My best friend was trying to get me drunk the night before my wedding. Technically, the night of my bachelorette party, although it was just the two of us.

And there was a shocking dearth of penis straws.

“How much do you want again?” Lucia asked, as she poured half the bottle of champagne into a plastic cup that said Married AF.

“Are we discussing the pros and cons of being horrifically hung over on the most beautiful day of my entire life?” I asked, knocking my cup against hers in grim celebration. But Lucia only shrugged, tossed her long blonde hair, and leaned back on the hood of her car.

I’d had three requests for this night: For it to be just the two of us. For it to be quiet. And to not get drunk.

So far, she was only fulfilling two of the three.

Lucia had parked her car off Mulholland Drive, a famous road with an equally famous view of the entire city of Los Angeles, rising smoggy and sultry beneath us. The sun was slowly dropping behind the countless skyscrapers and palm trees, painting the canyon in hues of orange and pink. The soft, continual roar of traffic was everywhere—L.A.’s version of birdsong.

“I won’t let you get drunk,” she said, nudging me with her foot. I was sitting next to her, spine straight. I could feel my muscles rigid with anxiety. “But I will suggest you have a little, you know…” she paused. “Fun. At your own bachelorette party.”

“I’m having fun,” I said defensively, glancing at my new pearl-colored nails. I’d been painting my fingernails black since I was thirteen years old, but Clarke had said it was unbecoming for a bride to have black nails on her wedding day. He’d said the same thing about my many piercings until I’d dutifully removed them.

I couldn’t do anything about the tattoos decorating my body. Clarke had been disappointed about that.

But he was probably right. I wanted to look like a bride tomorrow.

Not a punk.

Another nudge from Lucia. I turned to look at her.

My best friend was a glowing goddess. She looked like a bride—at ease in her own skin. Comfortably relaxing on the hood of her car, sipping champagne.

Lucia had been my best friend for seven years. I was a makeup artist, and we’d first met when she was fifteen (and I was twenty-one) on her very first high-profile photo shoot. Lucia had been hesitant and trembling, half-naked in a chilly room filled with strangers, told to look “sexy” by a man with a camera. So I’d stepped in, came up with a silly idea to teach her Spanish on the spot.

It had worked. Gotten her out of her head as I lavished her lips with crimson, lined her blue eyes with smoky gray liner. Lucia had requested me at her next shoot. And the next and the next, and as we both grew increasingly more famous, our friendship became one of the most important things in my life.

People always asked if it was hard to be best friends with a famous supermodel. But it really wasn’t. Sure, sometimes when she stopped by my apartment and I was wearing stained sweatpants and my old Clash tee-shirt—and she was just coming from yoga, dewy with sweat and looking like she’d just stepped off of a Maxim cover—yeah, sometimes it was hard.

Except I had found that true friendship could exist without jealousy. And that described my friendship with Lucia.

“Hey,” she said. “How ya doin’? What do you need? Are you nervous? Excited?”

A longer pause.

“Do you need me to break you out of this situation and drive us across the border? Because I will. Thelma and Louise-style but without us dying in the end.”

I laughed, taking a tiny sip of champagne. The bubbles made me sneeze.

“I feel fine. Happy,” I said, running my fingers over the giant diamond ring Clarke had slipped on my finger barely three months ago. “I just want it to get here, you know?” I said, and Lucia nodded as she listened. “I want to be married to Clarke. To leave the reception and float away on our magical honeymoon.”

I trailed my fingers through the balmy summer air. Everyone was here in the city—my entire family from both Los Angeles and Mexico. All four of my older brothers plus their wives and partners and children.

It was happening. This time tomorrow night, Clarke and I would be married.

I glanced at Lucia again, smiling. “I’m really ready. Lo prometo.”

I watched as she suppressed a look I couldn’t quite understand. But it was gone just as quickly, so I had probably imagined it.

“Good,” she said, reaching forward to squeeze my hand. “And I’m really happy for you.” Another squeeze. “Although, if I was being honest, I’m a little surprised you wanted such a tame bachelorette party.”

“Really?”

Lucia laughed nervously. “Yeah, I guess. I thought it’d be like one of our usual nights in the city. Sushi at Katsuya. Cocktails at The Varnish. Burlesque and dancing at The Edison. Tip off the paparazzi early so we’re in all the gossip rags. Go to bed at dawn.” She poured a little more champagne into her glass, offering me more, but I shook my head. “That kind of night. But you’d be wearing a cute white sash that said Last Night of Freedom or something.”

My chest hurt, just a little. I took a deep breath, and it eased.

“I know,” I said. “And I know you would have planned a wild night filled with scandal that we would have talked about until we were ninety.”

“We can still go, you know,” she said, starting to slide off the hood. “I keep an emergency stash of high heels and see-through shirts in my trunk. I’ll call my agent and get us on the list at—”

“No, no,” I said laughing, pulling her back up. “You’re nuts, mija. I just want to sit here with my best friend and drink a responsible amount of champagne. Talk about my wedding day. Look at the lights.”

Lucia was smiling, but it looked strained. She was usually vivacious and funny and down for anything. But she looked… weighed down in some way.

“Clarke likes to stay in,” she said simply.

I nodded. Shrugged.

“He’s definitely a homebody. He didn’t even have a bachelor party,” I admitted, which I did think was odd at the time. But his friends had busy work schedules, and it just didn’t pan out. The only thing that matters is we’ll be married. Together forever, he’d said.

“And I like that. It’s… different. I’m not twenty-two anymore, Lu.” I clinked my glass against hers again. “You’ll know what I’m talking about soon. When you get older.”

“But I’m never getting older so…” she said dryly, tapping her finger against her lips.

I rolled my eyes. Super models were on a tight time limit, age-wise. Something she obsessed about every day. I watched her face go from joking to serious again.

“I never want you to lose yourself,” she said softly. “With Clarke. I never want… Marriage doesn’t mean you’re not an individual anymore,” she said, then chugged a mouthful of champagne.

“I wouldn’t worry about that, mija,” I said, laughing fully now.

Her face softened a little, and she laughed with me.

“Okay,” she started. “Not to bring the night down, but I wouldn’t be your best friend if I didn’t tell you the truth. I’m Team Josie, always. Also—”

I glanced at her, slightly worried.

“Also, I know I was joking about the Thelma and Louise thing. But if you need…” she looked around suddenly. “If you actually didn’t want to get married to Clarke. If you… I don’t know, if you wanted me to just drive us away from here. From your parents and your brothers and the venue and the cake and the bouquets of roses… I would. In a heartbeat. No questions asked. No judgment.”

She was gripping her plastic cup so tightly I thought she’d crack it.

And then the strangest feeling washed over me—a sudden desire to jump in the car and whisper “go,” because she would.

Lucia would do anything for me.

But then I shook my head fiercely, effectively tossing that wayward thought back out into the hot California sky. I wasn’t sure where it had come from, and I was deeply uncomfortable that I’d even entertained it for a second.

This was Clarke. My soul mate. The love of my entire life. Sure, things between us had moved fast—I’d always thought I’d never be married. Never be tied down to another person, never have to rely on another person. I’d been relying on myself successfully for years—proudly, even. I put myself through cosmetology school while working two jobs. Pulled myself, tooth and nail, up the ladder, finding and securing the best celebrity clients as the years went by. Routinely worked twelve-hour days and still found time to go dancing with Lucia, both of us addicted to the pulsing thrill of L.A. nights.

But then… well. Then Clarke happened, like a tornado I couldn’t help but be sucked into. Most people in my life, including Lucia, were shocked when I told them we were engaged.

Too soon, I heard them whisper.

They didn’t get us, and really, they didn’t have to.

“I appreciate that,” I finally said, pulling her in for a sloppy hug on the hood of her car. Kissed her cheek. “Really, I do. Tu amistad significa el mundo para mi.”

“Si,” she said softly. “Your friendship means the world to me too. Siempre.” Lucia pulled back, wiping her eyes quickly, although it didn’t hide the small tear that slid down her cheek.

“Lu?” I asked, concerned. I held up the champagne. “It’s my night, remember? I haven’t been a Bridezilla once, but heaven help me, I will turn into one if you don’t finish the fuck out of that champagne.”

She laughed with me and obliged, knocking her cup back. She reached into her pocket and turned on the speakers in her car. An old Mary J. Blige song came on, her smoky voice lilting through the open windows. I grinned, leaning back on the car, laying my head next to Lucia’s.

“You know champagne makes me weepy,” she finally said. “Now let’s talk about all the things you’re excited about for tomorrow.”

“The dress,” I said, watching a few stars twinkle above us. They were particularly resolute, shining their light through the layers of smog that coated the L.A. sky. I loved that sky. I was a child of smoggy sunsets and hot asphalt summers; mariachi horns coming from my neighbor’s house on a Saturday night; abandoned cars parked in front of vibrant graffiti; break-dancers in front of crisp white mansions.

I would never live anywhere else.

“Your dress is perfect,” Lucia said softly. “What else?”

“The first dance. When I get to say I do. The first moment that Clarke will see me, walking down the aisle.”

My throat tightened with a sudden spike of emotion as Lucia held my hand, both of us gazing up toward the stars. The music continued as we finished the champagne, our voices blending together.

Tomorrow, everything would change.

Tomorrow, my dreams would come true.