Forever a Bridesmaid (Always a Bridesmaid Book 1)

by Courtney Hunt

  “Yeah, about that.” Dylan rubbed the back of his neck and carefully did not look at Erin. “That’s actually why I came. I wanted to talk to you about changing my major.”

  “Again?” Erin said faintly.

  “Might take me a few more semesters to finish up.” Dylan shrugged as Erin’s shoulders stiffened. He said to Matthew, “I’m engineering right now but I’m thinking about focusing on rockets instead of electrical.”

  “But, you already did rockets,” Erin protested, her voice thin and high.

  “I know, but…I’m not sure I want to do electrical engineering, Bug. I’ve never been sure what I wanted to do, like you always were. When we were kids, you were always businesswoman Barbie. And I think about my future and…”

  When Dylan trailed off and the silence stretched toward awkward, Matthew said, “I bet you were an adorable junior businesswoman.”

  Erin smiled stiffly as Dylan rubbed the back of his neck. “And the trust will cover it if I have to go another semester, right, trustee?”

  Matthew’s jaw dropped open. Dylan has no idea she’s been paying for him all along.

  She kicked Matthew’s ankle as Dylan excused himself for the men’s room.

  “He doesn’t know?”

  “What he wants to do? Yeah, he switched majors a few times. I understand that’s common for younger siblings. Oldest are always so driven, like onlys and…” She trailed off at the expression on Matthew’s face.

  “He doesn’t know you’ve worked yourself to the bone paying for it, does he?”

  Erin closed her eyes, fiddling with her napkin. “He was so young when mama and daddy died, just fifteen. And I moved him from Atlanta to Boston with me. He hated it so much. Couldn’t wait to come home to Georgia. I couldn’t…I couldn’t tell him they left us with nothing. By then, I was making enough of a profit to cover his tuition, room and board. So I did and…”

  “And that’s why you work so many weddings? So many double bookings?”

  “Yes, exactly,” Erin nodded. “And when your mama called, asking for this whole week of work…well, I couldn’t turn it down.”

  “You should tell him,” Matthew said, amazed at the sacrifices Erin made for her brother, yet knowing he’d do the same for Alex or Marina, if he’d had to. They’d both stretched the older sibling role into faux parenthood and now needed to let them go. Seeing their baby siblings as adults wasn’t easy. He brushed a kiss over her fingers.

  “Why? So he’ll drop out, this close to the finish line? No way. I didn’t work this hard and this long to collapse at the end,” Erin smiled brightly as Dylan dropped back into his seat. “Tell me more about your new found interest in rockets, Dylan.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After lunch they headed over to the dress shop for Erin to pick up her bridesmaid’s dress and Matthew to finally be fitted for his tux, Dylan trailing along. As soon as Erin got into the tiny dressing room, she called Lauren.

  “Everything is totally under control,” Lauren answered on the first ring, sounding breathless and distracted.

  “You’ve been ignoring my texts,” Erin answered, whispering, wiggling out of her jeans. She peeked out the curtain as the rest of the bridal party walked into the shop for Ashley’s final fitting. Matthew changed in a dressing room across the way and Dylan sat on the tiny sofa, reading on his phone. “I can’t believe you stuck my brother on me!

  “What brother?”

  “Dylan! The only brother I have!” Erin snapped, raking her hands through her hair, before struggling into her dress. “He’s here.”

  “Dylan’s in Savannah?” Lauren still sounded preoccupied which probably indicated some crisis with the weddings back home. Erin would worry about that in a minute. “Well, I didn’t have anything to do with it. I haven’t talked to Dylan—”

  “Since I caught you two together on the couch last Thanksgiving?”

  “Yeah, pretty much since then,” Lauren admitted with a laugh. “Maybe he saw all your pictures online with that adorable Matthew and came to check it out. How’s that going?”

  “We agreed to limit things to only while we’re in Savannah.” After Sunday, they’d go their separate ways and Erin couldn’t face the pain of that right now. She forced herself to focus on living in the moment, instead of focusing on the future they’d never have together.

  “By things do you mean your relationship?”

  “It’s not a relationship. It’s fling, a one-night—”

  “That’s gone on for four nights and counting.” Erin hated it when Lauren did that. For all her ditzy ways, her friend could be an amazingly direct straight shooter. Usually at the worst moment possible. “Admit it. You’re nuts about this guy.”

  “Maybe I am,” Erin admitted. “Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t do long term.”

  “Wanna bet on that?”

  From outside the dressing room curtain, Matthew’s deep voice said, “Do you want me to zip you up, sugar?”

  “He calls you sugar?” Lauren screeched. Erin bit her lip and smiled as she peeked out the curtain to find Matthew, dressed in his perfectly fitting tux. Her mouth went dry at the sight of him. When he grinned crookedly at her, her heart thrummed in her chest. She smiled back as, in her ear, Lauren said, “It’s progressed to pet names already? I can’t wait to meet him.”

  She put a finger up to signal to Matthew to wait and ducked back into the dressing room. “How are things there? Did you—”

  “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry. Talk to you later. Bye!” Lauren said in a rush and hung up on her.

  Erin shook her head at the phone before opening the curtain. She pulled up her hair so Matthew could zip her up. He trailed his fingers over her shoulders, reminding her of the last time they’d been here, just before they became lovers. She looked at their dual reflection in the mirror, as he smiled at her. She wanted nothing more than to head back to the hotel for more time with him. In less than two days, she’d return to Boston and he’d head home to Chicago and…then her life would be even more empty than before. But she couldn’t dwell on that now. She had a wedding to pull off.

  She turned in his arms and whispered, “You gotta amuse my brother for the day.”

  “I’d rather spend the day with you.” He kissed the spot just behind her earlobe that made her shiver as he pulled her against him, warm and hard all along her front. Against her skin, he let out a breathy little moan that arrowed through her. How big were those dressing rooms? He could brace her against…

  Erin put her hand on his chest and pushed him away, gently, regretfully. “You want to spend the day handling a thousand and one tiny wedding details?” She fussed with his bow tie, straightening it.

  “With you? Sure,” Matthew grinned, pushing her hair behind her ear.

  “And an hysterical bride?”

  “She seems pretty calm to me,” Matthew said.

  Erin looked over Matthew’s shoulder as Ashley emerged from the largest dressing room, facing the triple mirror, in her beautiful dress. The beading on her bodice shimmered in the sunlight as she mounted the pedestal to stand in front of the mirror. Her tulle skirt and fitted bodice suited her perfectly. She smiled shyly as her mother pulled out her heirloom veil.

  “I carried this on my lap all the way here.” Charlotte stepped up and placed the delicate veil on Ashley’s dark hair. Unfortunately, the antique lace had yellowed and now clashed with the dress.

  “Oh…the veil doesn’t match!” Ashley wailed.

  Erin pushed past Matthew to hastily offer assurances and calm her down. A horrified looking Dylan said to Matthew, “Want to grab a beer?”

  “That’d be great.” Matthew hurried into the dressing room and changed quickly. He and Dylan departed, with a quick wave to Erin.

  Cowards, Erin laughed inwardly as she patted Ashley’s shoulders as Charlotte and Shelby brainstormed ways to make the veil work.

  “Where are they off to?” Heather asked, watching Dylan depart with interest.
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br />   “Matthew’s going to show my brother around for a bit,” Erin answered. “Keep him amused.”

  “Maybe tonight, I can amuse your brother.” Heather winked and Erin laughed. “Actually, Erin, might I have a word?”

  Erin sighed. In her experience, it was never a good sign when wedding party members needed to talk to her. It inevitably meant something was about to go terrifically pear-shaped. After she followed Heather to a corner of the dress shop, she asked, “What’s up?”

  “Ash wants a bachelorette party now.”

  “Bit late, isn’t it?” Erin sighed, rubbing her forehead.

  “All morning she’s been on about Alex being the only guy she’ll ever get to be with again and—”

  “She wants to be cheered up?” Erin said. “Well, after the rehearsal tonight, we can go out for drinks.”

  “Okay. Sounds like a plan.”

  Once they hit the sidewalk outside the dress shop, Matthew led Dylan a few blocks over to a small local bar. They found an outdoor wrought iron table, shielded by a navy blue umbrella emblazoned with a foreign beer logo, and sat in the limited shade. They both ordered beers and ignored the unshelled peanuts in a bowl in the center of the table. Matthew tapped his fingers on the table, nervous now they didn’t have Erin with them to smooth the way.

  Dylan looked over at him, his intense blue eyes shielded behind his shades, and grinned. Sharks must smile at their prey the same way. Dylan, a kid nearly a decade his junior, made him ridiculously nervous. He swallowed hard, his mouth dry as a creek bed at high summer. He swiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and grabbed for the long necked amber bottle the waitress set down. His sweaty fingers slipped on the frosty bottle and he nearly dropped it. As Dylan checked out the departing waitresses’ assets, in a reflexive way, Matthew slugged back his beer.

  “So, you met Erin…?”

  “At the airport. In Chicago,” Matthew smiled, remembering Erin chatting to “Pickle” in the hotel lobby. How far they’d come in just a few days. “When we got snowed in, she stayed in my hotel room.”

  “Good for her. I’m always saying she should loosen up a bit.” Dylan clapped a hand on his shoulder before taking a swig of his own beer. “But not Erin. She’s gotta follow every rule, even the ones she makes up herself.”

  Matthew picked at the label on his beer bottle as he remembered her saying she’d make an exception for him. Just how big an exception would she be willing to make for their burgeoning relationship? “She seems like a pretty good big sister.”

  “She is. The best,” Dylan nodded. “Your brother is the groom, right? Any sisters of your own?”

  “I have one of each, a brother and a sister,” Matthew said. “It’s my little brother getting married tomorrow. Unless I figure out some way to stop it.”

  “Stop it?” Dylan cocked his head to the side, appraising him. “Why do you want to stop it?”

  “He’s way too young. They’re rushing into this. He’s moving to England, far from his family…it’ll be a disaster.”

  “You don’t like the bride? She’s pretty and her sister’s hot.”

  “Ashley seems sweet. I don’t know her. And neither does my brother…” Matthew shook his head. “They’ve only been dating three months…”

  “And that’s not enough time to fall in love?” Dylan grinned at him, raising a thick eyebrow above his dark shades. Matthew squirmed in his chair, remembering his realization earlier of how deep his feelings for Erin actually were.

  “Not at twenty-one,” Matthew shook his head. “I got married at twenty-one, to a girl I’ve known since I was a kid…and then we moved far from home and it all caved in…”

  “So, knowing the person for a long time didn’t seem to be any guarantee it would work out either then?”

  “I thought you were engineering, not pre-law,” Matthew groused, stung at having his shaky logic shot down. He just wanted to protect his brother. Why did everyone find that so hard to understand?

  “I majored in pre-law for a while too. I’ve hit them all sometime along the way.”

  “Can’t decide?”

  “There are some people, like my sister, who know what they want to do, who they want to be, from the cradle.”

  “Your sister wanted to be a professional bridesmaid?”

  “She was always all about owning her own business, a little entrepreneur. You can’t imagine how many ventures she started with her little red wagon.”

  Matthew smiled as he imagined a tiny, pig-tailed Erin, all bright-eyed determination. He was in deep, over his head, and sinking fast.

  Dylan continued, “I bet you felt that way about being an architect too, right?”

  Matthew shrugged, “Mostly. My grandfather was an architect so…”

  “Following in the footsteps. I get it. But the point is, maybe your brother knows what he wants.”

  “Maybe,” Matthew said. “I sure haven’t had any luck changing his mind this week.”

  “Well, you’ve been kinda busy with my sister, right?” Dylan tilted his head, in a very Erin-like gesture, and Matthew hid a smile as he sipped his beer. “You have no idea how weird it was for all these pictures of her having fun and relaxing to appear on her feeds. Erin’s not that great at relaxing.”

  “And you got all saddled up to head down here to Savannah and protect her?”

  “If I needed to, I would, but she’s pretty fierce all on her own,” Dylan said. “We were supposed to have lunch in Atlanta but she got snowed in with you instead. I need to talk to her.”

  “About changing your major?”

  “Not exactly.” Dylan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He paused for a moment and then said, “I’m thinking of dropping out of school.”

  “After all she’s done for you?” Matthew blurted. “How could you do that to her?”

  “Do what to who?” Erin said as she and Heather walked up, carrying plastic-shrouded dresses over their arms. “I’ve already dealt with one crisis today. I need a breather before the next one.” She leaned over and, snagging the bottle, sipped Matthew’s beer. “What’s going on?”

  Dylan spared a brief glare for Matthew before drawling to Heather, “Are you from London too?”

  “We’re from Atlanta,” Erin gaped at him. “What’s with the accent? You sound like you’re doing a bad imitation.”

  “Bug, you’re crimping my style,” Dylan complained. Her eyes met Matthew’s as she laughed and he couldn’t help but smile too. Dylan asked, “Heather, can I buy you a drink?”

  Matthew stood, wrapping an arm around Erin’s waist, and dropping a kiss on her mouth. Being with her felt natural to him, right and comfortable in a way he’d never experienced before, like puzzle pieces slotting together. Heather claimed his seat, smiling at Dylan. Dylan waved the waitress over as Matthew asked, “Where you off to, Erin?”

  “Your mother’s house. I told Marina I’d help her with her hair and makeup before the rehearsal.”

  “I’ll walk with you.” Matthew tossed some bills on the table to cover the beers. They waved goodbye to Dylan and Heather and headed towards his mother’s house. “This must be crunch time for you.”

  “It’s always just about now that Murphy’s law goes into effect,” Erin nodded. “But, I always tell my brides it’s the things that go wrong that are the most memorable.”

  “True. But are they good or bad memories?” Matthew asked. She looked up at him, the sunlight glinting off her blonde hair as the breeze tossed the ends of it. This close, the freckles sprinkled over her nose became visible. He wanted to taste each of them.

  Erin nodded and stood on tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. “I only keep the good ones.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Matthew and Erin walked into his mother’s house, a beehive of activity as they set up for the rehearsal dinner. Millie oversaw caterers bustling up and down the front steps as Shelby laid out wafer thin china on tables covered with snow colored linens. Greenery twined around candles in
crystal holders set in the center of each table. When the candles were lit, after sunset, the china and crystal would sparkle gloriously.

  “It looks beautiful,” Erin complimented Shelby, who greeted her with a brief hug. “How can I help?”

  “Marina said you said you’d help her. Her room is the second on the left at the top of the stairs.” Shelby handed off a set of bread and butter plates to her son and waved Erin upstairs. “Matthew can help set the table.”

  Erin climbed the stairs, hiding a smile as she peered over the railing at Matthew carefully placing the delicate plates just as his mother said. She knocked on Marina’s door. Marina opened the door in flamingo pajama pants and a T-shirt, her face devoid of makeup and her hair down.

  “Still want some help?” Erin asked and Marina nodded shyly. Erin walked in to her brightly colored room that reminded her of the tropical birds Matthew’s sister loved so much. Posters covered the pink walls and a bright batik coverlet lay on the sweet white wrought iron bed, as though Marina tried to make her little-girl bedroom look grown up. The overall effect was messy but charming.

  “I’ve got make-up on the dresser.” Marina gestured to the messy dresser, where a set of bright orange speakers blared out peppy music, though Erin didn’t recognize the song. Photos ringed the mirror, nearly obscuring the looking glass beneath. Erin positioned her in the desk chair and cleared a small area on the dresser. From her purse, she pulled out her trusty compact.

  Erin nodded at the jumble of pots and held up her compact. “Everything you need is right here. Believe me, I learned a lot of tips from the makeup artists who do weddings. Less is more.”

  Marina nodded. She closed her eyes and tilted up her face. Erin got to work. “Tell me about the birds in the pictures.”

  “I used to work at a vet’s office down the street, just as an assistant. Then, people needed bird sitters so I’d work for them.” She gestured to the ring of photos as Erin worked on her face. “But…well, I don’t have time much any more.”