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

AVRIL

Here I was again, back in my childhood room, able to hear all the shenanigans of my siblings and parents through the walls. I had never officially moved in with Dylan… but half of my things were in boxes stacked up in the corner of the room in anticipation of the move.

For months I had lived in transition, between living spaces and never knowing where anything was.

Returning home was like admitting defeat, and I imagined that I’d feel gutted. Instead all I felt was a sense of relief. No more transition. A choice had been made, though it wasn’t the one that I ever thought that I wanted.

But then again, Dylan must not have ever been the man who I had imagined him to be. How had I never seen it?

Had I just been so blatantly blinded by the need for a groom for my wedding that I was willfully ignoring the red flags?

Everything was spinning out of control.

Sharp knocks sounded at my door. I barely had time to shout out a quick, come in, before Zane charged in, phone in hand.

The nosiest of all my siblings… I knew that Zane could dig up secrets like a terrier burrowing for rats.

But I thought that I would have at least a full day before he was on my case.

“Any reason why your fiancé texted me like twelve times?” Zane waved his phone at me, his face scrunched up in disgust.

“Oh. Yeah. Probably because I blocked him.” Half my attention was still on my binder with the seating arrangements.

Should I still invite the Kingston-Storm pack?

Technically, they were still friends of the family, but it would be messy.

Did I want to make things awkward now by uninviting them, or later at the wedding when they realized their son wasn’t at the altar?

“Oof, what did that shit-stain do?” Zane shook his head before grabbing my second favorite pen off my desk.

I frowned. My brother was so quick to piss all over my fiancé’s—wait, ex-fiancé’s—name. Was I really the last person in the world that realized that maybe everything was perfectly planned for my wedding… except perhaps for the whole marrying Dylan part of it?

“He cheated on me, so he’s my ex-fiancé now.” I didn’t look up from my binder until the clattering of the pen dropping to the floor jolted me out of thoughts of seating arrangements.

“Shit, Avril. I’m so sorry.” Zane darted to one of my boxes of stuff, somehow locating a box of tissues, and handing it to me.

I set the box in the corner, away from the graphs for my seating chart. What did he… wait, did Zane actually think that I was going to start crying right now? Over Dylan Kingston-Storm ?

No. Absolutely not.

I had my big-girl pants on… despite moving back into my childhood home. I was handling all of this like an adult.

“Besides, I’m over it,” flicking the tissue box with one slightly chipped manicured finger… if that got any worse I’d have to go and get it redone, and I really didn’t have the time.

Zane leaned in closer, narrowing his eyes at the changes that I’d made to the seating chart.

What?

Did he have a problem with the fact that I put him with the rest of my pack-less brothers? Why would he have a problem with that?

“You’re still working on the wedding stuff? I mean, people have all kinds of ways of processing their grief. If you need this as part of your healing journey—”

“No. What I need is a little bit of peace and quiet to finalize this seating chart, so that I can get started on the Acrylic seating board and the customized place cards—”

Zane waved his hands, cutting me off before I could even get into color coordinating the place cards with the table decor, not to mention how I needed to come to a final decision about the floral arrangements, and I hadn’t even gotten started on—

“Wait. Wait. Wait. So let me just see if I’ve got this straight. You need some time to finalize the seating chart… for the wedding to your ex-fiancé ? Why? Please tell me that this isn’t some kind of manipulation tactic and that you are actually going to go marry that greasy little—”

“No, I am not going to marry him.” My words came out a little snappier than I intended, but I was trying to concentrate. To reiterate— I wasn’t the one who had barged into his room when Zane was right in the middle of trying to concentrate on something.

“Then, dear sister, can you please explain to me exactly why you need a seating chart if you aren’t going to have a wedding?”

“What? No, of course I’m still having a wedding.” I didn’t ever want to think about the savings I’d already poured into it... and if I tallied up all the labor that I’d put into organizing and planning, I would lose whatever was left of my mind.

“What? But you just said that you weren’t marrying that cheating, lying piece of—”

“Keep your voice down,” I hissed at him. The last thing that I needed was for one of my dads to hear about the cheating incident and start a riot. I didn’t need their help. I had everything under control.

“No, the wedding is still on. I just need to get a new guy.”

“You’re going to just… find someone new to marry?” Zane scratched his chin, cocking his head at me like I was an interesting new animal at the zoo and I had suddenly hopped up on one foot and cartwheeled around the cage for his entertainment.

“Yeah, like it’s hard?” I rolled my eyes.