Chapter 1

"No, no, no. This isn't right."

I tried my best to keep from rolling my eyes or letting out the frustrated sigh that had been building in my chest for the past three hours, creating a pressure like I was holding in a sneeze. This was all part of the job. The shitty part, of course, but luckily, I loved what I did, and ninety-seven percent of the time, the brides I worked with weren't egotistical bridezillas.

But Lexi Parsons fell in with that three percent, and she was driving me and my two best friends, Ryan and Tarryn, crazy.

Ryan and I had met on the first day of third grade. I'd been nervous about entering a new class and had kept to myself, trying to summon the courage to make friends when Daniel Boyd, this doughy little jerk who was known to be a bully, started calling me ugly. Ryan had waited until recess, then punched him in his fat stomach so hard he barfed all over the see-saw. She might have gotten into trouble if she hadn't threatened to tell the rest of the kids in our class that he got beat up by a girl, a slight he had too much pride to admit. It was one of those bestie meet-cutes for the ages, and we'd been inseparable from that moment on.

Tarryn came into the picture our freshman year of college when she stumbled into our dorm room drunk off her ass after a welcome mixer, carrying an entire platter of magic brownies that she kindly offered to share. We'd spent the rest of that night forging an unbreakable bond by getting stoned while eating our body weight in chocolate, watching Labyrinth on Ryan's laptop, and bonding over the pure genius that was David Bowie. RIP.

Despite all odds, we'd managed to mature since those days and, a few years after graduating, had decided to start a business together. And much to the surprise of the rest of our graduating class, we were pretty damn good at it. Three's a Charm Events was a one-stop shop for all your wedding or party planning needs. We had a gift for making any bride-to-be's Pinterest board dreams come to life.

Ryan had always had a gift for things like spreadsheets and organization, and had developed a real hard-on for calendar apps, so it made sense that she handled the actual planning side of the business.

Growing up, photography had always been a bit of a hobby of mine. When I joined the yearbook in high school, that passion had grown, and I'd proudly announced I was going to college to become a professional photographer. My mom and dad had always been supportive, if not a bit more realistic than I was, so my dad had lovingly suggested that maybe a degree in business with a minor in photography would be a more stable choice. At the time I remember thinking they just didn't get it, but after one summer working at a portrait studio taking pictures of families in hideous matching sweaters and screaming toddlers who liked to bite, I decided maybe my dad had a point.

After graduating, I'd taken a desk job that offered decent pay and health insurance, thinking that was the grownup thing to do, but I had started to slowly wither away beneath those hideous flickering fluorescent lights like a houseplant deprived of sunlight. The cubicle life was not for me. I wasn't good at watercooler talk and couldn't stand the misogynistic undertones that were still a disappointing part of corporate America. That was abundantly clear when I told my boss off in front of everyone in my cubical pod for talking to my tits and calling me sweetheart and honey.

I ended up quitting before they could fire me, because of course the one with the vagina was the hysterical one who acted out of line. Not the perv with the wedding ring and a penchant for licking his lips in that skeevy way that made all women cringe.

Tarryn had been in a similar boat, and one random Wednesday night, over a couple bottles of wine between the three of us, Tarryn and I lamented our woes. We were deep into the second bottle when Ryan told us the idea she'd been bouncing around to start a business, and how she thought it was something the three of us could do together. I believed in the plan that we had come up with, and I knew I could mix my degree in business with my love for photography and create my dream job as the official photographer for Three's a Charm Events.

Tarryn's love for gardening had started back in college when she'd tried her hand at growing her own weed in her dorm room and she turned out to be pretty damn good at it. And though she used that skill as a way to make enough money by selling to undergrads that she never had to take out student loans, she didn't really have the temperament to become some sort of queenpin or criminal mastermind, so she shifted her focus to plants that wouldn't get her arrested. Now she was the in-house florist for the business.

We spent years nurturing our little company, caring and cultivating it until it blew up into something none of us had ever expected. Three's a Charm was the event planning company everyone in and around Pembrooke, Wyoming wanted to use. We were booked out months in advance and only taking referrals to keep things from getting out of hand. We'd expanded the business, hiring a receptionist and an assistant to handle the administrative tasks so we could focus on the events themselves.

Being our own bosses was the ultimate dream come true, and most mornings I woke up excited to go to work. Ninety-seven percent of the time.

"He needs to look at me more adoringly," Lexi stressed, her displeased gaze bouncing between me and her new husband. I wasn't sure the man was capable of looking at her any differently than he already was. From what I'd experienced during their engagement shoot and now today, he only had one facial expression—stoic. Or maybe it was constipated.

Either way, it was a look that went well with his total lack of personality. Even the man's voice was boring as hell, a monotone that made you struggle to stay awake when he spoke. If beige were a person, it would be this dude.

It had been like this since I arrived earlier to start taking photos of the bride and groom, along with their wedding party, preparing for the big day. In the bridal suite, I'd tried to get a few candid shots of Lexi and her friends getting ready, but she'd micromanaged the whole thing, from posing her bridesmaids to standing at my shoulder and instructing me on how to take photos of her maid of honor as she was getting her hair styled, talking about lighting and shadows like she knew better than I did, despite me being the professional photographer and her being a Pilates instructor.

Candid had quickly flown out the window, which was disappointing, because I knew most new brides would like to go back and look through those shots to see the genuine emotion on their faces. It was like a frame by frame of everything they were feeling in the moment. Instead, she'd have a bunch of tight-smiling friends and family and, at the end, one ill-planned Charlie's Angels pose—insisted upon by the bride, of course—that looked more awkward and cringey than fun.

I could already imagine the call I was going to get from her in a few weeks' time when I sent her the proofs. So any time she was preoccupied, I made sure to get better photos so I had a mix of what she wanted and what would end up looking best.

I held the camera up, the shutter clicking rapidly as I took several more pictures than usual, hoping that would strengthen my odds of getting what she wanted. But I wasn't feeling confident. If Lexi wanted a man who stared at her adoringly, she shouldn't have married the human equivalent of soggy cardboard.

The guy hadn't shown any emotion during the ceremony, simply standing at the altar blank-faced, staring off into space before mumbling his vows after the officiant poked him in the arm to wake him from his trance.

I lowered the camera, forcing my lips to stretch into a smile. "I think we got it. These look great. Really, really great."

I heard a snort in the earpiece I was wearing to stay connected with Tarryn and Ryan. It was something we'd implemented early on when it became clear we needed to stay in constant communication during our events to ensure that things flowed smoothly and we didn't have to run all over the place looking for each other.

"Uh-oh," Tarryn said with a chuckle. "She said ‘really, really great'. You know what that means."

The bride let out a derisive harumph as she headed in my direction. She pointed at my camera and wiggled her fingers at me. "Let me see that. I'm not sure I believe you."

"Keep your cool, Jo," Ryan warned into my ear. "You can't go off on the bride, even if we all want to. I've got you covered. Just give me a second before you go nuclear."

My back molars ground together, most likely making my smile look demented as I tightened my grip on the camera to keep her from snatching it out of my hands. That camera was my Precious, and I'd go Gollum on any bitch who tried to touch it. I would choose it over anyone. It cost more than my first car, and I would be damned if I let this chick get her grubby paws on it.

Just then, the DJ's voice sounded over the speakers that been strategically placed throughout the ballroom, tucked behind fake plants to keep them hidden from view. "Ladies and gentlemen, dinner is about to be served, so please make your way to your assigned tables."

"You're going to love these, I swear," I assured the bride, hoping to loosen the tension in her jaw, but also because it was the truth. I was damn good at my job, and I'd make these images shine if it took every last ounce of my talent. "Go. Enjoy your dinner."

The rest of the wedding party, clearly having had enough of their bossy friend, broke off from the group photos I'd been taking and headed toward the tables like cattle being called to feeding time, not that I'd blamed them. I'd seen Lexi smack a Tic Tac out of one of her bridesmaid's hands and yell at her for trying to eat before the ceremony. I was sure they were starving. Lexi had no choice but to grab her new husband's arm and pull him toward the rest of her guests.

I was grateful for the reprieve, no matter how small it was. I headed toward the reception area at a much slower pace, spotting Ryan standing at the DJ booth, ever-present clipboard in hand as she rattled off instructions.

"Thanks for the assist," I muttered so she could hear me through the earpiece. Her head turned in my direction, and she shot me a quick thumbs-up before getting back to work.

The woman was a machine. In all honesty, the main reason Three's a Charm was so successful was Ryan. She lived and breathed for our business and was the one who steered the ship, keeping the rest of us in line. She was the visionary. Not only was the company her idea, but it was also her creative genius that made the events we put on spectacular, which was why we were so damn popular in the first place.

Whatever gene made a person brilliant at their chosen profession, Ryan had two of them. She could envision things that would never cross my mind. She had single-handedly created some of the most beautiful weddings I'd seen and was the cause of countless happy brides all over.

I moved along the outskirts of the crowd, shooting photos of people talking and laughing, capturing the excitement only a happy occasion such as a wedding could garner.

As much as I loved my job, being around so much love and romance on a regular basis stung a bit. It was a reminder that my own plans for my dream wedding and happily ever after had gone up in smoke.

Ever since I was a little girl, I'd been in love with the idea of love. I was that little girl forcing one of the boys in her kindergarten class to play the groom in her fake wedding, or wearing my mom's pretty scarf as a veil and a pair of her high heels as I pretended to walk down the aisle. I recited my wedding vows in front of the mirror while holding my collection of slap bracelets half curled as a bouquet.

I kept a scrapbook of cut-out magazine images of dresses and flowers and cakes. Hell, I'd been planning the day for as long as I could imagine. There was always a groom in those fantasies, of course. He just happened to be whatever celebrity I'd crushed on as a little girl, then, as I got older this dark-haired, well-built dude dressed in a tux who had no face.

At least that had been the case until Barrett Cohen.

On that thought, I shook off the melancholy that had slithered over me and got back to work.

By the time the limo took off with the happy couple and the last of the guests staggered home, Ryan, Tarryn, and I were dead on our feet.

We sat at one of the empty tables as the crew moved around us, breaking everything down and converting the room back to its original state. It was tradition that, at the end of every wedding or event, we gave ourselves a few minutes to decompress and toasted with a shot of something eighty proof.

"Another one in the books, ladies," Ryan said, holding her shot glass up. "Not all of them can be easy, but we still managed to pull off a gorgeous wedding."

"Hell yeah, we did." I threw the shot back, wincing at the fiery path the liquor took down to my stomach.

"I mean, once we finally convinced her this place wouldn't allow live geese in the fountain in the lobby, no matter how special the bride thought she was," Tarryn added.

I shook my head, my shoulders slumping. "Are we even sure that groom was human? I'm pretty sure he was a robot."

Tarryn poked me in the arm on a laugh. "Pretty sure I saw him plugged into an outlet in the corner at one point. Must have needed to charge his batteries."

Ryan downed her shot and plunked the glass onto the table as she rose to her feet and stretched her back out. "Yeah, well, it's done, and so am I."

Tarryn and I stood as well, the three of us moving on autopilot through the ballroom and out into the fresh night air. "See you guys at the office tomorrow," she said as we broke off in the parking lot, heading in different directions.

"I'll bring coffee and donuts," I called out as I beeped the locks on my car.

Ryan nodded, looking as tired as I felt. "Sounds perfect. See you in the morning. Love you, crazies."

"Love you back." Tarryn and I chorused.

My heart felt a little lighter as I climbed into my car and started the engine. I might not have romance in my life, but I had my best friends and, for now, that was enough.