One Bride for Five Brothers

“I know, right? I barely know what I'm doing. But I feel like I could do more. Like, something anyway. Just not entirely sure what to do.”

Bunny nods thoughtfully, scowling. She can be really helpful when she puts her mind to it. She has a way of wiggling out of complicated situations. It's a skill.

“What can you do?” she muses. “Is there somebody else there you could get fired, maybe? Automatic promotion?”

“Ha, I hadn't thought of that,” I chuckle. “I don't think I'm really cagey enough to get anybody fired, Bunny. But… I might have made a bit of a mistake.”

I shrug and look away, but I feel terrible about it. I know she can tell.

“A mistake? What could you possibly have done?”

“Well, she said something about new business… something about protection details…”

Bunny shakes her head, not understanding. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“I might've mentioned Kirkman East? Like, just in passing?”

Her eyebrows go up, way up. She takes a healthy swig of the wine and then dramatically refills the glass almost to the brim.

“Are you telling me that you just swiped a contract from August? And gave it to your boss? Seriously?”

“I did not swipe anything! I don't have anything to swipe! I just mentioned… that I might have thought he was around…”

Wincing, I sip my wine, then gulp a little bit more.

“Oh my God, Dahlia. You're insane.”

“Actually, I didn't even really mention it. I just said his name, and asked if she knew him. That's not so weird, right?” I babble, trying to cover up my humiliation. “I mean, I'm sure I can come up with something else. I didn’t even know what to say. I just thought that… actually I don’t know what I thought.”

She nods seriously, looking around the room and deliberately not meeting my eye.

“Wow, Dahlia. Have you talked to August about this?”

Suddenly, I don't feel so good. For a moment, I was eager to get this off my chest, but now that I'm hearing it out loud it actually sounds terrible.

“God, Bunny, what was I thinking?”

She rolls her eyes and rubs the top of her forehead. Then she sighs dramatically and slaps her thighs with her palms. “You know what you do, Dahlia? When somebody threatens your job? You think about saving your own ass. People do that. It’s okay. Don't beat yourself up.”

She's got a point, but I still feel shitty. “So, what I do now?”

“Well, do you know of any other celebrities in the area? Or perhaps some unsolved mysteries that you could solve in a hurry and get paid by a secret millionaire or something like that?”

“This isn't an episode of Scooby Doo, Bunny.”

“Oh, isn't it?” she quips. “I'm not the one with the harebrained scheme, Dahlia. You're the one who's turning your life into a cartoon.”

“You're not helping!” I bark, a little bit more seriously than I meant to. I thought it was going to be funny, but it comes out sounding desperate and a little scary.

“Okay, okay. Let's just figure this out,” she says reasonably, lowering her voice to a calming tone. “If you don't have any other ideas… could you maybe… oh, I don't know? Try to actually get next to Kirkman East?”

I almost spit out my drink. “Wait… I thought that we decided this was a stupid idea. Why would I do that?”

“Just bear with me for a second. I'm trying to think on my feet here,” she explains, beginning to pace back and forth across the yellow linoleum tiles in front of the avocado green fridge. Her kitchen is so outdated, it is practically falling back into style again.

“Okay. What if you just got next to Kirkman? Got a picture with him? And then you can tell Lori that there was no business available there, but at least you could prove that you tried?”

“So, like… I wouldn’t be taking anything away from August? You're sure?”