The Girl Next Door | Baby Daddy

8.1 | The Wedding Planner

Katie hadn't shut up about her fiance and the wedding for the past two hours, but I guess that was understandable when she was less than a week away from getting married. I let her rambling slide since she was excited, and after all, she was our cousin.

"And I just love him so much! He does this thing every morning where he gets up before me and--"

"Okay, Katie, I love you, but we still have a lot of planning to do. The wedding's in less than a week and we don't have a lot of time to--"

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm just so excited!" Katie interrupted Riley, who was finally starting to grow frustrated. I had been done with the planning since Katie started sending out daily countdowns... seven months ago.

Katie was a little crazy, but she really was a sweet girl. She was pretty with dark hair and Asian features since her father, whom Riley and I weren't related to by blood, was Asian. She was kind and passionate, but then again... she was also a little crazy.

I decided to leave Riley for dead, standing up and excusing myself to the bar where I slid onto a stool and dropped my head onto the counter with a thump.

"Looks like you guys are having fun." Ben commented sarcastically, snickering at me.

"I need a drink. Literally anything, as long as it has alcohol." I ordered and Ben nodded, grabbing a clean clear glass from the bar.

"You know, at least you're not the maid of honor." He reminded me.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Riley's taking the hit for that. But I still have the torture of having to help plan the wedding. Oh, and being forced to wear pink!" I argued. "Ugh, I hate being a bridesmaid. I never want to be part of a wedding procession again until Riley gets married." I declared and Ben shook his head, amused by my suffering as he slid a drink towards me. "What's this?" I wondered.

"I call it 'the Ben Wheeler.'" He introduced, holding it up and displaying it like he was Vanna White.

"'The Ben Wheeler?'" I repeated and he nodded. "How'd you come up with that one?" I joked and he chuckled.

"The bar is looking for new drinks to serve and they opened a competition between the employees. Whoever comes up with the winning drink gets to name it." Ben explained and I nodded along. "I want my name on something, you know? Something I made."

"Yes. And a bar menu is much more important than Emma's birth certificate." I responded sarcastically and he stared off at nothing in particular, showing he hadn't thought of that. "Look, I think it's great that you're doing this... but this drink tastes exactly like an Old Fashioned." I informed him and he sighed, stealing my glass and pouring it out in the small gutter around the bar. After he had taken my drink, I whined and pouted at him as I watched the liquid drip into the drain.

"Damnit. Back to square 1." He grabbed out a few random bottles and began pouring them into the same glass. I sighed. I just wanted a drink before I had to return to enduring Katie list off how all the napkins, and plates, and candles, and flowers, and dresses, and god knows what else had to be just perfect.

After several more drink attempts (a knock off Tom Collins, an off brand Whiskey Sour, and an imposter Screwdriver), Ben finally slid over a Bay Breeze, seemingly giving up. To be fair, it was kind of his MO to give up after a few attempts at something, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided to assume he was just taking a break, accepting the sunset of a drink.

I returned to where Katie and Riley were now standing by the couches in the back of the bar. Katie had pulled out all of the dresses-- both hers and all the bridesmaids-- and had them littered across the couches. Aside from hers, which was a crisp white, the rest were sickeningly pink. They were almost the exact color of where the pineapple juice met the cranberry juice in my drink.