He Called Us Rival Brides, We Went Home Together novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Dietary Needs
Avery and Lydia walk into Duncan's engagement party as a couple to kill the rumor, and Duncan announces his choice will come at the gala with both names on the cake.
The invitation to Duncan Holtworth's engagement party listed my dietary needs, and he did not have a fiancee.
It said: Avery Kesterton, no mushrooms, extra bread.
Under it, in the same gold script, it said: Lydia Wetherford, no cilantro, wine pairings welcome.
Duncan had printed us both on one card so the caterer could plan for the winner.
My mother had supplied the mushrooms, because she thought he was being thoughtful.
"You're holding that invitation like it owes you money," my best friend said.
She stood next to me on the sidewalk outside his brownstone, in the orange jacket she wore to every event so I could find her.
"It does owe me money," I said. "It owes me three weeks of strangers congratulating me at the gym."
"They congratulate you because you're engaged," she said.
"To a man I have spoken to for four minutes, total, at a charity auction."
She reached into her jacket pocket and handed me a black marker.
I had written my Rules on a bar coaster the night before, and the ink had smeared in my pocket.
Rule one: we leave the night Duncan retracts in person.
Rule two: no kissing unless a witness can see it.
Rule three: nobody says darling without an audience.
Rule four: separate cabs home.
"That's a lot of rules for a lie," my friend said.
"It's a contest," I said. "Somebody has to keep score."
"Against who?" she asked.
"Against whoever's winning," I said.
Lydia Wetherford came up the sidewalk in a pale-blue gown, tall and unhurried.
Her hair was pinned in a style that must have taken an hour.
Two nights earlier she had phoned me and said, very politely, that we could fix this together.
She had a plan, and the plan had numbered steps.
"Avery," Lydia said. "You came."
"You said I'd lose by default if I didn't," I said.
"I didn't say that," Lydia said.
"You implied it with your voice."
Lydia smiled and covered her mouth with two fingers, which she always did when she smiled.
Then she offered me her arm, exactly the way her binder said to.
I shook her hand.
My best friend, Nina, closed her eyes.
"We practiced this," Lydia said, still shaking my hand.
"We practiced it once, over the phone, with no hands," I said.
"That's the problem," Lydia said. "You've never seen my arm."
We went in with our elbows hooked at an angle that did not fit through the door.
At the coat check, Lydia lifted my coat from my shoulders in one smooth, rehearsed motion.
I had not seen it coming, so I turned around and took my coat back.
A small white card fell out of her clutch.
It said, in careful blue ink: Gesture 4, take her coat, don't let her see you hesitate.
Lydia stepped on it.
"What was that?" I asked.
"A receipt," Lydia said.
Lydia's fingers were shaking against the fabric, and I noticed because I was holding the other end.
"Hey," I said. "I'm not mad. Let go, I'll do mine, you do yours."
She let go, and her shoulders came down a little.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don't thank me yet," I said. "I haven't done anything."
In the foyer, every head turned toward us, and every champagne glass stopped halfway up.
I had a plan too, and my plan was to be so loud about us that nobody could say we were faking.
I kissed Lydia on the cheek, hard, with a smack they could hear in the next room.
"Hi, sweetheart," I said. "Darling. Honey. Pumpkin."
"We agreed on one pet name," Lydia whispered.
"I'm winning," I whispered back.
"You sound like a hostage," Lydia said.
"You sound like a pamphlet," I said.
Nina handed Lydia a folded napkin from her pocket.
Lydia wiped a perfect circle of burgundy lipstick off her cheek without taking her eyes off me.
"For the record," Lydia said quietly, "I'd have said lentil soup. No cream, extra pepper. That's what a girlfriend would know."
"How do you know that?" I asked, staring at her.
"You told the whole table at the auction. Loudly," Lydia said.
"I did?"
"Everyone heard," Lydia said, and looked at the floor.
Duncan stood at the top of three steps in a gray suit, with a pocket square folded into three points.
He raised one hand for quiet.
He was thirty-two and tall, and he had never once been told no where a witness could hear.
"Friends," Duncan said. "I see my two lovely contenders have arrived together."
The room laughed.
"They want me to believe it's a romance," Duncan said. "Isn't that sweet? They're trying to make me jealous."
"We are together," I said, loudly.
"Of course you are," Duncan said. "I'll sit between you at dinner. That's only fair."
Lydia took my hand, and this time it was a real hold, warm and certain, and I let it be.
Duncan nodded to a waiter, who pulled a cloth off a long sheet cake on a rolling cart.
Across the white icing, in pink piping, were two names, one at each end.
Mine was on the left, and Lydia's was on the right.
"At the Harvest Gala, I will cut the cake at the name of the woman I choose," Duncan said.
"The other lady may take the rest home in a box," he added.
He smiled at us, delighted.
"I'll let you know which," he said.
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