Well, she has me there. But still. Romantic comedies are supposed to be fun, and cheesy, and above all they need to have that predictable happy ending where two people solve their problems and surmount their obstacles and kiss in a rainstorm to celebrate their perfect lives and perfect faces. None of that’s going to happen here. If there were a rom-com about my real life, it would be a pretty big bummer because it wouldn’t have a happy ending and it would have a terrible Rotten Tomatoes score.

“Annie. I love you. But my life is my life, and I don’t have the time to fall into a makeover montage right now.”

“No one ever does,” Annie mutters.

“And anyway,” I say with a wince. “Some other woman hit on Nick today and he was totally into it, so whatever. I don’t exactly think he’s pining away for me.”

“He was into it?” Skepticism drips from her voice. “Really?”

“Can we not talk about this anymore?”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Annie says, because this is also part of the best friend contract. Even when you’re annoyingly, persistently, obliviously fixated on something, you have to drop it if the other person says so. I mean, I knew Annie and Drew were shooting heart-eyes at each other way before they got together, but when she was all “mad” at him because they had a rom-com-worthy misunderstanding, I kept quiet. It’s the law.

“How’s wedding stuff going?” I ask, because there’s no better way to change the subject than by asking an engaged woman about her wedding.

She exhales so loudly that I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “It’s fine. It’s . . . fine.”

“Huh. You’re saying ‘fine’ the way a beleaguered wife in a sitcom says it, right before she starts a hilarious argument about her husband’s ineptitude.”

“What?”

“I’m saying there are a lot of layers in your ‘fine,’ and none of them sound good.” I sit down on my bed.

“Oh. Well, you know I’m excited about the actual ‘getting married to Drew’ part.”

“I’ve noticed it once or twice.”

“But it turns out a wedding isn’t about how much you love your partner. It’s about flowers. And table decorations. And tasting a lot of cakes.”

“Okay, first off, congrats on being the only person to ever complain about cake tastings. And secondly, I told you I’d make your cake!”

“Chloe! I’m not making you do all the maid of honor duties plus deal with decorating a massive cake the night before the wedding.”

“I’m offended,” I say, examining my cuticles.

“Plus, you know cake isn’t even my favorite thing.”

I remain silent.

“Frosting. Ugh. What’s the point?”

I take a few deep breaths to steady myself. “I’m going to ignore the terrible things you said about cake and give you a proposition: what if you had a noncake wedding dessert?”

“You can do that?” Annie asks with wonder in her voice.

“Again, woman, get thyself on Pinterest. How are you even planning a wedding without a board dedicated to desserts?”