“Also.” I gesture to Drew to turn the other way, and he rolls his eyes and starts a conversation with Louis. “What in the ever-loving hell am I supposed to do now? Don stole my grand gesture thunder in a major way.”
Annie blinks a few times. “Oh. Yeah. Maybe you could propose, too?” she suggests brightly.
I smack her arm. “Get real. I don’t want to get married; I want to have sex with Nick every day for the rest of our lives until both of us die in our nineties after having simultaneous orgasms.”
“The two things can coexist, you know,” Annie says, then blows her nose.
“No thanks,” I say, scanning the crowd again as a caterer places a plate in front of me. I say thank you, not even noticing what’s on it. I don’t remember what I selected: Chicken? Fish? Sautéed car tires? Who cares? Gary’s about to announce the toasts.
An air horn sound comes from the DJ booth and everyone shrieks. “You know what that sound means, folks!” Gary shouts into the microphone.
“We don’t, Gary. None of us know what that means,” Annie says, even though Gary can’t hear her over the sound effects he’s playing. “Remind me why I chose him for our DJ again?”
I place a hand on her arm. “Because you love him and because if Gary doesn’t have a task, he gets anxious. And because he knows how to use the equipment from when he was a morning radio DJ in the ’90s.”
Annie nods. “Right. Okay. Well, as long as I had a reason.”
“It’s time for toasts!” Gary finally says after playing a few Austin Powers catchphrases. “First up, we have the brother of the groom and best man, Louis Daaaanfoooooorth!”
Gary plays a sound effect of a crowd clapping, and the rest of us clap along.
“So, uh . . .” Louis stands up and, hands shaking, pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket. “When Drew first told me about Annie, I was like, ‘Wait, who? Didn’t you used to date a really hot actress?’”
Annie slowly turns to me and I shrug.
“But then I got to know Annie and, honestly, she’s pretty cool. She makes Drew happy, and he’s less of an asshole to me when she’s around. So I guess she taught me that being hot isn’t the most important thing in a relationship. Thanks, Annie.”
He sits down, and everyone slowly starts to clap.
“Uh, you’re welcome. I guess?” Annie says as Drew leans over to kiss her, laughing.
Another air horn noise startles everyone and provokes a few shrieks. “Gary!” Annie yells, giving him the universal cut it out gesture. “Cool it with the sound effects.”
“But I want to make the most of all this!” Gary shouts back, gesturing toward his equipment. Annie shakes her head and he finally nods, chastised.
“Okay, everyone,” he says, his voice more somber. “Up next we have the one, the only, the maid of honor . . . Chloe Sanderson.”
I can tell it physically pains him not to introduce me with a sound effect. I stand up, feeling as nervous as Louis looked, and scan the crowd. Nick is back there, behind the makeshift bar, but I can’t focus on him or I’ll lose my confidence. I swallow hard.
“Uh, hey, everybody. Annie wanted me to say thanks to all of you for being here, and to so many of you for helping out with the decorations, and the . . . um . . . drinks, and the DJ-ing.”
Gary salutes me.
“I think it goes without saying that Annie is the best friend in the entire world. She’s the most loyal, the most trustworthy, the kind of person you can call at any time of the night and she’ll come running to help you. And, kind of like Uncle Don said, Annie’s taught me a lot. Because she’s been through her share of hard times, but she never lost faith. You know, I always made fun of her . . . well, her full-blown obsession with romantic comedies.”
Everyone laughs.
“I thought they were unrealistic and silly because true love always fixed everything at the end, and that’s not how real life works. Falling in love doesn’t mean you don’t have problems anymore. But after watching, like, five million of them, I thought about it. And the thing is, even in the rom-coms Annie loves, love doesn’t always fix everything. Sometimes things still suck. Sometimes the characters are dealing with insurmountable challenges, but by the