Valuing my life, I knew better than to laugh. I put a hand over my mouth in order to hide my smile. When I knew I had my face under control I asked him, “Didn’t you bring multiple sets of shoes?”
“Yes.” He rolled his eyes so hard I half expected them to detach and flop onto the floor. “But I chose this pair because they match her dress.”
“The dress that goes all the way to the floor? Where no one’s going to see her feet?” This didn’t qualify as a tragedy. They could use a different pair of shoes. “You could put her in hiking boots and nobody would know.”
Stefan looked like I’d just announced that I wanted to murder his entire family. In an imperious tone he announced, “It’s fine. I will figure it out. I don’t need your help.”
Okay then. He’d kind of just made it everyone’s problem by freaking out, but whatever.
“Rachel?” I turned to see Sadie waving me over from the doorway to her bedroom.
“What’s up?” I asked her as I followed her into the room.
She closed the door and said, “I need to get changed into this robe before I get put into my wedding dress. Would you mind helping me get my shirt up over my head so that I don’t screw up my hair? It has a wide neckline, so I think it’ll be okay, I’m just scared of doing it alone.”
“Anything you need,” I said. Sadie went over to the closet to retrieve her robe. “And while I have you alone, I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor. I feel bad even asking. I don’t want to take away from your day. It’s so selfish.”
“You haven’t done a single selfish thing since I’ve met you,” she said as she laid her robe on the bed. “What do you need?”
“I . . .” How would I even phrase this? “I think you were right about the Camden thing.”
“How so?”
“I have feelings for him. I want to spend time with him. But I’m deceiving him. He thinks that you and I . . .”
“。 . . that we’re best friends,” she finished.
“Right. And I can’t try to be in a relationship with someone I’d have to lie to. I would never, ever break our NDA, but my attorney tells me that you can.”
“Rachel! I would love to do that! I will tell him first chance I get.” Her eyes sparkled brightly, her smile lighting up the whole room. “The fact that you’re falling for Camden and want to date him adds to my day. Just think—someday we might look back on my wedding photos and tell our kids this is how you two met.”
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Stick your arms up.”
She held her arms over her head and I lifted the shirt. I moved it carefully around her hair but gasped when I saw what the shirt had done to her skin.
“What?” she asked, sounding alarmed.
I yanked the shirt up over her hands. “Your skin . . . you’re blue.”
The shirt obviously hadn’t been made of an expensive material and it had stained her armpits and the sides of her bra a faded indigo. She ran over to the mirror, holding up her arms. “This is not happening. It looks like I tried to smother a Smurf under my arms.”
With her arms still held aloft she added, “I can’t get in the shower. It will wreck my hair and makeup. But I can’t get married with blue armpits.”
“This is fine,” I told her. “Let me grab Krista and we can clean this up.” I hoped regular soap would be enough to get her clean. I lifted my own shirt to check out my skin, but there was no blue.
“I bought the shirts from different websites,” she said.
That was good at least. We only had to worry about getting blue off her skin. Conscious of the camera crew still filming in the room just beyond us, I opened the bedroom door and called Krista’s name calmly.
She came quickly and when she saw Sadie’s armpits she gasped. I closed the door, hoping no one had heard her.
“I need your help washing this off,” I said. Krista nodded and they both followed me into the bathroom. I got two washcloths wet with warm water and grabbed the bar of soap from the counter. I laid down a bath towel and had Sadie stand on it. I took her left side and Krista the right.
“You know, when they said you needed something blue for your wedding, I don’t think this is what they had in mind,” Krista said.
It made Sadie laugh. And laugh. She laughed until she almost started crying. When she was able to catch her breath she said, “I’m sorry. When I thought about what things could go wrong today, blue armpits did not make that list.”