “Funny? You want our wedding to be funny?”

“Come on. You’re making all the decisions, and all I want is this one thing,” he said, pouting, and I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. Either way, it pissed me off.

Plus, I was still pissed he hadn’t made it in time to help me at Michaels.

The server came by with our food, and Jeremiah dug right in to his lobster roll.

“What other decisions have I made?” I asked him.

“You decided that the cake was going to be carrot,”

he reminded me, mayonnaise dripping down his chin. “I like chocolate cake.”

“I don’t want to be the one making all the decisions!

I don’t even know what I’m doing.”

“Then I’ll help more. Just tell me what to do. Hey, I’ve got an idea. What if the wedding was Tarantino themed?”

he said.

“Yeah, what if,” I said sourly. I stabbed a scallop with my fork.

“You could be the Bride like in Kill Bill.” He looked up from his plate. “Kidding, kidding. But this whole thing is still gonna be pretty chill, right? We said we just wanted it to be casual.”

“Yeah, but people still need to, like, eat.”

“Don’t worry about the food and stuff. My dad will hire somebody to take care of all that.”

I could feel irritation start to prickle beneath my skin like a heat rash. I let out a short breath. “It’s easy for you to say don’t worry. You’re not the one planning our wedding.”

Jeremiah put down his sandwich and sat up straight.

“I told you I’d help. And like I said, my dad will take care of a lot of it.”

“I don’t want him to,” I said. “I want us to do it together. And joking about Quent Tarantino movies doesn’t really count as helping.”

“It’s Quent in,” Jeremiah corrected.

I shot him a dirty look.

“I wasn’t joking about the first dance,” he said. “I still think it would be cool. And Bells, I have been doing stuff.

I figured out what to do for music. My buddy Pete dee-jays on the weekends. He said he’d bring his speakers and just hook up his iPod and take care of the whole thing.

He already has the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, by the way.”

Jeremiah raised his eyebrows at me comically. I knew he was waiting for a laugh or at least a smile. And I was about to give in, just so this fight could be over and I could eat my scallops without feeling angry, when he said innocently, “Oh, wait, did you want to check with Taylor first? See if she’d be okay with it?”

I glared at him. He needed to quit with the jokes and start acting a lot more appreciative, because Taylor was the one who was actually helping, unlike him. “I don’t need to check with her on this. It’s a dumb idea, and it’s not happening.”

Jeremiah whistled under his breath. “All righty, Bridezilla.”

“I’m not a Bridezilla! I don’t even want to do any of this. You do it.”

He stared at me. “What do you mean, you don’t want to do any of this?”

My heart was beating really fast all of a sudden. “I mean the planning. I don’t want to do any of this stupid planning. Not the actual getting married part. I still want to do that.”

“Good. Me too.” He reached across the table, plucked a scallop off my plate, and popped it into his mouth.

I stuffed the last scallop into my mouth before he could take that, too. Then I grabbed a bunch of fries off of his plate, even though I had fries of my own.

“Hey,” he said with a frown. “You’ve got your own fries.”

“Yours are crispier,” I said, but really it was more out of spite. I wondered—the rest of our lives, was Jeremiah going to try and eat my last scallop or my last bite of steak? I liked finishing all the food on my plate—I wasn’t one of those girls who left a few bites behind just to be polite.

I had a fry in my mouth when Jeremiah asked, “Has Laurel called at all?”

I swallowed. Suddenly I wasn’t so hungry anymore.

“No.”

“She must have gotten the invite by now.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, hopefully she’ll call this week,” Jere said, stuffing the rest of his lobster roll into his mouth. “I mean, I’m sure she will.”

“Hopefully,” I said. I sipped on my iced tea and added,

“Our first dance can be “You Never Can Tell” if you really want.”

Jere pumped his fist in the air. “See, that’s why I’m marrying you!”

A smile creeped across my face. “Because I’m generous?”

“Because you’re very generous, and you get me,” he said, taking back a few of his fries.

When we got back to the house, Conrad’s car was gone.