“What do you mean ‘small’ accident?” I said, focusing on the wedding coordinator before quickly glancing to Chloe. She was about thirty feet down the beach, pacing. A few swear words had floated back to us at first but now she was sort of strangely silent, arms folded over her chest as she walked along the sand.

I frowned, but quickly shot my attention back to our wedding coordinator, Kristin, as she launched into an explanation.

“It’s going to be fine, Bennett,” she was saying, words delivered in a way I’m sure I was supposed to find comforting, but only resulted in pissing me off. When things went wrong you screamed at someone. You became the loudest and squeakiest wheel; you let everyone know that anything less than perfect was unacceptable. You slammed doors and fired people. You didn’t stand there in your little blue Chanel suit and pearls and tell the cyborg bride and clueless groom that it would be fine.

“There’s been a tiny little problem with the wedding clothes.”

Small accident. Tiny little problem. These adjectives didn’t really fit the feeling of dread that had begun clawing its way up my throat. “The garments were dropped off earlier today, but when the bags were opened we realized there’d been some sort of miscommunication and nothing had been pressed. It’s a minor thing, Bennett. I wouldn’t even bother you with it if Chloe hadn’t been there and seen it for
herself.”

So Chloe had already seen bags of wrinkled wedding clothes and hadn’t gone nuclear. I sighed, blinking across the beach to where a few rows of temporary seating had already been set up. Chloe’s aunts were sitting on either side of Will, who had his hands folded in his lap and looked . . . tense. In fact, he looked a lot like he was deciding if he could bolt and escape this event entirely. Hanna was chatting with Mina but would look over occasionally to glance at him, and her small smile would invariably turn into the biggest shit-eating grin I’d ever seen. She was going to make an excellent ally in the years ahead.

Max and Sara were off . . . somewhere. I actually rolled my eyes when I realized they hadn’t made it down from their room yet. God, I hated him. My family stood waiting for the rehearsal to begin, talking among themselves.

“So what happens now?” I asked.

Kristin smiled. “Everything’s already been taken back to
the cleaners and it will be done in the morning. They’ve promised to drop everything off tomorrow before one.”

“The wedding is tomorrow at four,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “Don’t you think that’s cutting it a little close?”

“It shouldn’t be—”

“Not good enough. I’ll pick them up myself.”

“But—”