––––––––

FIVE YEARS LATER

“Come on, bitches. We’re gonna be late,” my sister calls from the open door of our hotel suite.

“The concert doesn’t start for another four hours,” I remind Starr, quickly slapping on another layer of bright red lipstick that matches the ridiculous shirts Starr is forcing all of us to wear.

We were all provided with two tanks to wear for the weekend. One for Friday night to attend the concert of Starr’s favorite country artist, Travis Travers. The other for Saturday when we will be bar hopping and drinking until we forget our names. My sister’s words, not mine.

Tonight’s tanks have our roles in her wedding printed across the front in bold red lettering and whatever stupid nick name she has dubbed for everyone on the back.

Mine says Maid of Honor on the front and Luscious Lennon on the back. I bit my tongue and rolled with it because, well, she’s my little sister and she’s getting married. If there’s any time she gets to do things her way, this is it.

Besides, it could be worse. My tank could say Slutty Sandy like our poor cousin’s does.

My sister does nothing small and this weekend is no exception. Lucky for Starr, she landed herself an incredible man who worships the ground she walks on. At twenty-five, she’s found a man ten years her senior, who has done pretty well for himself financially and is determined to give her everything she wants. Including her dream bachelorette party weekend in Nashville.

Not only did my future brother-in-law pay for this incredible suite that we are all sharing for the weekend, he also got all six of us ‘impossible to find’ Travis Travers tickets when they had been sold out for months.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous of what my sister found. Not that I would go for Mark. He’s so far from my type it’s almost comical. But he’s good for Starr. They’re good together.

It’s more what they share that has me staring face to face with the ugly green monster nearly every time I’m around them. The way he looks at her. The way she looks at him. God, what I wouldn’t give to have someone look at me that way and mean it.

My mind flashes to Gage and a full body tremor runs through me. I thought I had found something with Gage. I’d spent two years convinced that I had. Until six months ago when the rug got pulled out from underneath me and I have still yet to find my footing.

“Ladies.” Starr pulls my attention back to where she’s still standing in the doorway, her sandaled foot tapping the floor impatiently.

My sister and I look a lot alike. She’s slimmer than me, lacking my boobs and hips, and her hair’s about two shades darker than mine but other than that you might swear we were twins. More than once we’ve been mistaken as just that.

“Alright, girls. Let’s wrap this up before Princess Starr has a conniption and we all spend the rest of the evening paying for it.” I smile at my sister who instantly flips me off, tossing her hair over one shoulder.

It takes me nearly five minutes to gather my sister’s three friends – Chelsea, Julie, and Jaime – and our cousin Sandy and usher them all out the door. As the maid of honor my sister put me in charge of keeping everyone on task and on time.

Oh joy!

The party bus Mark rented for us is waiting on the curb of the hotel when we step outside. The instant the warm air engulfs me sweat forms at the nape of my neck.

It’s summer. Summer in Florida is hot. Summer in Nashville is torture. The air is so much heavier making it feel almost impossible to breathe sometimes. Thankfully when we step into the party bus the air conditioning is blasting.

It’s around ninety-five degrees out and my bridezilla of a sister is making us stand out under the blaring sun for nearly four hours to ensure she is close to the stage for when Travis Travers comes out.

Four hours...

In the middle of the summer...

I don’t even really like Travis Travers. I mean, he’s cute, is probably one of the only country artists who can pull off skinny jeans, and has a pretty stellar voice, but it’s his songs that don’t strike a chord with me. Most of his music has little to no meaning for me and I have trouble truly enjoying it. To me music is all about the connection, the meaning, the words, the way it makes me feel.

Needless to say, she’s lucky I love her.

Since we’re staying downtown and the concert is taking place at the football stadium just a few blocks away, we could have walked with no issue, but Starr was having none of that. So, in true Mark fashion, he rented a bus and paid a pretty penny to have it sit on the curb all night before driving us the five minutes back to the hotel at the end of the concert.

A huge waste if you ask me.

We’ve just pulled onto the main strip when my eyes land on the large sign that I know first-hand is lit in neon lettering at night. Thrive.

My stomach twists and a weird knot forms in the back of my throat. I haven’t been to Nashville since that night five years ago.

I can’t believe it’s been five years.

Hudson’s face instantly flashes in front of my eyes. I can still see him in my mind like it was yesterday. Weird, I know, considering I spent less than twelve hours with the man. But there he is, etched into my mind as if I’d known him half my life.

My phone vibrates in the back pocket of my cut off jean shorts, snapping me from my trance. Pulling it out, I smile when I see Emma’s name flash across the screen, glancing up just in time to see Thrive disappear through the back window of the bus.

“Are you ready to kill her yet?” Are the first words that leave my best friend’s mouth.

“We’re heading to the concert nearly four hours early. What do you think?” I mutter quietly into the phone.

“Ouch. Why not just tell her you’ll meet her there when the concert actually starts?” she suggests.

“You think I didn’t try that one already,” I retort.

“Didn’t go for it, huh?” She chuckles.

“Not for a second,” I deadpan. “And to make matters worse, I have to deal with her all by myself because my best friend totally bailed on me to spend the week in Cancun with her perfect husband.” I pretend gag into the phone.

Emma met Robert around the same time I met Gage. Robert is amazing. Dark skin, dark eyes, a smile that lights up an entire room. Emma has always been the most beautiful person in a crowd but Robert is her perfect equal. Together they will have the most gorgeous babies on planet Earth.

They dated about a year before she finally moved in with him. Two months later I moved in with Gage, leaving behind the condo that Emma and I had shared since freshman year of college. The condo her dad generously re-rented to me at half the normal cost after things with Gage went south.

Emma and Robert got married six months ago. It was actually the night of their wedding when I found out Gage had been cheating on me for months and had gotten the girl pregnant. Not a fair trade off if you ask me.

So while my best friend floats around in perfect wedded bliss and my sister floats around in soon to be perfect wedded bliss, I’m dragging my bitter ass out of bed every morning wondering why I seem to be the only one who can’t find ‘the one’.

“I totally would be there if I could. You know I would,” Emma says, pulling me back to the present, her smile reflected through her tone.

“Don’t lie. You are thanking your lucky stars that your vacation just happened to fall on the same weekend. Otherwise you know I would have made you come.”

“Okay. I won’t deny that I would much rather be here.” She giggles, covering the phone as she says something to who I’m assuming is Robert. “I still feel bad that I’m not there for you,” she finally adds.

“Yeah. Yeah. Save that shit for someone who’ll believe it.”

“Hello, Lennon,” Robert says into the phone.

“Hello, Mister stole my best friend but I love you anyway because you make her insanely happy,” I reply.

“You’re too easy on me,” he replies and I realize Emma has me on speaker phone.

“I figure you have to deal with Emma. How much can one man take?”

He chuckles, followed by what sounds like a smack, no doubt Emma laying into him for laughing, drifts over the line.

“Okay, you two. I gotta go. Four hours of unbearable heat followed by four hours of music I’m sure I won’t enjoy is calling to me.”

“Who knows, maybe something amazing will happen.” That’s Emma’s staple response whenever I try to be a pessimist. She tries to balance it out with her eternal optimism.

“I’ll be sure to hold my breath.” I roll my eyes.

“You’ll be back on Monday, right? We’ve got that big beach house project coming up. The contractors are already there gutting it so we should be able to go in and start sketching the design by then.”

“I knew you couldn’t resist talking about work,” Robert says, a playful annoyance in his voice.

“Of course not, she is her father’s daughter,” I remind him.

“There you two go again, ganging up on me,” Emma whines playfully.

“On that note, I gotta go, love birds. Be safe and I’ll see you on Monday, Em.”

“Okay, love you,” Emma offers, followed by Robert’s very over the top, “Love you, Lennon.”

“Love you both too. Though sometimes I question my sanity,” I quip, hearing Robert’s deep chuckle and Emma’s dramatic gasp seconds before I end the call.

Shoving the device back into my pocket, I tune into the conversation happening on the bus just in time to hear my sister telling Chelsea that she’s going to flash her boobs at Travis Travers to see if he’ll pull her on stage.

I open my mouth to point out that she will most likely be one of hundreds of women that will try that exact same stunt to grab the hot country star’s attention. Never mind that she’s getting married in two weeks’ time so she should definitely not be doing anything of the sort, but knowing it will do me no good I snap it closed.

Once the driver swings around to the front of the stadium and opens the door, the girls file out one after the other, me being the last to exit. I feel like a mother agreeing to take five teenage girls to see Justin Bieber with the way they all bounce down the sidewalk with excitement, quickly joining the line of people already waiting.

Even though I’m only two years older than Starr and her friends and one year older than Sandy, I feel like we are all worlds apart. I’m not really sure when I became the old mother hen of the group but I do know how much I dislike the thought.