Just Good Friends (9 page)

Tiffany held up the gown. “How do you
think?”

His gaze went to the ruffled burgundy
dress with sequins on it. Since her parents were right there, he
decided not to comment, though he had no doubt Tiffany would be
burning the thing as soon as the wedding was over. He sensed that
Zoe had picked that design just so the others wouldn’t look good,
which meant she hoped to look even better.

“
Now, you can’t blame Zoe,”
her mother quickly said as she took in the dress. “She picked out
the design she thought everyone would like. And besides, you know
Zoe’s never been very good at fashion.”

Tyler’s eyebrows rose. So her mother
agreed that the dress was as awful as he and Tiffany did. Well, at
least the woman didn’t have bad taste.

“
I’ll survive it,” Tiffany
said. “At least Tyler’s seen me in worse.”

“
That’s the spirit,” her
father called out.

“
It’s nice that you two have
so much history together,” her mom commented with a smile. “I have
a good feeling about you two.”

“
I do, too,” her father
agreed, “and I don’t usually have feelings about these
things.”

Tyler caught the look of disbelief on
Tiffany’s face before she gestured for him to follow her to her
bedroom. He hesitated, only because he thought her parents might
get the wrong idea, but since they seemed intent on working on her
dad’s speech for the wedding, he hurried down the hallway after
her.

“
What’s wrong?” he asked
once they reached her bedroom.

“
It took an hour before the
seamstress got the dress right.”

“
You cared whether or not it
looks right?” he asked as she hung it on the hook behind her door.
“I don’t know how it could look better.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t
get it to zip in the back when I first tried it on.”

“
You’re kidding.”

“
Nope. And this was after I
gave her all my measurements. I don’t know how this woman stays in
business.”

“
I guess if you’re the only
one who can make clothes in a small town and the bride wants a
particular bridesmaid dress, you can get away with
anything.”

“
Yeah, I think so. It makes
me glad I live in a place where there’s competition.”

“
A bigger city does have its
perks. Plus, it doesn’t take so long to get to the
mall.”

“
Speaking of which, how did
your day ago?” she asked, turning to him

“
Not bad, I guess, if you
like people pushing against you to get to something they want and
walking a mile because you couldn’t park near the mall.”

“
They don’t call it Black
Friday for nothing.”

He couldn’t argue her point, but by the
exhausted look on her face, she had it worse than he did. “So, did
anything else happen besides the thing with the
seamstress?”

“
Nothing worth mentioning.”
She crossed her arms and shrugged. “My sister’s bridal shower was
as boring as I expected it to be.”

“
I take it she was being her
usual, charming self?”

“
We leave tomorrow at two
after the whole wedding is over. That’s all that
matters.”

Tyler took that to mean her sister had
been just as insulting as she’d been yesterday. He opened his mouth
to tell her she needed to stop putting up with it but shut it. It
wasn’t his business. It was hers. She was the one who had to deal
with it. As hard as it was to watch, he’d just have to let it go
since that’s what she wanted.

The front door opened, and he heard Zoe
call out, “The bride and groom are here!”

Tiffany gagged.

Fortunately, in the next second, Brad’s
parents and a couple others called out they had arrived, too. Good.
At least they weren’t going to be alone with Tiffany’s parents and
Zoe and Brad. There was no way he could survive the dinner if they
were the only people at the table with them.

She sighed. “I suppose we should go
join them.”

“
Lucky us,” he
replied.

“
We’re twenty-four hours
away from leaving for the airport. We can do this.”

“
Is that what you keep
telling yourself?”

“
I have to or else I’ll go
crazy.”

He didn’t blame her. He felt like he
was going crazy as it was, and this wasn’t even his family. Yep,
he’d be sure to never take his parents for granted ever again.
Reminding himself they only had one more day to go, he followed her
back to the living room.

Chapter
Eight

“
And of course, it was
exciting to see our names together in the paper,” Zoe bragged
during dinner.

Tyler held back the urge to groan. Ever
since the meal started, it’d been nonstop talk of how excited Zoe
was about getting married.

“
It’s exciting for us to see
your names in the paper, too,” her mother said.

“
It sure is,” her dad
agreed.

“
At least you finally have
one daughter who is tying the knot,” an aunt, whose name Tyler
couldn’t recall, chimed in. She glanced at Tiffany and smiled. “No
offense, my dear, but we were beginning to worry about your poor
parents.”

Tiffany, who was sitting next to him,
gave a slight shrug to indicate she took no offense to the
comment.

Well, maybe she didn’t, but Tyler sure
did. It was hard to sit around this family and be constantly
reminded of how much “better” married people were than single
people. As if being single was some kind of disease. It took all
his willpower to eat the leftover turkey with the lot of them
around, and he was beginning to wish he had asked Tiffany to go to
a restaurant. It’d certainly be less painful than this
ordeal.

“
I can’t wait for the
rehearsal this evening,” Zoe said after she sipped some of her
wine. “I can’t wait to see how the whole ceremony is going to play
out.”

“
Smoothly, I hope,”
Tiffany’s dad quipped then glanced at Tyler. “The last wedding in
this family didn’t go so well. One of the children, who held a
candle, came too close to the bride and her hair caught on
fire.”

Okay. Now that was funny, and Tyler
felt his mood lighten a bit as he laughed along with the
others.

“
Well, there are no children
participating in my wedding, Daddy, so there’s nothing to worry
about,” Zoe said, once again finding a way to get the spotlight
back on her. “Mom, will Aunt Donna be playing her violin while I
walk down the aisle to say ‘I do’ to the most terrific man in the
world?” She reached out and touched Brad’s hand.

A round of “ahhs” floated around Tyler,
and he thought he was going to puke. He took a deep breath to
settle his stomach before he was able to take another bite of his
meal. It wasn’t that he was opposed to romance and such, but there
was only so much he could take.

“
Aunt Donna said she’d be
happy to,” her mom replied and clapped her hands then turned to
Tyler. “Just wait until you hear her. She plays the most beautiful
music.”

“
That’s true,” Tiffany
added. “She does.”

Tyler nodded. “I look forward to
hearing it.” It was probably the only part of the whole ceremony he
would actually enjoy.

“
You know, I play the
piano,” Zoe spoke up, flinging her hair over her shoulder. “I got
really good, too. I could have gone off to a music school and
played professionally, but I couldn’t bear the thought of being
away from Brad.”

“
That is so sweet,” Brad’s
mom said.

“
It is,” another aunt
agreed.

“
When you find that special
someone, you do everything you can to hold onto him,” the other
aunt added. “Love doesn’t always come a second time.”

“
And sometimes it doesn’t
come at all,” Zoe replied.

Tyler scanned the table, but no one was
watching Zoe when she snickered in Tiffany’s direction. Taking the
cloth napkin off his lap, he threw it on the table and stood up.
He’d had enough. There was only so much he could handle. Tiffany’s
parents were one thing, but her sister had pushed him beyond what
he was able to endure.

“
Tyler?” Tiffany asked,
startled.

He grabbed his glass of wine and
motioned for her to stand up. “Come on, sweetheart. You don’t need
to be shy. I think it’s okay if we tell them now.”

“
Tell us what?” Tiffany’s
dad called out, straightening in his chair.

“
What are you doing?”
Tiffany asked.

Ignoring her, he looked at her parents,
forcing a wide smile on his face. “We didn’t want to say anything
because this is Zoe’s big thing.” No sense in placing poor,
innocent Brad into this mess. “But in light of the conversation
about how fortunate people are when they find true love and how
important it is to be married, I thought it was only fitting that
we come out and say it.”

“
Say it?” Tiffany squeaked,
her eyes growing wide.

“
I told you they won’t
mind,” he quickly said before she could stop him. “In fact, they’ll
be thrilled. Are you sure you don’t want to stand up while I make
the announcement?” Her face went white, and he rubbed her shoulder.
“She’s so cute when she’s shy,” he told the others.

“
Tiffy’s always been shy,”
her mother said.

“
What’s the good news?” her
dad asked. “The suspense is killing me.”

“
Let me guess,” her mother
jumped in. “You’re engaged?”

“
Better,” Tyler said and
lifted his glass of wine. “We’re married.”

“
You’re married?” her mother
repeated.

“
We went to Las Vegas last
week. It was something we did on the spur of the
moment.”

He caught sight of Zoe’s dropped jaw
and felt a sense of satisfaction in knowing he had gained a victory
over her.

“
I noticed there was a
certain chemistry between you two,” one of the aunts
said.

“
I did, too,” Tiffany’s
mother quickly agreed. “You can just tell these things about
couples, can’t you?”

“
You certainly can,” the
aunt replied.

“
The funny thing was,” Tyler
began, “in all the time Tiffany and I knew each other, we never
realized there was more to it than friendship. We dated other
people, but none of those relationships ever worked out. Then one
day, I looked at her while we were watching a movie, and I knew
there’d be no one else for me but her. She’s been my best friend
for years, and now she’s my wife. A man can’t do better than
that.”

“
Hear, hear,” Brad called
out, surprising Tyler since he hadn’t said anything up to this
point. At least, nothing he could recall.

“
Cheers!” her dad
added.

The others joined in, except for Zoe
who offered a slight scowl at him and Tiffany. Tiffany’s mother ran
over to give Tiffany and him a big hug. Her mother told Tiffany
this was the best news she’d ever received, and Tiffany stammered
in response.

Feeling much better about everything,
Tyler sat back down, pulled his chair back to the table, and
finished his meal with a better appetite.

***

Tiffany had to wait until she finished
helping the women clean the dishes before she could get a moment
alone with Tyler. Once they were on their walk, she opened her
mouth to speak when he beat her to it.

“
I couldn’t take it
anymore,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “And it
wasn’t your parents who broke me down. It was that sister of yours.
She’s brutal.”

“
We only had one more day to
go,” Tiffany hissed, looking behind them to make sure no one
followed them out of her parents’ house. She didn’t think anyone
would do it, but she had to be sure.

“
I know. And I’m surprised I
made it this long.”

With a groan, she grabbed his arm and
led him down the street that would take them to a section of town
where none of her or Brad’s relatives lived. If any of them found
out the truth, she didn’t know what she’d do. She could hardly
handle the fact that her lie was leading to another—more
significant—one.

“
What are we supposed to do
when we get home?” she asked. “It’s not like I can say we decided
we were better off as friends.”

Wincing, he shrugged. “I didn’t think
that far.”

“
Then what were you
thinking?”

“
I just wanted to wipe that
smug smile off of Zoe’s face.”

“
I told you not to let her
bother you.”

“
I tried.” He pushed his
glasses up his nose then stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Really,
I tried. But it was impossible.”

“
So what am I supposed to
do? We’re not really married. We’re not even interested in each
other that way.”

“
I know. I just… Well, I’ve
known you for years, and I’ve never met your family until now. You
only come up for funerals and weddings, so I’ll come up with you
during those times, and we’ll keep pretending we’re
married.”