“No,” she mumbled and spit into the bowl. “I can rally. It’s my last night.”
I glanced sideways out the bathroom door, aware that Katy might overhear. “You don’t have to be peer-pressured into going out, Bekka. This is your weekend.”
“Ugh,” she said, rotating so that her head rested on the side of the seat. “I know. But it’s my last time out with you girls.”
“What? Marriage doesn’t mean your social life dies.”
“Doesn’t it though?” Bekka asked miserably. “That’s what Katy tells me.” She hiccupped. “That’s why we’re in Vegas.”
“Katy doesn’t know anything,” I said and worked to control the heat in my voice. “Marriage is not a death sentence.”
“Then why am I the only one getting married out of all of my friends?” Bekka groaned and moved to sprawl beside the toilet. “It’s because they know getting married means saying goodbye to fun.”
Jesus, Katy was a real piece of work. “That’s not true. You’ll still have a social life,” I said, handing her a second wet washcloth to wash her mouth with. “We’ll still see each other.”
“Lauren keeps talking about moving out of state. And you’re more south now since you live with your parents again. I guess I just wanted my last weekend as a ‘free woman,’” she said, weakly holding up two fingers in air quotes, “to be pretty epic.” She wiped her face. “I know that I’m a lot more boring than most of your friends,” she said, now looking down at her dirty washcloth instead of at me. “I just wanted this to be a fun weekend. Katy always says I’m so boring. But…”
She didn’t need to finish that sentence. Katy had sabotaged the whole weekend, had plied Bekka with more drinks than she was able to comfortably consume. Fuck Katy.
I cringed. I knew I was mostly invited on this trip because I was considered the fun and crazy one. The one they could tell stories about when they got home. And while I normally embraced my role as the wild one of the group, my head was too stuck in what was going back home and Katy’s annoying as fuck presence to think about fun. But looking at Bekka’s sopping wet face and her sad eyes made me reconsider my plans to stay in this final night.
“Okay,” I finally agreed. “But you need to hydrate. No whiskey and no jalapeno poppers.”
Bekka managed a smile. She wanted a fun story to tell about her bachelorette party, and I resigned myself to providing one last wild night. For Bekka.
“Dinner still on?” Katy asked, coming to the bathroom door but not entering. She seemed completely unconcerned with Bekka’s pale complexion and more concerned with her reservations.
“This one needs food,” I said, rubbing a hand over Bekka’s back. “And water. No more alcohol.” I said that more for Katy’s benefit than Bekka’s, but Bekka nodded meekly regardless.
“One more bar, Tor-Tor?” Lauren called from the living room of our suite.
“Fine,” I agreed, eyeing Katy with the little patience for her I possessed. “But no getting the bride-to-be trashed. She doesn’t need to be hospitalized for alcohol poisoning.”
Katy rolled her eyes and turned away. “Okay, Mom,” she said sarcastically.
I eyed my phone across the bathroom and wondered if it’d be rude to throw it at Katy’s departing back.
After a relatively chill dinner—despite Katy’s attempts to get Bekka to try all the drinks she ordered for herself—we landed back at the hotel bar for one final drink.
“Time for Tori’s favorite game,” Katy said.
I groaned. “I have a long drive in the morning,” I protested, though that wasn’t necessarily true. I had no plans to return home right away.
“One last dare,” Bekka said, fully and finally sober. She put her arm around me and leaned her head on my shoulder.
“One more,” Lauren said, causing the three of them to chant those two words embarrassingly loud.
“Fine,” I said. But when I caught the diabolic gleam in Katy’s eye—which was right fucking next to my face like an intrusive goldfish—I instantly regretted it.
“Get married.”
“Marry who? One of you?” I laughed but didn’t find it all that funny. I was tired. It’d been a long few days, and I was at the point of counting down the hours before it was time for us to go our separate ways. Twelve hours to go, judging by the clock over the bar. “Come on, we already discussed this. I can’t just marry someone. That requires paperwork and shit I don’t