Pretend We're Over (Pretend 2)

Sebastian doesn’t hide his glance. He stares straight at my bare stomach. A stomach that protrudes just a little over my jeans, but apparently enough to make me look pregnant.

“You’re unbelievable. You know what, I thought…never mind. You are a disgusting pig who only finds women who are model thin attractive. You wouldn’t know what to do with a real woman like me anyway!”

He blinks at me rapidly, like he doesn’t understand a word I’m saying, which is fine by me. I’m glad I found out what kind of ass Sebastian is before I slept with him. I’ve sworn off assholes, eve

n hot assholes. I’ve been down that road before, and it almost killed me. I’ve done too much work on myself to let a jerk like him call me fat. I’m out of here.

3

Sebastian

I fucked up. I’m an asshole, but I’m not usually so cruel.

I adjust my tie as I stand uncomfortably in my suit, leaning against the door of the groom’s room where we are getting ready in the small chapel, hoping that Millie walks by and I can talk to her before the wedding.

“Shut the door, Sebastian. Oaklee will kill me if I get a glance of her before the wedding,” Boden says.

I sigh and wait one more second before closing the door and leaving any hopes of talking to Millie before the wedding. I should have tracked her down last night after she stormed off with tears in her eyes; tears I caused because I was stupid. I thought she was pregnant because she wasn’t drinking, nothing else. I thought she was trying to hide her stomach beneath her baggy clothes. A statement she made abundantly false when she walked back over to me with her T-shirt ripped so high that I could see the undersides of her breasts.

I always thought women in tight dresses were sexy, but I’m beginning to think the cut off T-shirt look is hotter. It was clear that she wasn’t pregnant, but by then, I’d already opened my big mouth and effectively called her fat.

“Shots!” Boden says, as Shepherd begins passing out shot glasses.

Ugh, really? I can’t even avoid alcohol during the wedding.

I stand next to Kade, who reluctantly hands me a shot glass. A bottle of tequila is passed around, and everyone pours a shot into their glass, everyone but me.

“To Boden,” Shepherd shouts.

We all clink our glasses, and then everyone but me drinks their shot.

I look at my best friend, who pours himself a second shot and takes it quickly. A man shouldn’t need to do two shots before walking down the aisle. But what would I know about it? I’m the only man here not married or about to be.

Kade looks at me looking at Boden. He doesn’t have to speak for me to know that he agrees with me, but there is no sense in jinxing their marriage right now. Who am I to judge? If they are happy, that’s all that matters.

Brittany, the wedding coordinator, pokes her head in the door. “It’s time! If I could have you all line up, we will get you walking down the aisle.”

We line up in order. I’m the last, just before Boden, as I’m his best man.

“Who am I walking with?” I ask Boden. I flew in late last night and didn’t make the rehearsal, so I never found out.

“Millie. She’s Oaklee’s maid of honor,” Boden answers.

Fuck me. Now I really wish I had found her and talked to her before the wedding.

One by one, each of us are led out of the small room and into the hallway where we meet up with the bridesmaid we are to walk down the aisle. In everyone’s case but me, their bridesmaid is also their significant other.

My heart thumps, trying to come up with a way to fix this. The church is small and quaint. It’s pretty enough, but I don’t know why we had to fly to Vegas when they were just going to get married in a church just like they could back in Santa Barbara.

The door opens again, and I walk out into the hallway where Millie is already waiting at the double doors that lead into the chapel.

I hold out my arm, and she reluctantly puts her arm through.

“I’m sorry,” I say, leaning over to Millie.

“Shh,” Brittany gives me a look, and then the doors are opened. A crowd of a hundred and fifty stares at us.

I put on my best fake smile, and Millie does the same next to me. She’s wearing the same lavender dress that all the other bridesmaids are wearing, except Millies has an extra sash that’s darker to mark that she’s the maid of honor. It matches my boutonniere.