My Best Friend Redeemed My Fiancé, So I Gave Her the Wedding novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Pass Granted
At the wedding-date dinner Bridget drops her ring into Kendra's pass box, leaves the group chat, and learns from the planner that Kendra is the primary contact.
At our corner table, Kendra lifted the water pitcher and filled my glass before her own.
"You're nearly out," she said. "Want lemon?"
She turned to fill Brett's glass next.
I put my hand over it and took the pitcher from her.
"I've got his," I said.
Brett's friend blew the whistle he wore on a cord around his neck.
The couple at the next table looked over.
Brett's other friend took a small notebook out of his jacket and wrote in it.
"Jealous grab," he said. "One pass earned."
He tore a slip from the back and handed it to Kendra.
The whistle man pressed a red stamp into an ink pad and thumped it down on the slip.
GRANTED, it said, with a date under it.
He got ordained online last spring so he could marry his cousin, and he has said "by the power vested in me" over every slip since.
The notebook man kept a notary stamp in the same pocket, because he used it at work and never took it out.
Kendra winced and turned the slip over in her fingers.
"Guys, we really don't have to," she said.
Brett laid his arm along the back of her chair.
"She needs to learn," he said.
I was sitting across from him.
The chair beside me was empty.
Kendra turned the slip over. "Can I use this tomorrow?"
"For what?" Brett asked.
"All day. You pick me up, we do brunch, we drive somewhere."
"And you get the front seat," said Trent, the one with the whistle.
"Obviously," Kendra said, and the three of them high-fived over the bread basket.
Brett joined in.
I filled his glass and set it down next to his plate.
A year ago the passes were written on cocktail napkins.
Now they had expiration dates.
Kendra had used them on his birthday, our anniversary dinner and two weekends I had planned.
Once she used one on the day my mother had surgery.
I had called Brett from the hospital parking garage that morning.
"Please come," I said. "I know you promised Kendra a movie. I just don't want to sit here by myself."
Before he answered, I heard pages turning on his end.
Colin was with him, the one with the notebook.
"Full-day pass," Colin said. "It's on the calendar."
Then Kendra, softer. "I can give it back. Really."
"No," Brett said. "If we make an exception every time Bridget gets upset, what's the point?"
He told me to call him when my mother was out of surgery.
I sat outside the operating room until the surgeon came to find me.
By then all four of them had posted photos from the movie premiere.
Now Colin's notebook was on the table again.
We were supposed to be picking a wedding date.
Or confirming one.
I couldn't tell the difference anymore.
Colin shook the rest of the slips out onto the tablecloth.
Trent counted them. "Hey, these run right through the wedding."
Brett looked at the slips, then at me.
"We can push the date one more time," he said.
"The invitations are already out."
"So we send a correction."
"We already sent a correction."
He reached across the table and pinched my cheek.
"Come on, Bridge. You've come so far."
Kendra looked down at the slips. "I don't have to use all of them."
"Of course you do," Trent said. "You earned them."
Brett kept his eyes on me.
"Get through the rest without a scene and we're done," he said. "Then you get me all to yourself."
I looked at his hand on my cheek.
It belonged to a man who had postponed our wedding eight times and still expected me to be grateful that he planned to marry me someday.
So I took off my engagement ring.
Kendra kept her slips in a small wooden box.
I dropped the ring inside it, on top of the slips.
It made a small sound.
Everybody at the table heard it.
"You don't have to keep redeeming them," I told Kendra. "You can have him."
Nobody moved.
Then Trent laughed.
Colin reached for his notebook. "Walking out in a huff. That's another..."
"Don't," I said.
I said it quietly, and he stopped.
I opened our group chat and left it.
Trent's phone buzzed on the table. "Oh, come on."
An invite to rejoin popped up on my screen, and I declined it.
Kendra lifted the ring out of the box.
"Bridget, I never wanted to take him from you."
I stood up.
Brett's hand closed around my wrist. "Sit down."
I looked at his fingers until he let go.
"We're talking about our wedding," he said.
"No. You're telling me how long I have to wait for you to stop dating my friend."
"That is not what this is."
"Then what was it the day my mother had surgery?"
He leaned back in his chair. "She's fine."
Colin nodded. "And that was an important test. If it only works when nothing's at stake, you haven't really learned."
I picked up my bag.
Brett didn't get up.
Outside, my phone buzzed before I reached the corner.
Come home when you're done.
Then: Don't throw away our wedding over a game.
I didn't go home. I went to the hospital.
Mom was awake when I walked in.
"Did you eat?" she asked.
"Yes."
She studied me, then slid her hand across the blanket to make room for mine.
She didn't ask where Brett was, and that was worse.
Around eleven my phone lit up with a message from the wedding planner.
Before I rework the vendor schedule again, can you confirm the new date?
I stepped into the hallway and called her.
"Brett said you'd agreed to it," she said.
"I didn't."
"Then I'll hold off." She paused. "I thought Kendra was passing you the updates."
"What updates?"
"She's been coming to the appointments with him for about a month."
I looked through the glass at my mother asleep.
I opened the planning portal.
My name was still there, and Brett's.
Under Primary Contact there was a third name.
Kendra Floyd.
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