The Bridesmaid Read Online Free PDF Page A

Getting married is a big deal. He is probably just a little nervous, right? I mean, he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him if he didn’t love you and didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with you.”
    “Not necessarily,” Joe said.
    Kate gasped and jerked her wide-eyed gaze to him.
    He shrugged. “I’m just saying,” he said casually. “Sometimes, women will put unbelievable pressure on a guy to put a ring on it.”
    Kate’s brows suddenly dipped. She pressed a finger to her lips, and said, “He’s kidding. And who is he, anyway? But I know Kiefer, and I know he is crazy about you.” She glared at Joe once more. “What?” she suddenly cried. “God, Lisa, can you please not do anything crazy until I get there? Please? You always do this when you get stressed. You freak out about things that aren’t even real and make a mess! I will be there in less than twelve hours!” she said.
    Joe looked at her and winced a little. He thought she might be overselling things a little.
    But Kate glared again and pointed at him and mouthed the words, Not a word.
    “Okay, thank you,” Kate said into the phone. “Go get a massage or something. Just chill out. Relax. Where is Mom, anyway?”
    Kate stayed on the phone another couple of minutes, and finally hung up. When she did, she tossed her phone into her bag, folded her arms, and stared at him.
    Joe felt a prickly bit of heat under his collar. “What?”
    “You know what.”
    “I was just saying—”
    “You don’t say that to a bride forty-eight hours before her wedding!” Kate exclaimed, her hands moving wildly. “You don’t know her—she’s nuts. She can make mountains out of tiny little anthills without as much as a match.”
    That made absolutely no sense, but Joe wasn’t going to point that out. “So what did the groom say?” he asked.
    Kate moaned and sank back in her seat. “That he was feeling antsy,” she said. “Whatever that means.”
    Joe knew exactly what it meant. “It means he is feeling antsy. That’s it. I mean, think about it—he has to put on a monkey suit and stand up before a bunch of people and say things he wouldn’t say to his best friend, you know? That would make any guy antsy.” He should know. He once came dangerously close to it himself. Sort of close. He hadn’t actually asked Mona to marry him, but he’d thought about it, and just thinking about it had made him antsy.
    “That’s ridiculous. If you love someone, you ought to be able to say it. Like a grown-up.”
    “I am sure he can say it,” Joe said. “Like a grown-up. But why does he have to say it in a monkey suit?”
    “Ohmi—Forget it. Men are so alike,” she muttered, and looked out her window.
    “Oh, and women aren’t?” he asked. “And by the way, while you were convincing your friend with cold feet to go ahead and take the plunge, you were not navigating. The sign we just passed said Tyler. Would you please look and tell me how far to Tyler?”
    “Tyler?” she repeated, and dug out the map. She studied it a moment, then glanced at him. “We’re going the wrong way.”
    “Wrong way!” he said disbelievingly.
    “We should be going south, not east.”
    Joe slapped his hand against the wheel. “Holy—”
    “You were supposed to get on 45. Why didn’t you get on 45? The sign said Houston; I don’t know how you missed it.”
    “I wasn’t the only one who missed it! You said left.”
    “Did I?” she said breezily.
    Joe sighed and began to look for an exit to turn around.
    They found their way onto Interstate 45… along with a million other people who probably had the same idea to catch a flight out of Houston. But at least they were moving. Joe checked the clock. It was almost three. If they could make it by six, they had a decent chance of getting out tonight, before the strike—
    “I need a bathroom,” Kate said.
    “Oh my god,” Joe muttered. “I thought you went at McDonald’s.”
    “I did! I have a small bladder.” She