Oops, Wrong Bride? Fine. No Wedding. novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Receipts

"She's telling it again," Hayes said, and handed me his phone across the cab of the truck.

It was Sunday, a week after the wedding.

We were parked on the Battery across from his mother's house, a tall white mansion with two stories of porches facing the harbor.

On his screen, Shelby was live from the garden behind it.

Forty women at round tables under the live oaks. Hats, linen, mimosas.

"I just wanted my best friend to be happy for me," Shelby was saying, dabbing her eyes. "But she'd been in love with Trey for years. She planned the whole wedding like it was hers. I didn't have the heart to stop her."

The women murmured.

One of them put her hand on Shelby's arm.

"And then she cancelled my reception," Shelby said, and her voice broke beautifully. "From the altar."

The comments were scrolling too fast to read. Psycho. Stalker. Poor Shelby.

My phone had lost forty cake orders in six days. Every one of them from a stranger who'd seen that video.

I handed Hayes his phone back.

On my lap sat a fat brown accordion folder.

Every page of my wedding was in it.

"Your mother's going to hate this," I said.

"My mother hates everything," Hayes said. "She just hasn't met you yet."

"I've been to her house fifteen times."

"Like I said."

He got out and came around and opened my door.

We walked in through the side gate.

The garden smelled like jasmine and money.

A woman at the first table saw me and set her glass down so hard it tipped.

By the time I reached the middle of the lawn, nobody was talking.

Shelby was at the head table beside Trey's mother, who sat very straight in a white linen hat.

Trey was at the end of the table, in a pink polo, eating a deviled egg.

He choked on it.

"Liza," Shelby breathed, and put her phone face up on the table so it kept filming. "Oh my God. Are you okay? Should someone call somebody?"

"Morning, ladies," I said. "Don't get up."

I unwound the string on the folder and started laying papers on the white tablecloth, one by one.

← Chapter 4 · All chapters · Chapter 6 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend