“Yep, she’s got twin girls. They’re five.”

“Wow.” She sighed, processing the heavy load I’d just handed her. “Well … tell me about her, and the kids.”

Lying back on my bed, I snapped for Diesel, who gladly hopped up and tucked himself into my side.

“She’s beautiful, Mom. Tiny, way shorter than me with wavy auburn hair and the most hypnotic green eyes I’ve ever seen. Sometimes when she looks at me, I forget to listen to her words because I’m so lost in those eyes. She does this thing when she smiles where she scrunches her nose just a little and I lose my mind every single time. Lucy and Piper are her girls and they’re hilarious. The world is so big and new to them, every day is an adventure—it’s the most incredible thing to watch them explore and navigate their way through the world. Everything is just bigger and better and simpler to them.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Mom? Did I lose you?”

She sniffed. “Nope, I’m here.”

“Are you crying?”

“Maybe.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve never heard you like this, Brody. Because your dad and I figured you’d be a crazy bachelor forever. Because you sound so happy. Because I’ve never even met this girl … and I already love her.”

Yeah, Mom, you’re not the only one.

Lauren’s wedding was only six weeks away and the list of things that still had to be done was nothing short of a mile long. Add to that my school work, which I was falling miserably behind on, trying to keep the girls from complaining that it was the “most boring summer ever” and watering my budding relationship with Brody, and I was one exhausted mama. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day for everything I needed to accomplish, so when Lauren knocked on my door one morning with tears streaming down her face, I knew things were about to get even more hectic.

“What’s wrong?” I reached out and grabbed her sleeve, pulling her in out of the rain.

Thick black streaks of watery mascara ran down her cheeks and she kept wiping her swollen, red nose with a wadded up tear-stained tissue.

“I’m freaking out, Kacie, like totally losing my mind.” She sniffed.

“Oh God, you guys didn’t break up, did you?” I asked, completely panicked. “Invitations just went out yesterday … I’m sorry, but you guys have to make up.”

She reached out and smacked my arm. “We didn’t break up, you brat, but he just called and told me that the University he’s getting this hot shot scholarship through needs us to come and go to some fancy dinner with elite board members or some shit. He tried like hell to get us out of it, but they were insistent. Apparently, it’s a huge deal for his program. They’re paying to fly us there and everything.”

“That’s great! A paid for trip to Italy? Sounds like good news to me,” I exclaimed. “I don’t get why you’re upset.”

“It’s next week!” She wailed into her snotty tissue again.

Oh, shit.

“If it were anywhere in the U.S. it wouldn’t be such a big deal. I could work on my planning through phone calls and e-mail or whatever, but being all the way across the Atlantic Ocean makes everything a little more difficult,” she rambled.

I sighed, looking for a silver lining. “Okay, relax. We can do this. You’ll be gone—what, like three days or so?”

“Try nine!” Her words were swallowed up by more sobs.

She laid her head in my lap and howled some more while I stroked her hair, desperately thinking of a solution to her problem. My time was swallowed up whole as it is, but she couldn’t afford to put the planning on hold for nine days. She was already trying to do everything in fast motion as it was.

“Sit up,” I ordered her.

“No.” She refused stubbornly, hugging my legs tighter.

“Okay, you big baby, lay there, just cry quieter for a minute so you can hear me. You are going to have the most amazing wedding ever. Do you understand me? You’ll be the most breathtaking bride ever and everything will be absolutely perfect that day. Does this cramp things? Yes, a little, but lucky for you, Alexa and I can multitask really well.” She sat up, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “We’ll hurry and get what we can done before you leave, and while you’re gone, that cranky bitch and I will step in and be your surrogate bride. Anything you need us to do, consider it done. We got this.”

She threw her arms around my shoulders and started crying again. This time, thankfully, they were happy tears.

“Thank you, Kacie. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You’re so welcome, but please don’t snot on my shirt,” I teased lovingly, squeezing her back.

After she hugged me for a solid two minutes, she jumped back.

“Oh my God, didn’t you go to Brody’s last weekend?”

I couldn’t help but grin at the memory of being at his house, and in his bed, and on his counter. “Yeah.”

Tears flooded her eyes again. “I’m such a bad friend.” She wept. “I’ve been so wrapped up in my life, I haven’t even asked about yours.”

She hurled her arms around me again and I laughed. “Lauren, when is your period due?”

“I got it today, why?” She sniffed.

“No reason.” I giggled. “Come in the kitchen. We’ll call Alexa over and fill her in on the wedding stuff then I’ll tell you guys all about Brody’s. It was … the best kind of good there is.”

“He fucked you right there on the kitchen counter!” Alexa opened her heavily lined blue eyes so wide they just about fell out of her head.

Lauren leaned forward in her chair, silently hanging on my every word.

“Shhhh!” I hissed, looking around to make sure no one heard her.

My mom was in our apartment, occupying the girls so we could do some planning, but this week’s guests were roaming all over.

“Yes.”

“Whoa,” Lauren uttered.

“Yep, intense. The whole weekend was intense. Brody certainly doesn’t do anything half-assed, that’s for sure.” I sighed happily.

“First of all, I can’t believe you’ve been home for three days and didn’t tell me that part.” Alexa rolled her eyes. “But I really want to get back to this Blaire thing for a minute. Why didn’t you knock her out?”

“Um, maybe because that’s totally not me. I surprised myself though.” I looked back and forth between the two of them. “I’ve never had a problem sticking up for myself before, but with her, I couldn’t. I just stood there, frozen, and it only egged her on more. When she went on about Brody and her friend Kendall, it made me sick to my stomach.”

“You believe him though, right?” Lauren asked curiously.

I thought back to the things Brody told me when we were sitting on that bench. They made sense. He had no reason to lie to me and I couldn’t be mad at him for his actions before we even met. If anything, I brought more baggage into this relationship than he did.

“I do believe him, he was very honest about all of it.” I told them.

Alexa’s gaze slid to Lauren and then back to me. “You know we have to stalk this girl, right?”