Something Blue

The dress was seafoam green and completely unforgiving. I stood in front of the full-length mirror in the bridal suite, tugging at the bodice, wondering why my best friend had such terrible taste in bridesmaid dresses and such impeccable taste in everything else.

"Stop fidgeting," Natalie said, adjusting her veil in the mirror beside me. "You look gorgeous."

"I look like an asparagus that went to prom."

Natalie snorted. "An elegant asparagus. The most beautiful asparagus at the ball." She caught my eye in the mirror and her expression softened. "Seriously, Meg. You're stunning. My groomsmen are going to be fighting over who gets to walk you down the aisle."

I managed a smile. Natalie was my oldest friend, we'd known each other since middle school, survived high school together, been roommates in college. She was getting married to her college sweetheart, David, a perfectly nice man who worshipped the ground she walked on. I was happy for her. I was.

I was also three glasses of champagne into my coping mechanism for weddings, which was drinking until I forgot I was thirty-one, single, and starting to wonder if there was something fundamentally wrong with me.

A knock at the door interrupted my spiral. "Five minutes, ladies!"

Natalie took a deep breath. "Oh God. This is really happening."

"This is really happening." I squeezed her hand. "And you're going to be the most beautiful bride in the history of brides."

The door opened again and the other bridesmaids filed back in, Natalie's cousin Amy, her sorority sister Brittany, and...

Her.

Simone Drake was David's sister and, therefore, someone I'd met exactly twice before today. Once at the engagement party, once at the rehearsal dinner. Both times, I'd barely spoken to her. Both times, I'd thought about her for days afterward.

She was the kind of beautiful that made other people feel less beautiful by proximity. Tall, athletic, with dark skin that seemed to glow from within and box braids currently pinned up in an elaborate style. She wore the same seafoam green dress as the rest of us, but somehow on her it looked like a designer gown instead of prom reject.

She caught me staring and smiled. It was a knowing smile, the kind that suggested she was used to being stared at and didn't mind.

I looked away quickly, face burning.

"Looking good, Megan," she said as she passed me to check her lipstick in the mirror. "Green is definitely your color."

I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Fortunately, Natalie chose that moment to start crying, happy tears, and the room dissolved into a flurry of tissues and waterproof mascara touch-ups.

The ceremony was beautiful. Of course it was, Natalie had been planning this wedding since we were fourteen, and she was nothing if not thorough. The venue was a restored barn on a vineyard, fairy lights strung from every beam, wildflowers everywhere. As maid of honor, I stood closest to the altar, holding Natalie's bouquet while she said her vows.

But I wasn't watching the bride and groom.

I was watching Simone, who stood on the opposite side of the altar in the groomsmen's line, a bridesmaid position apparently wasn't good enough for David's firecracker of a sister. She stood with the men, perfectly at ease, and every time her eyes met mine across the altar, something electric passed between us.

By the time Natalie and David kissed, I was a nervous wreck. This was ridiculous. I didn't even know this woman. I didn't even know if she was into women. I was probably projecting, seeing signals that weren't there because I'd had too much champagne and not enough therapy.

The reception was in a tent adjacent to the barn, round tables with white linens and more wildflowers, a live band playing jazz standards. As maid of honor, I was seated at the head table next to the happy couple. Simone was two tables away, but I could see her perfectly from where I sat.

She was talking to an older woman who must have been an aunt or family friend, laughing at something, her head thrown back. When she caught me looking, again, she didn't smile this time. She just held my gaze for a long moment, then deliberately raised her wine glass in a silent toast.

I was in so much trouble.

The toasts came and went. I gave mine without crying, which was a victory. I talked about meeting Natalie in seventh grade, about how she'd been the first person I came out to (I left that part out), about how I'd known from the moment she introduced me to David that he was the one. All true. All deflection from the growing certainty that something significant was about to happen.

After dinner, the band switched from jazz to dance music. Natalie and David had their first dance, then the floor opened up. I made the rounds like a good maid of honor, chatting with relatives, posing for photos, making sure Natalie's grandmother had a chair near the dance floor.

And then suddenly Simone was beside me at the bar.

"Vodka soda," she told the bartender, then turned to me. "You've been avoiding me."

"What? No. I've been busy. Maid of honor duties."

"Mmhmm." She accepted her drink and took a sip, studying me over the rim. "So it's just coincidence that every time I walk toward you, you suddenly need to be somewhere else?"

I had no good answer for that, so I drained the rest of my champagne.

"I make you nervous," she observed. Not a question.

"You don't make me nervous."

"Liar." She smiled, and it was devastating. "It's okay. I'm told I can be intimidating."

"Who told you that?"

"Everyone I've ever dated." She set down her drink and held out her hand. "Dance with me."

"What?"

"Dance. With me. It's a wedding. That's what people do."

I looked at her outstretched hand, then back at her face. "I should probably..."

"If the next words out of your mouth are 'maid of honor duties,' I'm going to assume you're not interested and leave you alone." Her expression shifted, became more vulnerable. "Am I wrong to think you might be interested?"

The band started a slow song. Couples drifted onto the floor, including Natalie's parents and David's grandparents. It was romantic and beautiful and if I didn't take Simone's hand right now I was going to regret it for the rest of my life.

I took her hand.

On the dance floor, she pulled me close, not inappropriately close, but close enough that I could smell her perfume, something warm and spicy. Her hand rested on my lower back, and mine found her shoulder. We swayed to the music.

"There," she murmured. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"I'm not very good at this."

"Dancing?"

"Any of it. Flirting. Being smooth. Reading signals." I laughed nervously. "Usually by this point in the evening I've said something awkward and excused myself to the bathroom."

"The night is young." She spun me gently, then pulled me back. "For what it's worth, I think you're doing fine."

"I didn't even know if you were..."

"Gay?" She raised an eyebrow. "I was a competitive softball player in college. I've dated three of the women in this room. I'm wearing a suit as my 'backup outfit' in my car. I thought I was being pretty obvious."

I burst out laughing, real laughter, surprised and delighted. "Okay, fair. I'm just... oblivious, apparently."

"Cute, though." Her hand shifted on my back, a fraction lower. "And for the record, I noticed you the moment you walked in at the engagement party. I've been waiting six months for a chance to actually talk to you."

"Why didn't you just..."

"Approach my brother's fiancée's best friend and potentially make things weird if I'd read the situation wrong? At a family event?" She shook her head. "Even I'm not that bold. But tonight..." She pulled back enough to look at me. "Tonight you've been looking at me like you want something. So I'm asking. Do you?"

The song was ending. Around us, couples were separating, heading back to tables, to the bar, to continue the celebration. I should do the same. Go back to being the responsible maid of honor. Stop risking making things complicated.

"Yes," I said instead. "I do."

We made it another hour before slipping away. Another hour of charged glances across the room, of brief touches when we passed each other, of finding excuses to be near each other. When Simone casually mentioned she was staying in the hotel attached to the venue and might step out for some air, I followed five minutes later.

I found her in the garden behind the hotel, standing beneath a trellis dripping with wisteria. The moon was full, the air was warm, and she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

"Took you long enough," she said as I approached.

"I had to make sure Natalie didn't need anything."

"And?"

"She and David disappeared into the honeymoon suite twenty minutes ago. I don't think they'll be emerging anytime soon."

Simone smiled and closed the distance between us. We were standing close now, close enough that I could see the way the moonlight caught her earrings, the slight unevenness of her breath.

"So," she said. "Now what?"

"I don't know. I've never done this before."

"Done what? Gone home with someone from a wedding?"

"Felt like this. About someone I just met." I reached out, tentative, and touched her face. "I don't do impulsive. I make lists. I have a five-year plan. I don't just..."

"Want things?"

"Want things I can't predict."

She turned her head and kissed my palm. Just that, just her lips against the center of my hand, and my knees nearly buckled.

"Maybe tonight isn't about predicting," she said. "Maybe it's about discovering."

She kissed me then, and it was nothing like the careful, tentative kisses I was used to. It was confident and demanding, her hands gripping my waist, her tongue sliding against mine. I gasped into her mouth and she swallowed the sound, pulling me closer until our bodies were pressed together.

"My room," she said against my lips. "If you want."

"I want."

We barely made it inside before she had me pressed against the door, kissing down my neck, her fingers working the zipper at the back of my dress. The seafoam monstrosity fell to the floor and I stood before her in nothing but my strapless bra and underwear, feeling exposed and electric.

"God," she breathed. "You're even more beautiful than I imagined."

"You imagined this?"

"Since the engagement party." She kissed my collarbone. "Through the entire rehearsal dinner." Lower, to the swell of my breast. "Every time I saw you across the room today." Her tongue traced the edge of my bra. "I've thought about nothing else."

She unhooked my bra with practiced ease and took my nipple in her mouth. I arched against the door, my hands finding her braids, holding her to me.

"Wait," I managed. "I want, let me see you too."

She stepped back and unzipped her own dress, letting it pool at her feet. She wore a black lace bralette underneath, matching underwear, and nothing about her was soft, she was all long limbs and defined muscles, the body of someone who took care of herself.

"Your turn to stare," she teased.

"I'm just... processing."

"Process this." She closed the distance and kissed me again, walking me backward toward the bed. We fell onto it together, a tangle of limbs and kisses and whispered directions.

She explored my body with thorough attention, kissing my neck, my shoulders, the hollow of my throat. She spent long minutes on my breasts, learning exactly how I liked to be touched, what made me gasp and what made me moan. When her hand finally slid between my thighs, I was already trembling.

"So wet," she murmured approvingly. "All for me?"

"All for you."

She stroked me through my underwear, teasing, making me lift my hips in silent plea. "Tell me what you want."

"I want you to touch me."

"I am touching you."

"More. I want more."

She hooked her fingers in my underwear and pulled them down, tossing them aside. Then she kissed her way down my body, stomach, hip, inner thigh, until her breath was hot against my center.

"Tell me if I do anything you don't like," she said, and then her mouth was on me.

I cried out, my hips bucking off the bed. Her tongue was skilled and relentless, circling my clit with exactly the right pressure, dipping inside me and back again. She held my thighs open when I tried to close them around her head, kept me spread and exposed and completely at her mercy.

The orgasm built slowly, inexorably. I felt it gathering at the base of my spine, in my curling toes, in my white-knuckled grip on the sheets. "I'm going to, Simone, I'm, "

She moaned against me, the vibration pushing me over the edge. I came with a cry that I couldn't have silenced if I'd tried, my body shaking, wave after wave of pleasure crashing through me.

When I came back to myself, she was lying beside me, looking smug.

"Not bad for a first date."

"This is a date?"

"It is now." She kissed my shoulder. "If you want it to be."

"I want..." I rolled toward her, still breathing hard. "I want to make you feel like that."

"I was hoping you'd say that."

She guided my hand between her legs, showing me how she liked to be touched. She was patient and communicative, telling me faster or right there or just like that. When I finally brought her to climax, her back arching, my name on her lips, I felt a surge of pride and tenderness and something else I wasn't ready to name.

We lay tangled together afterward, her fingers tracing patterns on my shoulder.

"So," she said. "That five-year plan of yours. Any flexibility in it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..." She propped herself up on one elbow. "I live in Chicago. You live here. But this doesn't have to be just one night if you don't want it to be. I travel for work. I could visit. You could visit. We could see where this goes."

I should say no. Long distance was impractical. We barely knew each other. This was exactly the kind of unpredictable thing I'd spent my whole life avoiding.

"My five-year plan could probably use some revision," I heard myself say.

She grinned, that devastating grin that had gotten me into this mess in the first place, and kissed me deeply.

"Good. Because I wasn't really asking. I was informing."

"Is that how this is going to be? You informing me of things?"

"Mostly." Another kiss. "Unless you have objections."

I pulled her on top of me, feeling her weight, her warmth, the surprising rightness of her body against mine. "No objections. Not a single one."

⏳ One Year Later

The bridesmaid dress still hangs in the back of my closet. Simone says I should throw it away, it really is terrible, but I can't bring myself to do it. It's a reminder of the night everything changed. The night I stopped planning and started living.

Simone moved to my city six months ago. We got an apartment together three months after that. It's too fast, everyone says. You barely know each other. But here's the thing about five-year plans: sometimes the best things in life are the ones you never saw coming.

Natalie called last week to tell me she's pregnant. We screamed together on the phone like we were teenagers again. She asked if Simone and I would be godparents. I said yes before checking with Simone, then called her in a panic. She just laughed.

"Of course I want to be that baby's godparent," she said. "I want to do everything with you."

Sometimes I still can't believe this is my life. The woman who couldn't dance without stepping on feet, who couldn't flirt without saying something awkward, who couldn't imagine wanting someone I couldn't predict, that woman found love at her best friend's wedding, wearing a dress the color of asparagus.

And she's never been happier.

Last month, Simone took me back to the vineyard where it all began. We stayed in the same hotel, walked in the same garden, stood under the same wisteria. She got down on one knee and pulled out a ring.

"I know we've only been together a year," she said. "I know it's fast. I know your five-year plan probably didn't include marriage at year one. But I love you, Megan. I want to build a life with you. So I'm asking, or informing, really, will you marry me?"

I said yes.

Not because it made sense. Not because it fit any plan. Because sometimes the heart knows things the mind can't predict. Because sometimes love shows up in a seafoam green dress at someone else's wedding. Because sometimes the best thing you can do is stop planning and start discovering.

Something borrowed. Something blue.

Something completely unexpected.

Something true.