25. Bailey

"We don't haveto do this," Birdie repeated for the tenth time since we'd met in the lobby to head to the spa, where we were meeting Devin, her bridesmaids, her mother, and Mrs. Prescott.

"We were invited." It was the only explanation I had. Did I want to spend the day with Devin and her twenty-something friends? No. But I didn't want to seem petty, either.

"I don't trust her," Billie remarked, and not for the first time. She'd never wavered from her stance that Devin was up to no good.

"Trevor thinks this is a My Best Friend's Wedding situation. She's trying to keep Bailey close like Cameron Diaz did with Julia Roberts," Birdie whispered conspiratorially.

"When did you talk to Trevor?" I asked.

"We're on a group chat." Birdie pulled her phone out of her pocket.

"You are?"

She nodded and showed me her screen, which had both Olivia's and Trevor's names on it. "Olivia and Trevor want real-time updates."

"Well, if that's the case, we could do a lot more damage than Julia did," Billie commented.

"I don't want to do any damage."

Birdie and Billie exchanged looks. My threshold for putting up with ‘knowing glances' had reached its limit. I was sick of it. Olivia and Trevor, Billie and Birdie—everyone just needed to stop treating me with kid gloves and say what was clearly on their minds.

I stopped on the path and turned toward my sisters. "What? Just say it."

"You're still in love with him, and we don't think it's healthy that you're here," Billie stated plainly.

In Billie's eyes, I saw a look of determination, and in Birdie's, I saw deep wells of concern. That was a lethal combination when it came to my sisters. They were absolutely not going to let this go. Unless…

"I hooked up with Cole last night," I confessed.

"You did?!" Birdie seemed surprised.

"You did." Billie did not. My older sister's two-word acknowledgment was born of approval and not of shock. "Never mind. I think that you are exactly where you need to be."

"It wasn't anything…it doesn't mean anything. It just happened."

Birdie wagged her brows. "I thought there might be something going on after that kiss I spied with my little eye last night."

I'd thought both my sisters had already left when that happened, but apparently not. That kiss had taken me by complete surprise in the best way. My lips tingled just thinking about it.

"Good morning, Bees!" Devin's high-pitched voice traveled across the garden. I turned and saw her waving her arms in the air as she stood in the doorway of the spa, which was about a hundred yards away.

I wasn't sure who had told her about me and my sisters' nickname, but it sounded strange coming from her. I was used to people who were close to us using it. We'd been given that nickname when Birdie started kindergarten, and we all attended the same elementary school. The Bees. It had stuck through adulthood. We'd always talked about all three of us getting a bee tattoo but had yet to do so.

"We've been spotted." I smiled and waved back.

"She's so young and perky," Billie commented, as if both were negative traits.

As we headed toward the young and perky bride-to-be, under my breath, I warned, "Play nice."

The caution was aimed at my older sister, Billie. Birdie didn't have a mean bone in her body. She was the kindest, most loving soul I'd ever met. Unlike Billie, Olivia, Trevor, and my Grandma Betty, when she was alive, Birdie had never said a bad word against Simon. She'd definitely encouraged me to move on, meet other people, and not drop everything whenever he came to town, but her nudging was always about what was best for me; it wasn't against him.

Billie, on the other hand, did not have a filter. If she thought it, she said it. The subtlety between being rude and honest was lost on her. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe she knew exactly how she was perceived and just didn't care. Either way, I didn't want her to do or say anything that would upset Devin.

My history with Simon didn't change the fact that this was Devin's wedding weekend, and she deserved it to be everything she'd ever dreamed of.

"I'm just saying, what could Simon possibly have in common with her?" Billie spoke quietly without moving her lips. It was a gift she'd always possessed. She would have killed in vaudeville as a ventriloquist. "She's a child."

"Nice," I repeated with emphasis.

"This is me being nice."

Billie had a point. She could have been a lot worse. I knew she had it in her.

In high school, my sister brought more than one person to tears. Usually, it was a boy who was behaving inappropriately. But during Billie's freshman year, she also famously caused Mrs. Hannigan to break down and flee to the bathroom after a particularly biting comment. She'd always had the ability to cut a person down and make them feel about an inch tall in a sentence or less.

She'd always considered her gift of verbal assassination to be a superpower.

When we walked into the spa lobby, Devin, her bridesmaids, and her mother were gathered with mimosas. Wearing my wedding coordinator hat, which was difficult to take off, I did a quick headcount and realized someone was missing. I glanced around and noted that the missing person was Mrs. Prescott. I wondered if she had a migraine. She'd suffered from cluster headaches for as long as I'd known her.

I was pulling out my phone to message her and see if she was okay when a six-foot-tall blonde in black scrubs, who looked like she should be a Bond girl, walked in and got everyone's attention. She introduced herself as Helga, welcomed us to the spa, and instructed everyone to follow her to the dressing rooms.

Out of habit, I waited for everyone to go in front of me. Even though, technically, I was a guest here, I still felt responsible for the experience.

The changing area looked like it could be one of the Kardashians' homes. The color palette was neutral, with tans, taupes, whites, and creams. The only hint of color came from the potted plants and paintings that hung on the walls, which included muted hues of greens, blues, pinks, and peaches. I was scared to touch anything for fear I would break it and have to sell a kidney to pay for the damages.

I'd never been comfortable in upscale, affluent places. If I was working an event, it was fine. But as a patron, I felt out of place and like I didn't belong. From the first time I walked into Simon's family home, which was on Billionaire's Row, I broke out in hives. That discomfort continued when he and his family would take me out to Michelin-star restaurants and shopping in high-end stores.

At the time, I'd assumed my uneasiness and feeling out of place was due to my age, since I was three years younger than Simon. Now, that age difference was negligible; as a teenager, it seemed significant. But, even as an adult, it never went away. Simon was fully aware of my reaction to luxury. Still, he always insisted we have the ‘best' whenever we were together.

Some people were made for the finer things; I was not one of those people. It was strange, but this was the first time I realized I would have never fit into his world. And Simon would have never fit into mine.

As we undressed, I did my best not to feel self-conscious around a bunch of twenty-somethings who were all over five feet eight inches and model-thin. I'd always been on the shorter side, and I definitely had curves. It's not that I was ashamed of my body or anything; I just didn't feel comfortable with a lot of eyes on me.

Birdie had no such reservations. She stripped down without any hesitation. She had always had a very healthy relationship with nudity. I'd always believed that if she had grown up in the sixties or seventies, she would have been a hippie living in a nudist colony.

Billie undressed with ninja speed and accuracy. She was like Wonder Woman in the phone booth. She spun around in a blur and was suddenly wearing a white robe with the spa's logo on the left side.

I fell somewhere in between my sisters. I clumsily took off my shirt and pants, then my bra, before slipping on the robe and sliding my underwear off, keeping my back turned to the crowd of naked women.

My phone buzzed as I pulled my robe shut. It was a message from Mrs. Prescott. She said she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be coming to the spa, and she asked if I could let Devin know. I wondered why she hadn't just messaged her soon-to-be daughter-in-law herself. I replied that I would and that I hoped she felt better.

I was putting my phone in the locker when Helga returned and instructed everyone to go to their respective rooms. I ended up in a massage room with Devin and her maid of honor, Thalia. It didn't make any sense that I wouldn't be having a treatment with one of my sisters. Maybe Trevor was right, and Devin did want to keep me close.

We walked into the room, and both Devin and Thalia disrobed and laid face down on the table, as instructed. I sat on the table, took off my robe, and then pulled the towel up over myself as I laid down on my stomach.

"Mrs. Prescott wanted me to let you know she's not feeling well, and won't be able to make it."

"Matty's mom?" Devin questioned as if there was another Mrs. Prescott.

"Yeah."

"Oh, I thought she was here," Devin replied as the masseuses entered the room and began to work on us.

I was just starting to relax when Devin said, "So tell me about Matty when he was younger."

"Um, he was the same, really." Even though I knew it was a strange thing for me to claim, the truth was that Simon had always been Simon. He truly hadn't changed.

"Has he always been so serious?" Devin emphasized the word the same way Billie had said perky and young, as if it were a bad thing.

"Yes." He was serious. I'd always thought of it as a sign of maturity, but now, taking a step back, I didn't actually think it had anything to do with it.

"Don't worry, Dev, you will definitely lighten him up," Thalia assured her.

As I lay face down, listening to Devin and Thalia list out all the things that Devin planned on changing about Simon, I actually started feeling sorry for him. It was clear that his fiancée was looking at him as a project, not a person.

Not the best way to start a marriage, but then again, I wasn't really one to talk. I was thirty-six years old, lying naked in a room with my ex's twenty-two-year-old fiancée the day before their wedding. So, yeah…

I was definitely in a glass house, and I had no business throwing rocks.