Once Upon A Half-Time: A Sports Romance - Sosie Frost Page 0,131

until they turned on the grill.

My sister never handled alcohol well. She took criticism of her drinking habits worse. My newest mission was forcing her to drink water before her head exploded, and we weren’t even in phase two of the bachelorette party.

Because Lindsey’s party wasn’t just one night.

Oh no.

This was only the beginning.

“If we want to get to the cabin, we should head out now.” I guided the bottle of water to her lips. She cheered, splashed, and spilled on me. At least she was excited about the weekend excursion to Bryce’s family’s lake house. “It’s a long trip—”

“God, Mandy. Can’t you just relax for once?” Lindsey belched, and that did nothing for the nausea swirling in my stomach. “You’re all…go here, go there, eat your noodles, go to the cabin, don’t steal the traffic cone, stop groping the policeman—”

“It’s your schedule,” I said. “You said to stick to the itinerary, no matter how many bars we crawled.”

“But I wanna dance!”

Lindsey attempted to take off her bra before removing her shirt. The shoulder strap snapped off, and she collapsed in a fit of giggles. She headed for her panties instead.

Of course, in classic Lindsey style, those were lost somewhere between the mani/pedis and dinner.

Lindsey whipped half of her bra out of her sleeve and over her head. The other half tangled around the piercings she still had to hide from Mom.

“Someone start the music!” She howled.

The music was already blaring. I covered my eyes as my sister lifted her skirt and flashed the bar.

Oh sweet Mary and Joseph—

Now was not the time of the month for her to be expressing herself!

The tampon string was just the fuse that would blow this party from drunken fun to jail time.

I grabbed Lindsey and dove over her skirt before the world saw everything she was giving away for the wedding.

“Okay, we’re leaving for the cabin now. We need our rest, right?” I shook Lindsey to gain her attention. She toppled onto the bar. “The cabin’s gonna be just as fun. We’ll get to work on the wedding dances.”

“Dances!” Lindsey slouched a bit. “Can’t wait to nae nae.”

I could. Oh, Lord, what I wouldn’t do to avoid the rest of the weekend. But we only had six weeks until the wedding, and Lindsey’s choreographed dance routines didn’t learn themselves.

The only thing that horrified me more than an unplanned pregnancy was shimmying onto the dance floor with my fellow bridesmaids just to reveal that I was the only black woman in the tristate area with no rhythm. At least it was only my closest friends and the entirety of my family that would witness this disaster.

And Nate.

Of course Nate would see me awkward, jerky, and combusting in shame. Then again…it wouldn’t be much different from when I usually spoke to him, except this time I was expected to shake my booty.

I couldn’t even hand jive, and Lindsey sure as hell expected more than the twist. I was boned.

“Time to go!” I helped Lindsey to her feet. “Know what’s better than dancing? Sobriety!”

“And curvy cocks.”

“Of course.” I handed Lindsey to the other bridesmaids, and they helped me out the door. “I’m sure genital deformities are just as fun as getting a big cup of coffee and sitting quietly!”

Our limo returned the party to Mom’s house, but I’d borrowed Dad’s SUV to haul all seven of us to the Washington’s cabin for Lindsey’s bridal-dance boot-camp. Not that I didn’t trust a limo to off-road it along the cabin’s dirt path, but I wasn’t getting stranded without four wheel drive anywhere Lindsey couldn’t access Pinterest.

“Road trip!” Lindsey’s excitement was short-lived. She tripped trying to hop into the SUV, and her butt sprawled onto the gravel.

Her howl woke the neighborhood. Worse, it woke Mom.

“Oh no! My hand!” Lindsey shrieked. “I hurt my hand!”

The bridesmaids tumbled out of the SUV, spilling onto the driveway in a pile of tiaras, feather boas, and vodka. I raced to my sister, avoiding a slap as she thrust her hands towards me.

I groaned. She had a little scrape over her fingers. It rubbed raw where the engagement ring rested, but Lindsey screamed like she amputated it with a bayonet on a World War I battlefield.

Mom’s front door opened.

This wasn’t going to be good.

Our larger-than-life mother raced outside in a robe and nothing else. I loved my mom for taking pride in the natural endowment the Lord saw fit to give her, but those ta-tas thundered every which way but symmetrically as she raced