“Juliet!” She hugged me and pulled back to say, “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I couldn’t wait one second longer and had to tell you in person. I did what you said. I got a new dream.”

“What’s going on? What do you mean?”

Allan came over to join her, putting his arm around her shoulders.

Shelby grinned at me. “Allan and I are going to Las Vegas to get married. Right now. And we want both of you to come with us and be our witnesses.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Now it was my turn to shriek in happiness for her. “What? That’s insane! I’m so thrilled for you guys!” I hugged both her and Allan while Noah congratulated them. “But Vegas? Why now? Why not wait until the weekend?”

Allan said, “We were talking this morning, and we decided that we wanted our forever to start now.”

“We don’t have to worry about anyone else being there, so there’s no reason to wait,” Shelby added, but I heard the way her voice faltered at the words anyone else. I knew that it was in part due to her mother not being here, but given that Allan was so flagrantly choosing Shelby, just like he said he would, she must have also been talking about Harmony.

I wondered if Harmony knew. And if she didn’t, I would have liked to be there when she found out and her head exploded.

“Do you already have airline tickets?” Noah asked.

“Not yet,” Shelby said. “We wanted to make sure you guys could come so we could all fly together.”

“We could drive,” I offered, but that quickly got shot down.

“I have a photo shoot tomorrow afternoon,” Noah said, right as Allan added, “I have a deposition,” and Shelby jumped in, “Demolition for this needy movie star I’m working with.”

“And I have to feed and walk a dog,” I announced, feeling a little less than.

“Let me make a call and get us a flight so that we can go on our own schedule,” Noah said. It took me a second to understand what he meant, but Allan got there much faster and protested, “You don’t have to do that.”

But Noah had his phone out and walked away from us with Allan following at a bit of a distance, presumably to try to talk Noah out of it.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“You’re getting married!” I said to Shelby and hugged her again. “I can’t believe it. I mean, I can, but you’re going to be a married lady.”

“I know this puts you in a bind, but I’m going to keep paying rent until you make other arrangements.”