Kiss a Bridesmaid (Always a Bridesmaid Book 3)

by Courtney Hunt

"I see the Romeo Club is still going strong around here. My Gramps was a charter member."

  “Does he live here?”

  “He did.”

  “Oh.” Abby bit her lip, crossing her arms over her chest, her long bangs falling to conceal her face. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Were you close?”

  “Yeah. Still miss him,” Shortie swallowed hard and stared out at the expansive view of the namesake ponds. He cleared his throat and focused on Abby, who toyed with a loose thread on the lumpy cardigan she always wore. “You ever thought about cutting an album?”

  “Not in years,” Abby shook her head.

  “You should. You can really sing. I bet Erin would love to add your talents to the wedding portfolio.”

  “I couldn’t really,” Abby tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear.

  "I see," Shortie said, “or not really, but that's okay. Want me to walk you out?"

  “Sure,” Abby fell into step next to him as they passed the now empty reception desk. Raucous laughter echoed from the dining area as they exited. The sun dipped toward the horizon, gilding the ponds and trees with golden light. They strolled along the wide paved path toward the parking lot when Abby burst out, “When I was young, my mom pushed me into beauty pageants and singing competitions. I even was in a Broadway play for a bit.”

  "You're a woman of many hidden talents," Shortie said. "So what happened?"

  "The play ended," Abby said, “and then puberty hit. My mother tried to put the best spin on it and say that I was petite and curvy which really means short and chubby."

  "You're not chubby," Shortie protested. She wasn't. As far as he could tell under her shapeless clothes, Abby had curves in all the right places, but he wouldn't describe her as chubby. "And everyone seems short to me. But so, you've grown out of puberty. You're what? 24?"

  “27 last month.”

  "Many happy returns," Shortie said. "So why aren't you singing, songbird?"

  "I developed terrible stage fright," Abby said, in a flat voice. "Always before, I loved being onstage and performing. Suddenly, I couldn't do it at all. So, eventually, my mom transferred all her dreams of stardom to my little brother, Grayson, and I came here to Savannah to live with Gram."

  “I see.” Had she been hiding here ever since? “And what happened to your brother?”

  “He’s the lead in that Harvey’s Hangout show on Club Kids.”

  “I’ve never seen it.”

  “You haven’t missed much. But he’s well on his way to being a star now.”

  "Good for Grayson," Shortie said. "But we were talking about you. Do you want to sing again? Professionally, I mean?"

  “I’m not that good or that trained.”

  “You sounded pretty good to me.”

  “Thank you but—“ Abby shook her head. “I just do it for fun now.”

  “I get that.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah. It’s like me and playing hoops.” Shortie stared at the water for a second, watching the ducks swim idly in circles, ripples fanning out across the sunset gilded lake. If she’d confided in him, he could repay the favor. “See, I planned on being in the NBA. I played all through high school and went to college on a scholarship. And I partied through every minute of it, sure I’d be driving around in the shiny sports car with arm candy girls and stacks of money the second I graduated.”

  “But?” Abby finally asked.

  “I didn’t get picked up,” Shortie shrugged, tasting the echo of bitterness in his words. “My coach finally leveled with me. I was good. Talented even. But not enough to play at that level.”

  “That’s tough,” Abby touched his forearm, her fingers warm even though his sleeve. “So then what happened?”

  “I graduated, just barely, and came back here. I’d worked with Gramps at the restaurant as a teenager. He gave me a job, mostly out of kindness, because he could see I was totally unprepared to do anything else.”

  “And now you love it?”

  “I don’t not love it, you know?” Shortie said. “I’m used to it. And I’m happy to be expanding into catering, building something new. I’m content, I guess.”

  "People make that sound like a bad thing, but it's really not."

  “I know. And I still play ball almost every day,” Shortie grinned. “Just because you’re not going to be the next Adele doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy your gifts.”

  “Now you sound like Gram.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’ve been taking care of Gram and working odd jobs since I got out of college,” Abby chewed on her bottom lip. ‘Trouble is, I don’t know what I’d be good at.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Shortie opened her car door for her and ushered her inside. Now that the sun had dropped behind the trees, a chill spread through the air. “And in the interim, you can be a bridesmaid.”

  Chapter 8

  The next Monday morning, Abby sat at her desk at Always a Bridesmaid, triaging the messages that piled up over the weekend and trying not to think about Shortie. She’d been trying not to think about him since their conversation at Savannah Ponds on Saturday evening. That worked just about as well as not thinking about a pink elephant.

  “What was that about pink elephants?” Erin asked as she strolled out of her office. Abby arrived just before eight that morning to find Erin already hard at work at her desk, a pencil holding her messy updo in place.

  "Never mind. Just something my Gram says,” Abby mumbled as her boss crossed the reception area to the coffee nook in the corner. "52 voice messages, Erin, and I haven't even started on email."

  "It's like that every weekend." Erin fussed with making a cup of coffee. She wore floral canvas pull-on sneakers, jeans rolled up at the cuff, and a checked blue button-down shirt with a bluebell-colored cardigan over it. Her boss always looked effortlessly flawless. If Erin hadn't been so nice, Abby would have to loathe her on principle.

  “You always have 52 voice mails?” Abby tugged at the cuff on her battered brown cardigan but stopped when it began to unravel. Maybe she could start wearing brighter colors.

  “Maybe not that many messages but there are always some piling up. Dylan has a whole complicated theory on why stressed out brides tend to call on the weekends after a fight with the groom or the bridesmaids or both. Don’t get him started on it.”

  “They share a lot of personal information in the emails too,” Abby’s eyes widened as she scrolled through on the laptop. “This bride emailed three times. Once to ask for help. Once to say the wedding was off. And now it’s back on. Yikes.”

  “Wedding planning is stressful,” Erin added a splash of creamer to the coffee and stirred before selecting a plastic lid.

  "I bet you breezed through it, though."

  “My mama-in-law helped quite a bit. She’s a force of nature,” Erin grinned. “But Matthew and I had some doozy fights too. It’s the nature of the whole thing.”

  "You and Matthew seem happy together, though."

  "We are,” Erin's face softened. "Still, we're both willful and stubborn, so we knock heads from time to time. But then we get to make up, so it's not all bad."

  “I’m going to be late,” Matthew clambered down the stairs, tugging on his suit jacket.

  "Here's your coffee,” Erin held out the paper cup. As he passed by, Matthew grabbed the cup and his briefcase and dashed out the door to the sidewalk. The door didn't even shut behind him before he burst back through. Erin tilted her face up, and he kissed her a quick farewell before he headed out the door, still muttering about being late under his breath.

  Abby sighed. Erin and Matthew still had that newlywed glow. Matthew looked at her with nothing short of adoration. What woman didn’t long for that? Abby couldn’t help but sigh again. Unbidden, Shortie’s face flashed through her mind, his warm smile and kind eyes. Abby tugged at her cuffs again, chewing on her lip.

  “Goodness, that’s a lot of sighing
for so early on Monday morning,” Erin propped her hip on the desk. “I thought you liked the admin portion of the job.”

  “Oh, I do like it, very much. It’s fun. And I had fun at the wedding on Saturday.”

  “But?”

  “You and the other bridesmaids are all so glamorous,” Abby tugged on her sweater again. “I can’t primp and do my hair up like you all do. I can’t walk in heels—how would I ever walk down the aisle?”

  “All that stuff is totally learnable,” Erin said.

  “I just never learned to wear makeup or dress up or flirt,” Abby said. “I just skipped all that during my teen years, hiding in books.”

  “I can teach you,” Erin stepped behind the chair and picked up Abby’s long hair. She grabbed a pencil off the desk and with a bit of tugging, twisted her hair up. The cool air in the basement office hit the back of her neck, causing goosebumps to prickle over Abby’s suddenly exposed flesh. Erin ran back into the office and emerged with a small bright pink makeup bag. “Just a little bit of blush and gloss for today.”

  Abby submitted to a quick swipe of a downy soft brush over her cheeks. Erin patted on some Vaseline from a small tube before holding up a compact. Abby blinked at her reflection. She still looked like herself but with a soft glow to her cheeks. Having her hair up highlighted her cheekbones and her eyes.

  “You’d look even better without that sweater.”

  Slowly, Abby removed her cardigan, revealing the light pink t-shirt she wore beneath. She glanced back in the mirror, surprised at the transformation a simple color change wrought.

  “Can I burn it?” Erin asked as she took the sweater from her. “Do you think it’ll actually burn?”

  “That’s my favorite sweater.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” Erin rolled the sweater into a ball on her lap. “Who are you trying to hide from with this muggle invisibility cloak?”

  “I’m not hiding—” Abby protested but stopped when Erin raised a perfectly arched brow at her. “I just don’t like to draw attention to myself.”

  “That’s fair,” Erin said. “But that means you’re always stuck in the shadows. Is that where you want to be?”

  Shortie’s voice echoed through her head: What are friends for? Friends. Men always saw her as the friend or the little sister. Always before that had been just fine with Abby. Most men were too much, too big, too loud, too everything. She wasn’t interested in pairing off. But somehow, Shortie was different. Shortie made her wonder what it would be like to hold a man’s interest for once. She raised the compact to look at her reflection once again.

  “No, that’s not where I want to be,” Abby finally whispered.

  “Then you know what I think?” Erin said. “I think it’s time for a makeover!”

  Chapter 9

  The week of Hamilton wedding festivities kicked off on a sunny Sunday in late April with a picnic and low-country boil at the historic Peach Grove Plantation, about an hour from Savannah. On the wide, sprawling lawn, Erin and Dylan circulated among the guests, chatting easily, mimosas in hand, while Shortie and Leo worked on setting up the peach-themed dessert table on the back patio. The briny scent of boiled shrimp wafted from the picnic tables under the shady oak trees, making Shortie’s mouth water.

  “Check out this view,” Leo waved to the rolling green lawn that ended at the edge of an ornamental lake. It looked like a postcard. “Wouldn’t you like to live here?”

  “Too far from town,” Shortie arranged miniature peach pies on a tiered china dessert platter. “This house is like 200 years old. I bet it’s a bear to keep up.”

  “I love being out in the countryside,” Leo answered. “Fresh air. Not so many people.”

  “Such a people person, Leo,” Shortie teased as a flash of pink fabric caught his eye.

  Abby walked across the far side of the patio, holding the hand of the toddler ring bearer. In her other hand, she held a few broken pieces of cornbread. For once, she wasn't wearing her oversized dirt-colored cardigan. Instead, she wore a cream-colored sundress with silk-screened pink peonies tumbling down the skirt with a blush-colored cardigan over it. An ornamental barrette pulled her hair away from her face. She and her charge headed across the lawn toward the edge of the lake. Abby looked different these days, though Shortie couldn't put his finger on exactly how she was different.

  “You just dropped two pies, man,” Leo grabbed the box of handheld pies out of Shortie’s grip and shooed him aside. As he added the pies to the display, Leo followed Shortie’s gaze and then laughed, low and long. “She’s cute.”

  “Who’s cute?” Shortie snapped himself out of his daze to grab a box of miniature peach donuts to slot through straws over tiny milk bottles but found his gaze drawn back to Abby.

  “You’re turning them into crumbs. Let me,” Leo took the box of donuts from Shortie. “Why don’t you go chat with your girl?”

  “My girl? She’s not—we’re just friends,” With concentrated effort, Shortie turned away to see what else needed to be added to the display. He shifted an arrangement of peach and cream roses in a cut crystal vase an inch to the side, still trying to reconcile his shy Abby to the pretty, confident girl in the flowered dress.

  “Shortie’s got a crush,” Leo teased. He handed Shortie a paper plate with the damaged pies on it, covered with a checked napkin, before plucking a just blooming rose from the arrangement on the table. “Why don’t you go see if your lovely friend would like some pie?”

  “Are you matchmaking, minion?”

  “I’m just saying your friend looks cute today.”

  “She’s cute. Adorable even,” Shortie admitted. “But, I don’t date adorable, man.”

  "Who said anything about dating?" Leo barely concealed a grin as Shortie glared at him. "She's probably hungry, and little boys are always hungry. Go be a friend and take her a snack.”

  Shortie strolled down the emerald expanse of the lawn, as Abby and her little shadow strode onto the short dock over the lake. Two bright crimson rowboats bobbed in the greenish water, moored to the wooden platform. Three mallard drakes competed for the bread that Abby tossed them, their shiny green heads flashing in the sun as they gobbled the crumbs. The little boy giggled and clapped with delight, wiggling with joy as the ducks quacked eagerly for more.

  As Shortie walked up the dock, his footfalls echoing over the quiet, bucolic scene, Abby glanced over her shoulder and smiled impishly at him. Her smile transformed her from merely cute to heartstoppingly pretty. He blinked, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth, as he stepped up next to her, trying to think of something to say to this new Abby.

  “Hi,” She greeted him. “This is Colin.”

  “I’m the ring baron.”

  “Bearer,” Abby corrected with a chuckle. “We’re feeding the ducks while everyone else enjoys their lunch.”

  “That’s sweet of you,” Shortie said. Abby was sweet. Shortie liked her. Well, of course, he liked her. They were friends. Though Shortie didn’t normally notice how his friends filled out their pretty dress in all the right places. Hastily, he offered the paper plate, “I brought you guys some pies.”

  “Scratch and dents?” Abby eyed the smashed pies.

  “Something like that,” Shortie chuckled. “Should still taste alright.”

  "If you made them, I'm sure they taste more than just alright,” Abby reached for the paper plate of pies, but Colin snatched a pie in each hand. Before either Shortie or Abby could stop him, the little boy tossed the pies toward the eager ducks, who quacked frantically in their excitement, splashing about in the water in their frenzy to get to the sweet treats. Abby's mouth dropped open in a perfect oval and then she threw her head back as she laughed hard. Her eyes twinkled with merriment, and her cheeks flushed. Shortie couldn't help but grin back. Abby was really rather beautiful. How had he not noticed that before?

  “I’ll get you all some more,” Shortie turned toward the house just as a loud bark sounded. A yellow lab, barking his
head off, thumped down the dock, running flat out, his paws like thunder on the rattling wooden boards.

  “Casey!” Colin cried, wreathed in smiles to see the dog. In an instant, Shortie realized what was going to happen. Shortie pushed the toddler back away from the edge of the dock, out of the way just as the dog leapt toward the ducks. Seventy pounds of full grown dog slammed into Shortie and Abby’s shoulders, knocking them both backward into the water.

  Even in mid-spring, the lake water was shockingly cold. Shortie fought to surface, heading upward toward the murky light. He drew air into his lungs to dive back down for Abby when she bobbed up next to him, her wet hair a curtain over her face. The ducks, quacking irritably, rose in a whirl of feathers while Casey dog-paddled in circles around them. Colin, delighted with the show, clapped on the dock.

  Abby flipped her hair back, water streaming down her face. Shortie’s sneakered foot brushed the rocky lake floor. He stood, helping Abby to her feet as he did, his arm tight around her small waist.

  “I’m beginning to think dogs have it out for me,” Abby shivered against him. He pulled her closer and waded toward the shore. Leo ran down the dock to take Colin’s hand. He led the toddler, still giggling, back toward the safety of the lawn. “Like there’s some sort of canine network that put out a memo. Subject line: Knock down, Abby.”

  “It’s the puppy chat line,” Shortie agreed.

  As they got nearer to the edge, she stood, wobbling on the rocky lake bottom. He took her hand to steady her as they squished through the mud up to the edge of the manicured lawn. She smiled up at him in thanks. This close, flecks of green and gold in her eyes became apparent. Even now, with her sodden hair in tendrils and her mascara streaking down her face, she was lovely. Why did he want to just lean over and kiss her?

  “What happened?” Dylan demanded from the bank, his hands on his hips and his face a study in shock.

  “Abby and I thought it’d be fun to go for a swim,” Shortie snapped. Dylan gave Abby a hand up onto the bank, leaving Shortie to scramble after her.