I gave Erin the stink eye. “Coco said there would be Bailey’s.”
Erin rolled her eyes but left the room to retrieve the booze.
“It’s in the bar cart in the living room!” I called. “Bring the whole bottle!”
“Here. Have some of this, please.” Coco handed me a cup with the Devine Events logo on the side, which was the event planning business we ran together.
“I’ll wait for the liquor,” I told her, going back to my cutting. When the first king-sized pillow was done, I reached for the second. “You know, I don’t even like these sheets. I didn’t want plain white. I wanted the blue ones with the paisley. A little damn color.”
Coco picked up a throw pillow and bunched it under her chin. “Then why’d you register for the white?”
“Because Tucker insisted. He said I could plan the wedding any way I wanted to, but he got to make our interior design choices.”
“What’s he got against color?” She looked around. Everything in the room was white, navy, or gray.
“Beats me. But the man’s favorite color is pewter, for f**k’s sake. This entire house looks like one giant cloudy-ass day.”
The corners of Coco’s mouth lifted. “A joke. That’s a good sign.”
I stopped snipping and met her eyes. “That wasn’t a joke.”
“Come on, Mia.” She took the scissors from my hand and set the mutilated pillowcase aside. “It’s time to start getting over this. You know, there’s color outside. And wine. And meals. When’s the last time you ate something decent?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” The seven days since I’d gotten the Dear Jane text from Tucker were a bit of a blur—I remembered trying desperately to reach him the first day, succeeding on the second when he finally returned my frantic calls (from Vegas, mind you), and a lot of screaming, crying, and phone-throwing after that. Days three, four, and five were a haze of wine and naps and dealing with my mother, and days six and seven were spent wallowing and making lists. And now defacing pillowcases. I glanced at his closet door with a laser beam eye—maybe his precious custom suits would be next.
I was reaching for the scissors again when Erin returned with the Bailey’s and poured a shot into each cup. That actually made me smile a little—my girls never let me drink alone.
“OK.” She handed Coco the Branch Industries cup and held up the one with the photo on it. “To waking up and starting over.”
“Cheers.” Coco clinked mugs with Erin. “I was just saying the same thing to her. You have your entire life ahead of you, Mia. And we’ve already decided this was a blessing in disguise. He didn’t deserve you.” She touched her cup to mine before taking a sip.
“You decided that. I will never feel that this humiliation is anything but punishment.”
“Punishment for what?” Erin asked. “What could you possibly need punishing for?”
I groaned. “God, so many things… For ignoring everyone who told me Tucker would never settle down and feeling so f**king superior that I was proving them wrong. For ignoring that little voice in the back of my brain telling me something was off. For refusing to admit to anyone—or even to myself—that everything wasn’t perfect between us, and maybe getting married wasn’t the right idea.”
“Even so, you don’t deserve punishment.” Erin rubbed my leg. “You’re human, Mia. We all make mistakes.”
“This was more than just a mistake. I deliberately ignored any sign that I was making the wrong decision. All I could think about was pulling off the dream wedding. And it was nothing but a stupid fantasy.” Anger at myself knotted with my wrath for Tucker, pulling my stomach muscles so tight they ached.
“See? That’s what I’m saying,” Coco soothed. “You knew this was coming, deep down inside. Better to know now before you married him, right?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and lifted the cup to my lips. The bitterness of the French roast laced with the sweetness of Bailey’s tasted so good, I took two more big swallows before speaking. “I know. Rationally, I know what you’re saying is true, but all I can think about are the thousand little details that were supposed to make this day the biggest, bestest day of my life.” I gestured toward my closet door, where a wedding dress still hung, wrapped in its protective bag. “That’s my wedding gown over there. Which I paid for myself. Which I should be wearing tonight at five o’clock when four hundred-plus people watch me walk down the aisle on the rooftop of the Ritz. Oh, God—” I gave Coco a panicked look. “Tell me someone called the Ritz.”
She rubbed my hand. “Those things were taken care of. And you do so much business with all those vendors, most of them didn’t even keep your deposit.”
Relief loosened the tension in my shoulders. I’d been so out of it over the past week, I wasn’t sure what had been done. I’d had clients cancel a wedding once or twice in my career, but never with only a week to go. “It wasn’t my deposit. They can keep Tucker’s money, for all I care. He won’t miss it.” I took another glug of coffee. “What about the guests?”
“Done,” said Erin. “You’ve got nothing to worry about except moving forward.”
“I’m totally doing that.” I lifted up a pillow with a hole in the case. “See?”