Page 1 of Knot Your Bridezilla (High Fructose Corn Syrup Verse #2)

AVRIL

A magazine with floral decor shouldn’t have been the one thing that changed everything, but hey, sometimes life is crazy like that.

I held ‘Spill the Tea,’ the New Oxford gossip magazine open to the third article, clutching the pages in a white-knuckled grip, barely able to look away from a sight that was enough to send me into this negative spiral.

It was a floral arch, but it wasn’t about the flowers. Obviously. It was a celebrity wedding with the exact same wedding arch, using the exact same arrangement I’d planned since before I was ten years old—royal purple wisteria.

I’d had this vision for my wedding almost since I was in single digits, and it didn’t matter.

Everyone who was anyone was going to start using it.

It didn’t matter that I’d planned this first. It didn’t matter that when I had spent years picturing the perfect wedding; I was always standing under an archway with royal-purple wisteria.

But, now?

I didn’t know.

There it was, my vision, plastered on a magazine page for everyone to see. For everyone to copy until it didn’t feel magical at all anymore—until they were just the go-to floral arrangement.

It was okay; the wedding was still a little over half a year away… after just about a year of planning everything. It was all coming down to the final details now. There was plenty of time to toss out the wisteria like yesterday’s trash, and order something new and original. But did I want to?

For a moment, I closed my eyes and pictured it…

the perfect wedding day. The fluttering vibrato and silvery melody of the violin and cello…

My fairytale wedding dress—a ballgown of cascading tulle and lace applique dripping with crystals on the bodice.

For makeup, I’d go with subtle warm tones with just a touch of shimmery gold to highlight my blue eyes.

My dark honey locks, carefully coiffed into delicate waves…

It was perfect enough to make all my dads cry as they walked me down the grand aisle, as they led me to the very spot where I was supposed to declare my love in front of everyone important in my life. Right where I would say my vows, threading through the delicate trellis…

All I could picture was the royal purple wisteria.

I was spiraling. This was all a mess. Was I overreacting? Obviously not; this was my dream wedding at stake. This was the day— my day— the one day in my life where I got to dress like a princess, and show everyone important in my life the man I’d chosen, the future unfolding for me.

After all the spreadsheets and the calls and the reservations, I wasn’t about to let my dream wedding turn into something basic and boring.

After all the logistical hoops I had to jump through to plan everything…

Do you think that it’s easy to plan an event around three omega sister’s heat cycles? To plan this event early enough into my moms’ pregnancies that neither of them would be close enough to pop… or far enough after their pregnancies that they wouldn’t be completely distracted by newborn babies?

There was one person who I knew could help snap me right out of my funk, and I was heading his way right now.

I was really lucky to have met Dylan when I did. It was like the two of us were made for one another. We were just so similar—born into pack families with an army of siblings. Dylan knew the drill. I didn’t have to explain to him what it was like.

In a family of alphas and omegas, I was the beta.

Just the middle child, surrounded by brothers who’d grown into elite alphas and omega sisters who’d perfumed into exquisite beauties.

I love my family. I really do. But it seemed like everyone else had a special designation. It was easy to feel like there was something missing with me. That I was meant for something more than this. But biology didn’t care about my feelings.

It was fine.

Now,the two of us had found each other. Dylan was the only son of the Kingston-Storm pack who hadn’t ended up as an alpha—he was the only beta in his family, just like me.

More than that, Dylan always knew exactly what I needed to hear to talk me off the ledge when things were rough. He would know exactly what to do about the whole purple wisteria disaster.

He wouldn’t be expecting me for a few hours—I’d told him that I needed to invest some more time into the seating arrangements—but obviously this was more important.

Anyway, I knew exactly where to find him. Dylan had already texted that I should meet up at his place as soon as I was done and that he would order takeaway for us both.

I got to his place—a walk-up apartment close to my favorite stores downtown, and let myself in using the key he’d given me half a year ago.

As soon as I stepped into the apartment, I noticed designer women’s heels on the shoe rack.

Fancy ones, with the red bottoms. Which was weird.

Dylan was one of those guys who insisted that people take off their shoes at the front door.

But obviously he didn’t wear women’s shoes, and they weren’t mine.

So why were they here? Did he pick up new shoes for me and then leave them at the entrance?

I shook my head. Whatever, I didn’t have time to think about it. I was here to figure out this whole decor situation. Screw the mystery shoes.

I wandered into the kitchen and noticed two wine glasses left out on the breakfast table—one of them had red smears on the rim.

What was that? Chapstick? Well, that was annoying.

It would only take like another three seconds to at least put them in the sink.

Plus, he didn’t even finish the first drink before pouring another.

Plucking up both glasses, I dumped out the rest of the wine— really? Wine? It was the middle of the day— before setting them down in the sink. I might need to use the table space later if I had to reconfigure floral arrangements after talking to Dylan.

Magazine firmly in hand, I strolled down the hallway. Was he in his office right now? Then I heard noises coming from his bedroom. Vigorous noises, like exercising.

Oh! That was great! Was he finally taking my fitness recommendations seriously?

The wedding was still months away, enough time for him to slim down a tad—it’s not like I wanted to change him.

Obviously, I love Dylan for the man he is…

but the wedding pictures would look so much better if he could just tone down that beer belly just a—

I opened the bedroom door.

Dylan was not exercising.

Just as quickly, I shut the door—so hard I had accidentally slammed it—and turned to face the other way.

As best as I could, I tuned out the chaos going on behind that door—the startled shriek of a woman, the hissed get off of me, the footsteps stomping around, fabric rustling and the clink of a belt as Dylan hastily got redressed.

Like a zombie, I moved toward the kitchen cabinet and got myself a glass. I pulled out the Brita filter from the fridge and poured myself some water. With slightly shaky hands, I took a little sip.

Odd.

I’d never been cheated on before, but shouldn’t I be crying right now? Was I really so upset about this wrench in my entire floral plans that I didn’t have any mental space to be upset about anything else? Maybe I was so stressed that I was just numb.

Was that it?

I should probably be more upset by this, instead of trying not to compare my cheating fiancé’s sex face to a beached walrus. How had I not noticed that before? Was I really going to get married to Mr. walrus-orgasm-face?

Okay, that wasn’t important right now.

There were established steps to take when cheating was discovered in a relationship. The mature thing to do would be to schedule an appointment with a marriage counselor and figure out if this was salvageable.

But all of that sort of froze. Talk of therapists and sorting out whatever mess Dylan had made could come later.

I clung to my reason for walking through his door just as hard as I was clutching the gossip magazine in my hand.

Hesitant footsteps crept out of the bedroom, following me into the kitchen. A thousand emotions flickered across Dylan’s face. Desperate, hopeful, stricken, anxious, afraid and everything in between.

“Avril? Baby?” He tried to reach for my hand, the one already firmly clutching the magazine and settled for holding it awkwardly.

“I just came here to talk to you about the new issue of ‘Spill the Tea.’ I-I saw an article in it about the floral arrangement—you know the one that goes in the trellis. I don’t want it to look like I’m chasing after the next big fad.

You know how I always talked about how perfect it would be to have it covered in wisteria—”

“I don’t care about the fucking wisteria, or the napkins, or the flavor of the fucking wedding cake. Babe… talk to me.”

He didn’t care about… the wisteria?

Dylan was staring at me like he was on the cusp of bursting out into tears. But why?

He was the one who betrayed me.

Shouldn’t I be the one who was crying like my entire world got ripped apart? He had the nerve to betray me and then turn around and demand that I let him back into my heart. Tell him my thoughts and feelings and everything important to me. Spill it now, on demand…

You know what? I had been talking to him about what was most important to me. Something I had been dreaming about for years. They weren’t just flowers. Well, okay, so they were just flowers, but they were more than just fucking flowers.

This was my dream. My vision that I had been working on putting together for years.

He didn’t care.

Why was it that it wasn’t the literal cheating, but the fact that he didn’t even care that broke through the numb ache in my heart and finally shattered it?

“You want to talk to me?” Without the distraction of my doomed floral plans, all I could think of was the smeared makeup on that other girl—the girl he’d told me not to worry about—how her face was scrunched up in ecstasy as she rode him.

Like my thoughts summoned her, she came out of his bedroom in a sleek black dress. Her tousled hair screamed—just got fucked.

“Don’t look at her. She doesn’t mean anything to me.” His voice was rushed, and laced with a hint of panic.

Hadn’t I heard that before? Those exact same words… don’t worry about her. She doesn’t mean anything to me. She is just a friend. Was he doing things that I didn’t need to worry about with other women too?

“Babe, I was just letting off steam. Colleen doesn’t mean shit to me, it’s always been you.

You’re the one for me. It’s always been you.

” Dylan stepped two paces to the right, as if blocking the girl from my view could do anything to erase the last five minutes when I had already seen more than I ever wanted of her.

The Colleen in question scoffed at this. “My name’s Collette.”

“Whatever,” Dylan snapped at her, before turning all of his focus back on me.

“Look, has it ever occurred to you that all the stress of the wedding was starting to really get to me? I mean I know that this is important to you, but the planning has gone on for over a year. It’s taken up so much of your time that we’ve barely even been able to hangout together anymore. ”

Suddenly, all of Dylan’s excuses were just making me feel tired. I’d already had to practically make an excel spreadsheet to figure out seating arrangements. I didn’t have the mental capacity to handle his drama on top of it all.

In the living room, Colleen/Collette had made a beeline to the fancy-looking purse I hadn’t noticed sort of blending into the sofa. She was looking a bit frazzled. Like Dylan’s walrus-face moves hadn’t quite been enough to satisfy her.

“Don’t worry about me, you can finish what you started,” I called out to her.

Dylan’s eyes snapped to mine, widening in horror.

Like I was on autopilot, I reached down to my engagement ring.

It had three round diamonds in a platinum band, and had sat in my finger long enough that I already had a faint ring tan.

I had literally not taken it off a single time since Dylan had proposed about a year ago.

Now I ripped the band off my finger like the metal suddenly burned.

Without a word, I placed the ring down on the kitchen table.

I unhooked his key from the rest, placing it neatly down next to my old engagement ring.

“Wait! Is this it? Is the wedding really off?” Dylan emphasized the word wedding… letting it dangle in the air like bait on a hook to reel me back in. Without a word, I walked away, closing the door on his apartment for the last time.

No.

The wedding wasn’t off.

The venue was set; the decor and catering were perfect. Almost all the details were perfectly planned.

The wedding would still go on… all I needed now was to find a new groom.