Chapter 60

Kendall

“Hey…” I stopped just inside the door of Barbie’s flat, staring at the mess spread across the floor. “Why the fuck does it look like a bridal magazine shop exploded in here.”

“I had to buy every wedding magazine they had at the newsagents,” she said with all the weird fascination of a mad scientist on the edge of a breakthrough. “Then I needed to buy two of each, just in case you wanted to look at the same one I was.”

“You didn’t.” I stepped over magazine after magazine and then picked up a bottle of champagne, noting there wasn’t a flute in sight. “Have you been drinking champers straight from the bottle?”

“Champagne!” She stabbed a finger in my direction then started flipping madly through a magazine. “It’s a really subtle shade that would be perfect for bridesmaids. Like basically it’s beige with a bit of shimmer. Though…” She poked the photos of the pretty bridesmaid printed on the page. “Some people do say it’s a bit close to white and it looks like they’re trying to upstage the bride.”

“How do you upstage the bride?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Flip, flip, flip the pages went. “But people talk about it a lot. Like a lot, a lot. On Reddit—”

“Wait, since when are you on Reddit?” I asked.

“Since you decided to get married, bestie!” She threw her arms wide, but instead of her usual insanity, I saw real tears in her eyes.

“Are you crying? Jesus, we need to sober you up.” I picked up the champagne bottle. “Or give you another drink. You haven’t had much.”

“Not that, not breakfast,” she said, going back to flipping.

I looked at my phone and then at her when I saw it was mid-afternoon.

“Champagne and some toast then,” I said, carrying the bottle into the kitchen.

“There’s cheese and crackers, some chocolate-covered strawberries in the fridge.” Barbie sounded completely preoccupied. “Also, which one are you actually going to marry?”

I was halfway through opening the fridge as she said the words.

“What?”

“Like you can have a commitment ceremony with all of them, but you can only marry one of them.” That shouldn’t be a surprise to me, but somehow it was. Connor had bored us with the legal issues incessantly at dinner for the last few nights. “And if you marry one of them—”

“You can’t be legally bound to the others.”

I shut the door abruptly and stepped backwards. Each man had proposed in ways that tugged at my heart, but it was only now I realised what that meant. I had to choose one. Connor was freaked out by the idea that I wouldn’t be protected, provided for if something happened to them. I pointed out we were all in our late twenties, but then he started to recite construction site statistics at me. We were forced to draw the line when he wanted to download some workplace accident photos and show them to me.

“I can’t choose,” I said.

“Huh, so there is a downside to having three hot fiancés.” She put the magazine down. “But you have to. There’s no wedding if you don’t choose. You can have the other two as best men, but—”

“No.”

My fingers went to the ring Connor had given me, rolling it up and down.

“But, you have to. I think the law stinks too—”

“No.” I stepped closer, hands shaking. “No, you don’t get it. Barbie, I can’t.’

“It’ll be in name only. You’ll still live the same way and seeing as they’re all gonna take your name, it won’t matter.” Her nose wrinkled. “I mean, they’ll want your husband’s name as an emergency contact when you enrol your kids at school.”

“No.”

“And as a next-of-kin in case something happens to you in an accident. They’ll ring him and not the others to say you’re in hospital.”

“No, Barbie.” I stepped in closer, crouching down to force her to look at me. “You don’t understand. I literally can’t. I’d rather not get married at all.” I looked down at the ring and started to pull it off. “I didn’t think this through. I can’t marry one of them.”

But right as I was about to shove the ring in my pocket, her hand closed around mine.

“A marriage is a legal thing and a social and/or religious rite. A commitment ceremony is the social thing, without the legal. What’s important to you, Kendall? Being legally tied to one of them having an opportunity to tell the world how you feel about each other?”

My breath came out in a long, shuddering sigh.

“That. I want that.”

“Well, that’s a whole other ball of wax.” She shoved the magazines she had on her lap to the floor and then reached for another lot. “It gives you a whole lot more freedom. The nature of the event, of the ritual, is decided by the people involved. No rules, laws, or government intervention. There’re relationship agreements that can take care of the legal side of things, but if you just want a party to celebrate your relationship, then let”s do that.”

“But Connor wants a church wedding, god knows why, because I’ve never seen him go to a service and Van just wants really good catering. Oh and for me to stick it to the others and choose him. Gage was low key about the whole thing, telling me to do what I think is best and I…”

What did I want? I’d dreamed of my wedding day as a girl, like many others, but it was always focussed on the beautiful dress and all my family clustered around as witnesses, not the colour of bridesmaid dresses and which of my boyfriends I could legally marry. I didn’t care about the legality of things. If we somehow fell out of love, we’d walk away free, but in some ways, I liked that better.

That we’d be forced to choose each other every day.

Barbie nodded slowly, still a little misty eyed.

“I figured you might say something like that.” She flicked a finger through a ton of multi-coloured sticky notes she’d used to annotate a bunch of the magazines. “Then I think you need to play one more prank.”

“On who?” I asked.

“Your guys.”