The Wedding Affair (The Affair Series Book 2) (2 page)

“Team Love Pump gets the win,” Andrea hooted.

Lisa made the ceremonial gesture of handing over the gaudy coconut with a bowed head as Sam’s team gathered. She, Kelly, and Julie took turns kissing the trophy and gagging around while the others snapped endless phone pics.

Andrea, Tara, and Lisa applauded with lackluster enthusiasm and groaned with each crazy antic. It was Tara, with her usual dry wit, who brought them all to a falling down pile of laughing giggling females.

“Next time, we should pick teams and names before the drinking starts. I think Team Creampie was doomed to failure for obvious reasons.”

“Ew!” they all groaned, chuckled, and barked in unison.

“Lovepumps and Creampies. Jeez Louise, girls. What the hell is wrong with you guys?” Julie was shaking her head like a disappointed parent discovering a stack of porn magazines stuffed under a bed.

Kelly chimed in with a pithy reminder of how they got where they were. “It was that damn bartender’s fault. The minute he said we could lick George Clooney off the rim of a glass, we were doomed.”

“Wimps,” Tara cooed. “Casamigos is too smooth to kick ass. That idiot at the bar didn’t know who he was dealing with.”

Sam chuckled. “Damn straight.”

“Says the 2008 winner of Banfil’s Cuervo Classic.”

She took a bow at Lisa’s crowning praise. It was true, after all. The summer they all turned twenty-two, she, Lisa, and Andrea had done a girls’ weekend at their favorite getaway destination near their childhood town. What started out as a simple spa visit turned into a rowdy, over-the-top romp along the little city’s locally famous Saloon Row. Basically a walking tour of a dozen various bars and pubs, they’d ended at a rustic watering hole hosting a tequila tournament. How much Cuervo Sam imbibed remained a mystery, but it’d been enough for her to win hands down against a bunch of burly badasses. Much to the screaming delight of every woman present.

A phone started ringing, and they all reached for theirs. Ordinarily, they’d each know their unique ringtone, but Andrea had made them all change to “Here Comes the Bride.” She was half hilarious that way.

“It’s me,” Julie said, waving her phone for emphasis. “Shit. It’s Joe.”

Tara snickered and leaned close. “Do you think she realizes she’s talking tequila and most of that was slurred?”

Sam arched an eyebrow at her sometimes nemesis and knocked her back a bit. “She says with a distinct jumble of sounds.”

“Aw, shit. Really?”

“’Fraid so, Ms. Donner.” Sam snorted. It was all kinds of fun to watch as Tara tried to put an expression on her face. The woman was thirty-two, not sixty-two. Why she had fillers and god knows what else at her age was a mystery.

Julie cleared her throat and straightened. She accepted the call as Andrea shrieked with comic delight, “Hey, Joe! How’s it hanging?”

Kelly groaned when Julie frantically shushed them. It was too much of a challenge not to roar with laughter, but Julie only had herself to blame. She was batting a thousand in the T-M-I category by telling them her husband’s dick hung with a righty curve.

Remembering her duties as maid of honor in charge of the week’s frivolity, Sam waved over their waiter and asked for another round of drinks. As an afterthought, she also asked for a large pitcher of ice water and some glasses. It was time for some hydration if they expected to survive the evening.

While Julie attempted to converse with her hubs, the rest of their group ambled rather unsteadily to their table on the outdoor beach terrace of the resort’s hideaway bistro. They were coming to the end of their weeklong indulgence. Starting tomorrow, the groom and his attendants, along with wedding guests and family, would start arriving, and the formal gatherings would take over.

Flopping onto a chair, Sam rested her forearms on the table and just sort of hung there for a minute. She was exhausted. Fried. They’d been going nonstop boogie from the moment all of them were in place.

If they could book it, they did. Surf lessons. Helicopter tours. Snorkeling. Horseback adventures. Hiking. Kayaking. Oh and a zip line experience Sam was sure had aged her at least five years.

Between it all, they availed themselves of the incredible services offered at the resort spa. She’d never felt so pampered or beautiful.

But it was during the evenings when Sam’s need to organize got swept away in an unstoppable tsunami of bridal party fuckery.

And men thought they were the hardcore gender.
Shit
, she snorted silently. She wasn’t sure any guy alive could stand up to the crazed antics this bunch of women were capable of.

“I can’t wait for Kyle to get here,” Andrea mumbled as she took the seat next to Sam. “Me so horny.”

Sam put her face into her hands and groaned dramatically. “Kindly remember please that I’m the celibate spinster of the group and to show some freakin’ couth, would you?”

Her friend chortled and jostled Sam with her shoulder. “
Pfft.
You know perfectly well I ain’t got no couth.”

It was an old, easy joke between them. Sam’s grandmother loved the tongue-in-cheek saying and teased them with it endlessly during their teenage years.

“Besides,” the drunken bride-to-be continued, “you’re only celibate because that douche nozzle
Richard
,” she drawled with special emphasis, “lived up to his nickname and dicked you good. And not in an orgasmic way.”

Truth. Rich Dawkins was a dick in every sense of the word. Looking back, she marveled at how stupid she was to waste two years on the spineless putz. But twenty-twenty, what’s done is done. And no way was she okay with anyone assuming her dateless life was due to a bad case of the dick.

“Not true,” she hastily corrected. “Dicky McDickerson was an aberration. Did I say that right?” she asked, swiping her fingers across her lips. “I’m not sure my mouth is moving. It is, though, right?”

Andrea nodded and cleared a space in front of them when their drinks were delivered. “Spoken like a true wordsmith—whatever the hell that means.”

They both laughed. Andrea leaned her head on Sam’s shoulder. “I fucking love you,” she said wistfully.

“And I fucking love you too.”

Straightening, her friend threw an arm over her shoulders and hugged Sam tight. “Girlfriend, what you need is a manly man. Some big bad alpha with tattoos and a monster dick.”

Sam snorted with disbelief and laughter. Only Andi could say something so blunt that it sounded perfectly reasonable.

“I’m serious! Stop laughing, dammit!”

“Aw, sweetie . . .” Sam snickered as she wiped away tears of laughter. “That’s not how it works. The men I meet are pocket protector types. Not quite comic book collectors but certainly more on the intellectual side than the gym rat and muscled type.”

“I know,” Andrea growled. “Please, please, please let me introduce you to one of Kyle’s friends. Seriously, Sam. Enough is enough. You’re almost thirty. You take care of your own shit. No man is ever going to push you around, so stop proving the point, go out, and get laid.”

Sam wanted to scream. Andrea’s new cause was getting her appropriately hooked up with one of Kyle Sommerfield’s buddies.

“Absolutely not. I swear if you pull any of that bridezilla shit and start playing matchmaker, I will tell Kyle about Mr. Davenport.”

Andrea shot upright and gasped. “You wouldn’t.”

The name, and her friend’s shocked response, hung in the air for a long minute before they dissolved into a fit of giggles. Mr. Davenport was the name Andrea had given her first vibrator. From the moment she discovered the power of a low hum, Andi Frank was the self-proclaimed Mistress of Vibrators. She had a bunch of ‘em and felt no shame in using explosive detail to describe the pros and cons of every mechanical sex toy on the market.

No wonder Kyle always looked so pleased.

Wiping away the teary evidence of their giggle-fest, Sam wagged her finger and laid down the law. There was no way on god’s green earth she was going to be a wedding guest statistic. Didn’t matter how right her friend was about getting laid. If that was what it came to, then she’d do it on her own terms and in her own way. Not as some desperate guy’s piece of ass at a desperate singles’ wedding reception free-for-all.

“I swear, babe. If the words
a friend of Kyle’s
come out of your mouth, it’s an immediate cold shoulder. Do I make myself clear?”

Thinking she had her friend in a corner, Sam was surprised by the amused twinkle in Andi’s eyes. Saluting her with mock sincerity, her friend grumbled, “Understood. No friends.”

While they’d been talking, Lisa, Tara, and Kelly had drifted from the table and were driving Julie crazy as she tried to keep up her end of a phone call. As usual, the second the call was over, Julie started shrieking and chasing them around as the others laughed and ran away.

“I didn’t know Tara could run,” Andrea commented. Her dry but witty tone and the way she rolled her eyes went down easy along with a hefty swig of icy margarita.

“Bet your business partner would love to take on a few of your groom’s buds.”

A shadow swept across her friend’s expression. “Kyle won’t have it. He thinks she’s a succubus.”

“What the hell did she do to deserve such a harsh call? Shit, Andi. No one knows better than me what a bitch Tara can be, but a succubus?”

The woman at her side sighed and turned. Sam was a little surprised at the expression on her face. “Let’s just say she tried and failed with the wrong guy. Kyle reacted, um. . .badly. I’d normally defend her, but this time, she stepped in it.”

Wow. Andi generally didn’t have a negative thing to say about anybody. When her friend’s gaze pinned Sam to the spot, she froze. Poker-faced when she had to be, the sheer volume of alcohol flowing through her made facial expressions hard to control. Andi’s hard stare made Sam’s stomach flutter.

“I can’t wait for you to meet Kyle’s family.” For the briefest flash, her friend looked like someone who won the lottery—then she blinked and all Sam saw was laughter. “His mom is a hoot. She makes jewelry. You know those little beaded earrings I have? She made them.”

“Wow, sweetie. That’s actually really cool. I can’t wait to meet them too.”

Andi chuckled and looked at her triumphantly. “I’m counting on you to stick close. That’s what maids of honor do.”

“No problem, chicky. Promise. I know what I signed on for.”

The other four women were coming back to their table arm-in-arm and laughing. Just before they descended, Andi looked at Sam and said, “Planning to hold you to it.”

Andi’s words hit her like a bolt of electricity riveting Sam to the spot. Excitement pulsed in every corner of her being.

She shivered and wondered,
What the hell?

“
W
hat are you so jumpy about?”

“Oh dear lord, Sam. Did you see my mother this afternoon? Would have been real friggin’ nice if she’d bothered to be civil to Steve. Shit. My poor stepdad. He looked so sad.”

Sam yanked the zipper up on Andi’s dress and struggled with the impossibly awkward button and loop at the dress’s neckline. “Steve looked fine to me. Matter of fact, I saw him eyeing Kyle’s publicist. The one with the huge rack and hair extensions.”

“Shut up,” the nervous bride muttered.

She shrugged. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

Sam watched as her friend swung back and forth in front of the mirror, examining her outfit from every angle.

“Do I look fat in this? I do, don’t I?”

Sighing, she kept her thoughts to herself. Took a week but now that the wedding was just days away, Andi’s hidden bridezilla was picking up steam. Only, in her friend’s case, instead of being a bitchy nightmare, what Sam had to deal with was a whiny, insecure teenager with a sullen pout.

“Babe. Seriously. You look like a million bucks. And last time I checked, Kyle likes your Marilyn Monroe curves. Flaunt what you got, sister. I’d personally kill for your badonkadonk.”

With sparkling eyes, Andi grinned. The corners of her mouth quivered as humor overtook her; she wagged her brows suggestively and saucily replied, “Girl, my ass would look like a surgical procedure on your stick figure.”

“Ouch.” Sam snickered with both hands over her heart as though she’d been wounded. “Not everybody gets a beauty queen figure. And I seriously wouldn’t mind having a bit more game in the butt department.”

Apparently satisfied that she wasn’t turning into the Bride of Frankenstein, Andi turned away from the mirror and folded her arms.

“Guys do like butt.” Andi was laughing gently and eyeing Sam critically. “I’ve told you a million times what to do. Let the girls roam free. Nothing but skin from chin to chest. Got it?”

She nodded and tried not to laugh. Chin to chest. Shit. That was really funny.

“And shorten your skirt. With those legs, you should be flaunting them, not covering them up.”

“Legs don’t flaunt,” Sam swiftly replied.

“Um, yes, they do. Low-cut clingy red top and a short black skirt? Add a pair of killer heels and every guy in the room will fantasize about having your stems wrapped around his neck. Flaunt what ya got, girl.”

Hmph
. As if her closet contained anything remotely like what her friend described. Not when her entire wardrobe consisted of boxy, functional business suits. Sam never cared all that much about clothes. Not like Andi, Lisa, and Julie had when they were all teens. Her job demanded sensible clothes, so that was what she had for choices. Monotone skirts and blouses. Sensible. Bland. Invisible.