Stripped Bare (Stripped #1)(81)

This was the freak out she had to cope with me for.

I checked every room, downstairs and up, until I noticed the attic door was slightly cracked. Her parents had renovated it fifteen years ago for a 'hangout' area for us. Since Allie had moved out, it'd become half hangout, half storage, and I knew I'd find her up there.

She'd always hidden there.

I jumped four times before I reached the string to pull the door down. The ladder followed, and I climbed up. I seriously hoped nobody came out and walked under it, because they'd get a nice view of my perfectly white panties.

I poked my head through the square door space and looked around.

She was sitting in the corner, head down, surrounded by boxes and flicking through an old photo album. “I thought you'd find me here.”

“Don't worry,” I said, climbing the last of the ladder and stepping into the attic. “Nobody has noticed you're missing.” I pulled the ladder up and shut the door properly. “What's wrong?”

She shrugged. Her blonde hair was pulled into an elegant half-up, half-down style, and the Swarovski tiara that sat prettily on top of her sparkled as sunlight streamed through the roof window. “It's crazy down there. Everyone is running around like the world is ending, and all I want to do is drink my coffee in peace.” She raised a mug with a half-hearted smile.

“Are you scared?” I sat down next to her and hugged my knees to my chest.

“Nervous. Not scared. But that's normal, right?”

“Don't ask me. I'm going off what I've seen in movies.”

Allie smiled. Properly. “I feel like whatever happens today will happen. As long as I can walk out of the church as Mrs. Joe Walker, I'll be okay. Everything else is just a side note.”

We both stilled as someone yelled Allie's name in a panic from downstairs.

She rolled her eyes. “Honestly,” she whispered. “You'd think my mom was getting married, not me.”

There was that eerie air of panic from her, yes. “She just wants it to go well.”

“Would you be saying it if it was your mom and your wedding?”

“No. I'd be jumping out that window.” I pointed to the square-shaped glass. “Head first.”

“There you go.” She sipped her coffee and put the mug down on the wooden floor next to her, along with the photo album she'd been looking through. “I think it's all so insane. This fancy wedding is all for our families, and all I want to do is just marry the guy, Mia. I just want to wake up next to him and call him my husband and share his name and know that he's mine forever. I could marry him anywhere and it wouldn't matter. Is that insane?”

I opened my mouth, then paused. Was it?

No.

Not at all.

“Oh, god, it's insane, isn't it?”

I shook my head and squeezed her hand. “No. It makes perfect sense.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Wow. You agreed on something all lovey-dovey without barfing.”

I tapped my fingers against hers. She was the worst. “I just agree with you, Al. It's all just... stuff... isn't it? All the dresses and tiaras and flowers.”

“And seating charts and menus and name cards and confetti and all the other shit I won't remember.”

“Exactly. If you want to marry someone, it doesn't matter if it's like Prince William and Kate's or in a barn surrounded by pig shit.”

Allie paused. “Well. The barn would be okay as long as there was a limit on the pig shit.”

She had a point. “Still... I think if someone said to me it's a barn full of pig shit or you could never get married, I'd take the barn.”

“Hold on. You've used the l-word and the m-word in the space of 24 hours and you haven't passed out? Are you sick? Running a fever?” She reached forward and touched my forehead with the back of her hand. “No. Well, damn, Mia O'Halloran. I'm not gonna lie, of the things I'm looking forward to today, talking to West Rykman is right up there on the number two spot after getting married.”

“Don't be stupid.” I batted her hand away just as her mom yelled for her yet again. You wouldn't believe we were twenty-five years old. Sitting up here hiding made it feel like we were thirteen again. “We should go down before she calls the police for a search party.”

Allie sighed, but nodded, and crawled across the floor to unlatch the door. “Watch out below!” she shouted a whole five seconds before she let it go and the ladder slid down with a crash. “I'm done with my coffee now.”

“Allie! Do not tell me you were hiding up there to drink your coffee!”

I crawled over next to her and smiled down. “Hi.”

Her mom looked up at us. It was the worst attempt at a frown I'd ever seen—there was too much love in her eyes. “I should have known. The make-up girls are here. Let's go.”

We both got down from the attic, and when we went back downstairs to where the make-up girls were waiting, I saw my phone flashing with a notification, and I swallowed hard as I picked it up and opened the text.



West: I'll be there. Waiting...



West's eyes had been on me the whole time.

From the moment I had to walk down the aisle with my ex, to when I stood at the front and dared glance back at him, and to the moment I had to fight my tears as I watched my best friend marry the man she loved more than anything in the world.