The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(60)

“Can we see it on you?” asks Victoria-Bliss.

I blink. “It . . . well, it probably won’t fit,” I admit. “I lost more weight than I was happy with while I was with him. I’ve gained it back, and I’m pleased about that, but it means—”

“Oh, it’s okay if it doesn’t close. I just want to see you in the dress you picked out.”

“He and our mothers picked out.”

“Well, now I have to see it.”

Laughing, Priya drapes the garment bag over the back of the unoccupied couch and unzips it. “Come on, Agent Sterling, fashion show.”

This is one of those moments that really shouldn’t happen without a lot more alcohol beforehand. But somehow I find myself stripping down in Bran and Mercedes’s shared backyard, shivering in the space between the late October chill and the sphere of heat from the fire. I slide my arms out of my bra straps, tucking them into the sides of the band for now, and Inara stands up to help Priya tug the dress over my head.

There really is an entire freaking mountain of tulle, and even with their help, it takes several minutes before we can safely get my arms all the way to the top of the dress. The others are laughing, cracking jokes about giving birth, and it takes both Inara and Priya to get the hips of the dress over my actual hips. I unhook and tug away the bra, and then I’m shrugging into the white lace bolero that I would have worn during the ceremony so I wasn’t in temple with bare shoulders.

All five of them cluster together on one couch to get the full effect, and with the firelight dancing over the white satin, it is quite an effect. The strapless bodice is stiff with white-on-white embroidery, beadwork, and crystals, tight all the way down to my hips, where it flares out into frankly massive skirts. The top three inches and the bottom half of the first layer of skirt are sewn over with heavy lace to match the bolero, and even more beads and crystals are sewn through the butterfly patterns in the lace.

“Holy fuck, you look like a Vegas cake-topper,” Inara breathes.

“There was a tiara with it, but I gave that to Shira’s nieces to play dress-up with. And one of her nephews got the veil to use as mosquito netting at Boy Scout camp.”

Priya pulls one of her small cameras out of her pocket. It’s not one of her serious ones, not any of the ones she uses professionally, but the one for the quick, casual shots, the ones that are taken by the friend, not the photographer. “Strike a pose, Miss Wedding Vogue.”

I flip her off with both hands, and from the flash, that would appear to be the shot.

“And now, our special guest . . .” She grins and digs into her bag, pulling out a Ken doll in a suit and navy-and-yellow FBI windbreaker.

“Special Agent Ken!” yells Mercedes. “You brought him?”

Oh, God. For years, Priya has taken pictures of Special Agent Ken and sent them to Bran. Not just on the vacations with her mother, but any time she happened to think of a picture and take it. He got a handful of them printed large and framed, and they’re the only pictures he’s ever displayed in his apartments, or in The House, for that matter.

I take Special Agent Ken by the plastic hand and hold him far away from me, as if I’m about to drop him, and look the opposite direction. I can hear Priya laughing as she takes the picture.

“This,” Cass says, “this is what I was talking about.” It does not, however, stop her from wiggling off the couch so she can pull her favorite knife from its sheath inside the waistband of her jeans. “The crystals and beads should probably not go into the firepit, just in case. He already has to remodel his kitchen, and who knows what else inside. Let’s not force him to do damage control out here too.”

“But a hot tub, Cass.”

“We want him to add that, not swap it out with the firepit.”

“I have scissors inside,” Mercedes offers.

“Nope, we’re good.” Kneeling down, Cass gathers a handful of fabric an inch or so above the top edge of the lace. “Ready for this?”

Tossing Special Agent Ken to Mercedes to hold, I take another deep breath and let it out slowly. “Let’s do this.”

Her knife is sharp enough you can barely hear the satin tearing, and suddenly there’s a gaping hole in my dress, right in front. She starts whistling cheerfully. “Quarter-turn, I think, to your left.”

I obey, shuffling around. All that trim drags against the stone as it falls. With Priya busy taking pictures, Inara bends down to pick it up, and for a moment it almost feels like it might have on my wedding day, Shira and my other bridesmaids helping me settle the layers before walking down the aisle. It’s a weird feeling.

Once the trim is off, Cass taps my hip with the flat of her knife. “How do you want to do this?”

“Vertical strips, I think. That would be easiest. Start on the top layer, work down through the tulle?”

“This is going to be a lot of s’mores.” She stabs through the fabric from the underside, keeping the blade away from my legs even though it would take an act of God to reach them through the tulle, and lets gravity do most of the work of dragging the blade through the thin satin. Every so often there’s a flash and click of Priya taking another picture.

Fairly soon, the top layer is in careful shreds, and we move the couches closer to the flames. Inara hands me a skewer with a marshmallow already fixed to the end. After a moment’s thought, I push the sweet down a little farther so some of the metal shows through. The first strip of dress rips off easily, and I drape it over the skewer on either side of the marshmallow.