Shameless With Him

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  “Okay. So, apparently, the question of where do we start has already been answered. How about where do I start?”

  Lacey bounced on her toes and came over to me, her arms outstretched. I hugged her tightly, kissing the top of her head. She was only a couple of inches shorter than I was. However, I was wearing heels, while Lacey was barefoot like a little pixie.

  “Well, first, I need to ask the big question.”

  I took a step back, my eyebrows raised. “You do? I thought John already popped the question.”

  “Haha. Will you be my maid of honor?”

  Warmth spread through me, and I grinned. “Really? I thought you were going to ask Mary Kate.”

  Mary Kate and Lacey had been best friends for what seemed like forever. They had met in the children’s oncology ward, Lacey being there for herself, while Mary Kate had been there for her sister. Mary Kate’s sister hadn’t made it, something that hurt to even think about. Through their shared pain and similar ages, Lacey had formed such a deep and everlasting friendship with Mary Kate that I thought they would be shoe-ins for each other’s maids of honor.

  “I thought about it. In the end, I decided I want you. You’re my big sister. I’ve known you longer. And you’re one of my best friends, too.”

  This time, I wiped away my tears and kissed Lacey on the cheek. “Of course, I’ll say yes.”

  “Good. Because I have such a long list for you.”

  I groaned. “You’re really only making me your maid of honor because I can actually adhere to lists rather than Mary Kate, who kind of likes to go with the flow.”

  “Well, that might be part of it…though not the only part.”

  I had been bamboozled. Completely and utterly hoodwinked. I loved my little sister, though, so I’d make it work. Like always. I would deal with it. Even though I had a feeling this was not going to be fun at all.

  “Now, I have your binder here, too.” She picked up the other notebook that I hadn’t noticed before. “This is just the starter pack.”

  The thing weighed like ten pounds.

  “Starter pack?”

  “Yes. This isn’t all of it. And a lot of what we’ll be doing will be digital. That way, we can all upload it to the cloud and be up-to-date at any given moment if any emergencies arise, or if we need to have last-minute meetings.”

  “Meetings?” I knew there was a little bit of panic in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. Dear God. I had a full-time job. I owned my own business. I had best friends of my own and a life. Not a huge one, and not one with dating. Although I had already promised myself that I was going to work on the latter. This whole wedding thing might actually get in the way of that.

  Dear God. I started to look through the notebook, swallowing hard. Everything was neatly organized and labeled, with ideas for flowers, music, the dancing, linens, dishware, where they would register… Everything was color-coded and in order of precedence. There was a whole section for the dress, as well as addresses of the attendants. The colors hadn’t been picked yet. However, there were five different areas where Lacey could choose. And from there, apparently, I would be able to triangulate exactly what would happen. There was a damn flow chart in the thing.

  No wonder she wanted this to be digital.

  My sister was a machine and seriously needed to be a wedding planner instead of working as an administrative assistant.

  “Lacey, you only got engaged like a month ago.”

  “I know. And I’m already behind. It’s still okay, though, because I have a plan. With the move coming up, we had to push the wedding up a little earlier than I wanted it. Even with that, we’re going to make this work. I already have all the starter appointments ready, and we’re going to make this happen. John might not be here for all of it, though. Because, you know, he has work.”

  I did, and his work was the reason that Lacey was moving. My baby sister was relocating across the country because John was getting an amazing fellowship at another hospital. One that he had been trying to get for a few years, and now there was an opening. He was going to be in a position to become one of the top cardiologists in the country, and my baby sister was going to go with him and most likely start having that family and being the best doctor’s wife ever in the history of marriage. At least, that’s what I figured her to-do list would have on it.

  Checklist one: get married.

  Checklist two: have a family.

  Checklist three: take over the world.

  “Is John going to be a part of any of this?”

  Lacey beamed. “Of course, he is. He’s going to help me pick out everything. With work, though, he might not actually be there for each meeting and planning strategy. That’s why I’ve made this detailed system, so he only has to choose from what we’ve narrowed down. After that, then it’s all the meetings, and I want you to be there every step of the way.”

  “So, you’re not hiring a wedding planner?” I said, blinking.

  “No, I’ve got this. So does Mom.”

  Mom reached out and gripped Lacey’s hand. “We’ve got this, honey.” She turned to me. “And, of course, you’ll help with the flowers, won’t you?”

  Help. With the flowers. Oh, no. Did they want me to do this for free? The size and scale of this wedding, at least from what I could tell, meant that it was going to take a lot of time, energy, manpower, and money to get done.

  There must’ve been something showing on my face because my mother pinched her lips as if she had sucked on a lemon, and my sister rolled her eyes.

  “We’re going to pay you, of course.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t have to. I know your job is really hard,” she said and then winced. “Okay, so that sounded like I was placating you. I know it’s an actual job. I don’t want the flowers for free. I want the best of the best. And you’re the best.”

  “Well, that was a nice thing to say.”

  “I can be nice during all this. I might be a little anal-retentive. I want everything perfect for the best day of my life. But I’m going to be nice about it. Promise.”

  Her voice got a little shriller as she said that, and the word Bridezilla once again slipped through my mind.

  My baby sister was the sweetest, most wonderful, kindest girl I knew. Yes, sometimes she got in her own way a bit and focused on what she wanted, mostly because that’s what had happened throughout her childhood when we were dealing with everything having to do with cancer. She was still amazing. And wonderful to me.

  I just had a feeling that those traits might be buried a little deeper under the Engaged Lacey marker.

  Hopefully, once Married Lacey showed her face, things would get back to normal. However, I had a feeling these next few months would be long ones.

  “Anyway, you’ll be my maid of honor, and Mary Kate will be right under you. And then John’s sisters will be there.”

  “And they all agreed?”

  “Yes. John and I asked them when we were at dinner the other night. I know I’m asking you last. I needed you to be here because I wanted to do it in person. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s really okay. I just want to make sure I do this right for you.”

  “You will.” That sounded more like a threat than a promise. I rolled with it. My mother impatiently looked between us, her toe tapping.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” I asked, keeping my voice light.

  “We don’t have a lot of time to waste. We need to get going.”

  “I need to head to work, though,” I said. “I can only give you about thirty minutes right now.”

  My mother’s lips pursed again, and I put a bright smile on my face. “I will do my best to show up whenever I can. You know I’m shorthanded right now during this season…” I shook my head. “I’ll make it work. I promise.”

  “You will,” my sister said, squeezing my hand a little tighter than was warranted.

  Time to get through the initial phases then, since
I figured it was going to be a long couple of months. “Now, there’s five of us as your attendants?”

  “Yes, and John will have five groomsmen, as well. Actually, you know one of them. Caleb? He knows John from something or other. I don’t really remember how they met. You know, Denver is the smallest big city ever.” I kept a bright smile on my face, even as I blinked.

  “Caleb Carr?”

  “Yes, Amelia’s big brother. He’s so hot.”

  “Lacey,” my mother warned, though her lips quirked.

  “I’m engaged, Mother, not a nun.”

  My mother glared for a moment before she grinned. “Well, those Carr brothers sure do know how to fill out a suit.”

  I groaned, closed my eyes, and tried to count to ten. “That’s an image I never want to think about again.”

  “What, the Carr brothers in suits?” Lacey asked, all too sweetly.

  “No, my mother thinking about that.” Lacey and I laughed, and my mom just rolled her eyes.

  “I don’t know why you think that you and your little sister just showed up one day thanks to a stork. I’ll have you know…your father cuts a nice line in his suits, too. In fact, just the other day—”

  “No, no, no. None of that.” I cut her off, laughing. “I know you’re only trying to get a rise out of me. Stop.”

  “Speaking of rises,” my mother began, and Lacey burst out laughing.

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten, trying to put all of those thoughts out of my mind. “What did I do to deserve this? Why is this happening?”

  “Because you’re a smartass. Just like your father. And I love him. So, I love you.” My mother kissed me on the cheek and then went back to the tablet in her hand. “Okay, so there’s five attendants on each side, and we’re looking at what? Three hundred people?” My mother said, and Lacey nodded.

  My eyes widened, my mind boggled. “Three hundred? I don’t think I know three hundred people.”

  “You know three hundred people in your life. And I have made a lot of friends over my lifetime. And so has John. We want them to be there for our special day.”

  “That’s going to be a lot of money, Lacey.”

  Lacey nodded. “I know. And I’m paying for some of it. Mom and Dad are paying for some of it. John’s paying for some of it. And so are his parents. We’ve got this. I promise, we’re not going over budget or crazy. There’s a reason that I went into so much detail about everything in that notebook. I spent years playing with weddings just for fun because I loved the idea of planning them. I know what I want my budget to be. I don’t need the best of everything. Yet, I still want to feel pretty. Like it’s my day.”

  Shamed, I hugged my sister tightly again. “I’m sorry. I know you do. And it is your day, you should feel that way. You’re so practical, even if your head’s in the clouds more than mine at times.”

  “For a florist, sometimes you’re the least romantic person I know.”

  “Maybe because the thorns always make me bleed,” I said and then kissed Lacey’s cheek. “Okay, ignore me and just tell me what to do.”

  “Because John doesn’t have any brothers, and he wasn’t sure how to pick between his friends, he flipped a coin for who was going to be his best man.”

  I nodded, a little wary. “O-o-o-kay.”

  “That means Caleb was actually chosen as his best man,” she said with a wince.

  “Why are you wincing?” my mother asked.

  I knew. Because Lacey knew. Lacey knew about my crush. She had always known about it. The fact that she had been delicate about the idea of whether I knew Caleb had put me at ease. Because she knew. And I was going to have to work side by side with Caleb Carr.

  He wasn’t my nemesis. He wasn’t my future.

  Yet.

  “Okay, does he know that he’s the best man?”

  “I don’t know. But you guys are going to be working very closely.” Her brows rose. “Is that going to be okay with you?”

  “Why wouldn’t that be okay with her?” my mother asked. We both ignored her.

  “It’ll be fine. I promise. However, that does seem a little coincidental,” I said.

  Lacey held up her hands. “I swear, it really wasn’t on purpose.”

  “Why would it matter if it was on purpose?” my mother asked, and once again, we ignored her.

  “Oh, good.” I paused. “Will Caleb have a lot of duties? I mean, I didn’t think a best man had a long list or anything. Pretty much the ring, the stag party, and get John there.”

  “Well, this best man’s going to do a lot because, like I said, John’s going to be really busy…”

  Lacey trailed off, and I froze.

  “How much do you want me to work with Caleb?”

  “As much as you need to,” she said, and I had a feeling that maybe that coin hadn’t been so improbably statistical after all.

  My sister, the happiest girl in the world, the woman who might as well be a Bridezilla one day, was playing matchmaker.

  Even as something warmed inside me, I really hoped this wasn’t going to be a mistake.

  Chapter 4

  Caleb

  * * *

  “Wait. What?” I asked as I leaned forward across the café table. I pushed the coffee from beside my elbow so I wouldn’t spill it and, thankfully, missed the danish when I knocked my elbow into the small plate.

  We were in a place called Taboo, that wasn’t all that taboo from the outside. Maybe the owner was taboo, but I didn’t know. Instead, it had really fucking good coffee and pastries…and cinnamon rolls. With that really thick frosting and the way they made the edges just perfect. I was a fan of the edges, not the centers. Of course, my sister called that sacrilegious, but I didn’t want to go there.

  And now, I was thinking about cinnamon rolls, and my mouth was watering. I had to keep my mind on track and on exactly what my friend John Yi was saying.

  “Caleb. It’s fine. It’s not that much work.”

  I blinked over at John and just shook my head. “I said I’d be one of your groomsmen. Not the best man. Not that I’m not the best,” I said with a wink and a loud laugh. “But don’t you have like a cousin or something to do that? One that’s known you forever?”

  John shrugged, then went back to tearing at his napkin. John had always done that, ever since I’d met him. The guy got nervous and proceeded to tear a napkin into tiny little pieces or scraped the label off a beer bottle. It didn’t matter if everything was going a hundred percent perfect in our lives, or if there was no stress at all, John would always find something to be anxious about. And he would pick. He would tear. I hated seeing it, mostly because I knew that John hated having that outward tell, so I ignored it.

  Instead, I let out a sigh. “Sorry about that,” I whispered.

  “No, it’s okay, really. And I do have other friends. I just consider you all equal. So, I created a bracket of sorts and flipped a coin to figure out exactly who was going to be my best man. You beat Matt by a head versus a tail.”

  I just shook my head. Of course, that’s what John had done. My brilliant friend, who was socially awkward yet a really great guy.

  I thought of myself as slightly socially awkward sometimes, though not as much as John. It mostly stemmed from the fact that over the past ten years or so, I had been around the world, mainly in the Alaskan wilderness, and I didn’t interact with that many people. John had been one of those people, though, and now he was getting married. I liked his fiancée, but I didn’t know her all that well. I did, however, know her big sister, Zoey. And that meant I had a feeling I knew exactly who was going to be the maid of honor.

  Great. I liked Zoey. Except for the fact that every time I was near her, my dick decided to do things it shouldn’t. It always pressed against my zipper, wanting out. I’d saw a meme once where...

  Not going there.

  “I’m honored, John. But I’ve never been a best man before. Not even in either of Dmitri’s weddings.”

  �
��Devin?” John asked, and I nodded.

  It would have been easy for me to be the best man, too, considering Devin had already done it once, but I had offered to let Devin take the best man place again for Dmitri. “Dimitri finally found his perfect person, so we wanted to do it right. You know?”

  “Well, Lacey is going to be my one and only. I’m not doing this again. So, I really want you to be my best man. You’re a good guy, you like Lacey, and you like me.”

  “We all like you, John.”

  John shrugged. “Maybe. But, it’s still hard to forget those times in elementary school when kids made fun of my last name or how I looked, or the fact that I used to talk to myself when I was doing math problems.”

  “That’s how you get math problems done quickly. You talk it through. It’s fine.” And it was fine, I really didn’t care that John was quirky. Hell, so was I. I couldn’t fix the fact that little kids were taught by their parents to be racist assholes, but I could either hold John’s coat when he beat the shit out of them now, or beat the shit out of them myself. After all, if I were going to be his best man, I figured I would have to take matters into my own hands if things got out of hand.

  “I’ll be your best man,” I said quickly, noticing the way John’s shoulders started to droop. I liked John, I liked Lacey, I could do this. Not that I knew what I was doing.

  “Great. And I swear it’s not going to be a lot of work.”

  “So, I just have to like plan your stag party, right?”

  John blushed. “No strippers or anything, okay?”

  I snorted. “We’re really not stripper kind of guys.” Which would probably surprise anyone who thought they knew me. They all thought I was the bad boy or whatever the hell other label that they wanted to put on me. Sure, I’d been wild as a teen, gotten into a few scrapes, and gotten caught by cops a couple of times and sent home with the flashing lights in the window to wake my parents up. But I wasn’t that kid anymore. And I had a lot more things to worry about now rather than when I was going to see my next pair of boobs.