The Bridal Squad

by Samantha Chase

  “No, no, no…,” Melinda argued. “You tried on a dress!”

  “We were shopping for prom dresses for Julianne and you forced me to try one on! I didn’t want to and you carried on until I did!”

  Melinda opened her mouth to say something and then instantly closed it.

  “And with Steve,” Harper went on, “he didn’t want a wedding. He wanted to go to the courthouse and get married so I know for a fact there was no wedding planning there!”

  “She’s right, Melinda.”

  Both Harper and Julianne turned and looked at their father. Alan Burke was a man of few words and yet those few he just spoke said it all.

  “I…I distinctly remember…”

  “You planned stuff in your own head,” Harper said with more than a hint of annoyance. “And because of that, you’ve done nothing but take it out on me and I’m sick of it. If you have an issue with how I live my life, then that’s on you. I’m a good person and I was smart enough to know when something wasn’t going to work for me. You should be happy about that. You should be proud of me for that. But for some reason, you’re not and I’m done caring.”

  Their mother turned and looked at Julianne. “Would you please speak to your sister?”

  Julianne shook her head. “There’s no reason to. She’s right. You have taken every opportunity to drag the past up and throw it at her and it’s all based on some warped sense of reality in your head. And honestly, it’s one of the reasons Gavin and I don’t want this wedding.”

  “But…but…”

  “We want to get married,” Gavin said, stepping back into the conversation. “And we are going to get married. We just don’t want the wedding we’ve been planning.”

  “So what are you going to do?” his mother cried. “What about all the plans that are already in place?”

  “To be honest, we haven’t gotten that far yet. What we’d like to do is go someplace – someplace tropical,” he added and winked at Julianne, “and get married in a small, intimate ceremony and then…have a party or something later on with friends and family.”

  “Wait, wait, wait…,” Melinda cried. “So you’re going to run off and get married and then still have a wedding? What is the point in that? If you just want to get married and get the legal part of it out of the way, then fine. But why cancel the rest of it?”

  “Because I hate it!” Julianne cried. “I hate how none of it’s going the way I want. There are too many people involved and it’s all just too much!”

  “All brides feel that way…”

  “Well, this is one bride who is putting her foot down,” Julianne said as she straightened in her seat. “The stress is killing me and I can either let it ruin my life, ruin what is supposed to be the happiest day of my life, or I can take control back and marry the man I love in the way that I want to marry him.”

  For a minute, no one spoke. Then everyone seemed to turn to Gavin for confirmation. He nodded and smiled like the happiest man alive. “The only reason I was going along with everything in the first place was because I thought it was what Julianne wanted. When she mentioned that she was starting to have issues, I thought it was just nerves. Then when she mentioned eloping, I knew we had a problem and I was more than happy to find the solution.”

  “But…eloping, Gavin?” his mother said sadly. “You’re our only child! We want to be there to see you get married.”

  “And we would love if all of you were there with us,” Gavin said mildly. “That’s why we invited everyone here tonight to talk about it. But know this – this is our show – mine and Julianne’s. We are going to decide where the wedding is and when. And if any of you decide that you’d like to be there with us, then know that you are welcome. We’re going to invite Kayla and Natalie to join us and a few of my friends, but other than that, it’s all that we want.”

  “But your gown, Jules,” Harper said. “It was so beautiful and you looked amazing in it!”

  Julianne smiled. “It is a total dream gown and I did love it, but it’s just a dress. I’d much rather take the money and put it toward something else that I really want – like going to Cancun or Hawaii to get married.”

  Funny how she was deciding that for the first time right now.

  “Why can’t you still keep the reception at least?” Melinda asked. “The venue is booked, and the caterer is booked and…”

  “Mom, you’re not listening to us. It’s not what we want. It would have been fine and lovely and all that, but…this wedding has caused a lot of problems. A lot of hard feelings. And my family and friends mean more to me than a party.”

  “I promise I won’t bring up Harper’s…well…you know…anymore,” her mother said pleadingly. “I swear I’ll check with you before I make any appointments for you and…”

  “It won’t matter, Mom. Gavin and I talked this through and…we know what we’re doing. When we plan our party, it will be a scaled-back version of what we have planned right now and we’ll be able to invite exactly who we want and it will be a little more casual and we’ll actually be able to enjoy it.”

  She thought that would appease everyone, but conversation started up again and the remainder of the meal was spent trying to calm their parents down. Thankfully, Gavin fielded most of the questions and was able to keep a level head about him. Julianne was on the verge of crying and screaming all at the same time.

  Harper and Brady were quiet – simply talking to each other softly as they finished their dinners. Julianne looked down at her plate and frowned. Her pesto chicken bruschetta was one of her favorites and now it was cold. Well damn, she thought. With a sigh, she pushed her plate aside and did her best to answer any questions thrown her way.

  ****

  “I have to say, Jules, tonight was a complete surprise,” Harper said casually a few hours later. Both sets of parents were gone and it was down to just the four of them – Harper and Brady, Julianne and Gavin.

  “I really am sorry I didn’t give you more of a warning. We talked about it and I guess I needed to wrap my brain around it before I said anything.”

  “So you’re really going to fly off somewhere and do this? Get married?”

  Julianne shrugged. “It’s a possibility. Although…”

  “Although…?”

  “I don’t know. Now that it’s out there, I kind of feel bad. Guilty. I mean, am I being selfish?”

  “Hell, no! I know what I, personally, learned tonight, is that our mother is even more of a control freak than I thought possible. All this time, she’s been planning weddings in her head and then blaming me! That’s not right. And then you could see how she was trying to control yours. If you ask me, you escaped just in time.”

  “Still…it would have been nice to have a wedding…”

  “Sure. If you didn’t have to include Mom,” Harper commented.

  They were sitting on the large sectional in the living room and it was a much more relaxing scene than what they’d experienced earlier.

  “I don’t know,” Gavin said. “I think my mom got a little crazed at one point too.”

  “Please,” Harper said with a snort. “Your mom was like Mary Poppins compared to ours. She was just a little shocked by the news. And you have to admit, you two really dropped a bombshell tonight.”

  Gavin and Julianne looked at each other and smiled. “Yeah but…it was the only way to save your sister’s sanity,” Gavin said. “When my mild-mannered girl resorts to boxing to handle her stress, you know something’s wrong.” Then he turned to Brady. “Which, by the way, I still think is awesome how you were able to help with that, so thank you.”

  Brady raised his bottle of beer in a mock salute. “My pleasure. She was a great student and she gave me the opportunity to finally meet Harper.”

  “Finally?” Julianne asked.

  Harper looked up and saw a slight flush on Brady’s cheeks. “Um…yeah. I’d noticed her at the gym a while ago but didn’t know how to go about introducing myself. I didn�
��t know you two were sisters until the first night you came up for lessons.”

  “Ooohhh…” Julianne said as if something had just dawned on her and Harper filed that away as a need-to-know comment for later.

  “So maybe her little freak-out benefited everyone,” Gavin said and then turned his attention back to Brady. “So, you’re a boxer?”

  Brady shook his head. “Not anymore. I did that for a while back in my early twenties but…it’s no way to live. Getting punched in the head stops being fun after a while,” he said with a low laugh. “But I learned so much from my trainer and decided to take some courses and get certified to do personal training.” He shrugged. “It means I still get to step into the ring, but with a lot less pain.”

  Gavin laughed quietly too. “Definitely not my thing. I enjoy all kinds of sports and love working up a sweat, but boxing was never my thing.”

  “It’s not for everyone; that’s for sure,” Brady agreed and then looked over at Julianne. “Although your fiancée has some killer skills, so I’d be careful if I were you.”

  They all laughed at that one.

  “Yeah, well…I have to admit it was way more fun than I thought it would be,” Julianne admitted. “There was just something so freeing about being able to focus some rage at an object and just go at it.”

  “Agreed,” Harper said. “I had no idea how good it could feel to punch something.”

  Brady put his arm across her shoulders and hugged her close. “Oh, yeah. And this one here totally blew me away with one punch.” He relayed the story to Brady about how Harper punched the bag after arguing with Julianne that first night.

  “Way to go, Harps,” Gavin said as he raised his beer to her. “Good for you.”

  “You have to admit, I had a lot of rage bottled up that was just looking for a place to go,” she said with a self-depreciating laugh.

  “Either way, I was seriously impressed,” Brady said, kissing the top of her head.

  “Harper mentioned you do something with video games,” Julianne commented and Harper wanted to reach over and smack her. She knew what she was doing – trying to get Brady to talk about his job so that maybe she’d understand it this time. Still…it wasn’t her place to do that.

  “Really?” Gavin said with interest. “Jules will attest to this – I still have a bit of an obsession with gaming. Our basement is a giant rec space – we’ve got a spot set up to work out, a spot with a bar and a pool table and then a giant-screen TV and multiple game systems. Total man cave territory.”

  “But I’m still allowed to go down there too,” Julianne joked.

  “What kind of stuff do you do?” Gavin asked.

  “A little of this, a little of that,” Brady said vaguely and then took a sip of his beer. “What systems to do you have?”

  “C’mon. I’ll show you,” Gavin said as he stood up.

  Harper watched as Brady stood and the two of them walked away. When she and her sister were alone, she asked, “Do you think we’re going to end up crashing here tonight because they’ll start playing something and won’t want to stop?”

  “Let’s just say it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  They both sighed and got more comfortable on the couch. After a minute, Harper turned her head toward Julianne. “You sure you’re okay? I worry about you.”

  “Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Oh come on, Harp. Mom was completely out of her mind tonight. Between the dress and the digs…I don’t know how you stand it.”

  She shrugged. “I’m getting used to it. Plus…Brady being here really helped. He was literally holding my hand through it all and…I don’t know. It helped.

  “Mmm…”

  This was her opening. “Okay, I have to know. What is your deal with him?”

  “Who?”

  “Brady. I need to know why you get a little…weird where he’s concerned.”

  For a minute, Harper thought she wasn’t going to respond. But then Julianne sat up and sighed.

  “I thought Brady was into me,” she said lowly.

  “What?”

  Another sigh. “I thought I was getting…I don’t know…a vibe from him and it wasn’t…it kind of made me feel good.”

  Totally not what she was expecting at all. “So…um…so what are you saying, Jules? That…you have a thing for Brady? You’re jealous or upset that I’m dating him?”

  Julianne gasped. “Oh, God, no! No, no, no, no, no…”

  “Protest much?”

  “Here’s the thing…Gavin and I have been together for so long that I don’t even notice other guys.”

  “Oh, come on…”

  “True story,” Julianne argued. “And I don’t ever notice if anyone’s…noticing me. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true.” She paused. “But there was something about Brady and the way he was acting that…”

  “Made you take notice,” Harper finished for her.

  “Exactly. Now I know he was just buttering me up to get to you,” she said with a laugh.

  “Okay, so then what’s the problem? He wasn’t into you, you’re not into him, so…”

  “Ugh,” she growled and flopped back on the sofa. “It’s totally embarrassing.”

  “No, it’s not,” Harper said lightly. “You can tell me.”

  “No, that’s what I mean,” Julianne said as she sat back up. “It’s totally embarrassing! I know he has no idea what I was thinking, but I’m embarrassed that my mind even went there! I mean, why do I need someone other than Gavin to find me attractive?”

  “That’s just human nature, Jules. We’ve been over this, remember?”

  “I know. And Natalie said the same thing.”

  “You talked to Natalie about this?”

  She nodded. “I was kind of freaking out…”

  “Wow…um…okay.” After a minute, she asked, “Why didn’t you say this the day we talked?”

  “And say what? That I thought your boyfriend was hitting on me?”

  “He wasn’t my boyfriend when you were thinking this…”

  “True.”

  “Okay, since we’re confessing,” Harper said and let out her own weary sigh, “I totally thought Brady was hitting on you too.”

  Julianne’s eyes went wide. “You did? Really?”

  Nodding, Harper explained the conversation she had with him where she warned him off. “That’s when he admitted that he’d been trying to find a way to ask me out. I felt like such a moron! But…I just wanted you to know that you weren’t alone in what you were thinking. I didn’t see it coming either.”

  “Sometimes it’s like we share one scary brain, right?” Julianne said as she reached for her wine and took a long gulp.

  “Yup.”

  Gavin’s voice as he yelled out, “No way!” floated up the stairs and the girls laughed. “Maybe we should go down there before things get too out of hand,” Julianne suggested, and they slowly came to their feet.

  Harper walked over and hugged her. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

  “Thanks for not thinking I’m a weirdo.”

  “Oh, I totally do, but you’re my sister and I love you – weirdo or not.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Together they walked down to the basement and stopped when they saw that the television wasn’t on, the guys weren’t playing video games and instead, Gavin was frantically looking around for something.

  “What’s going on?” Julianne asked.

  Straightening, Gavin looked at the two of them excitedly. “Harper, how could you not have mentioned this?”

  “Um…mentioned what?” She looked over at Brady and noticed that he wouldn’t return her gaze. “What’s going on?”

  “Found one!” Gavin said as he pulled a pen from a drawer in the coffee table. “Babe, remember my Battlecry Horizon game?”

  Julianne sort of shrugged and made a sound but Gavin just kept talking.

  “Brady
designed that game! He’s the creator! That was one of the top games of the year a couple of years back and the series has been equally successful! We’re standing here with a celebrity!”

  Harper froze. Wait…what?

  “That series, the merchandising, the talk of making a movie…it’s huge!” Gavin said. “And can you believe this guy still works as a trainer?”

  No, Harper thought. She couldn’t believe it.

  “Sign the game box. Please,” Gavin said as he thrust the game at Brady. “This is so freaking cool!”

  Brady obliged and then finally chanced a look at Harper. Beside her, she felt Julianne stiffen a bit.

  “You know what, it’s been a really mentally exhausting night and I’m beyond beat. I’m sure Harper is too. Why don’t we let them get going and you and I can finish cleaning up?” she said to Gavin.

  “But…Brady and I were going to play a couple of rounds,” Gavin said, seemingly completely clueless to the sudden tension in the room. “How often can a guy play against the creator of the game they're playing?”

  “Probably more often than you think,” Julianne murmured. “And I’m sure we’ll all get together again, so…”

  Brady nodded and put his beer down on the bar. “Um…yeah. Sure.” He looked at Harper again and then turned to Gavin and shook his hand. “Thanks for dinner and I’ll take a rain check on the game.”

  “No problem,” Gavin said, still gushing a little. “Glad to finally meet you.” Then he looked at Harper and said, “This one’s a keeper!”

  She wanted to slug her soon-to-be brother-in-law, but refrained. They all walked up the stairs and Julianne handed them their jackets. After a lengthy round of goodbyes, they walked out to Brady’s car. Neither said a word. The entire drive back to Harper’s was spent in silence. It wasn’t until they were parked in her driveway that Brady spoke.

  “I guess we need to talk about this.”