One-Off Read online

  One-Off

  Number I of One

  Lynn Galli

  Penikila Press (2015)

  *

  Rating: ★★★★☆

  Tags: Lesbian Fiction, Lesbian Romance, Romance, Retail, Lgbt, Genre Fiction, Literature & Fiction, Fiction, Gay & Lesbian, Lesbian

  Lesbian Fictionttt Lesbian Romancettt Romancettt Retailttt Lgbtttt Genre Fictionttt Literature & Fictionttt Fictionttt Gay & Lesbianttt Lesbianttt

  *

  How much would you endure for your best friend? Would you plan an elaborate event that you don’t believe in? Put up with a woman you never wanted to see again? Fake enthusiasm for an unrealistic pipe dream?

  Skye MacKinnon is forced to answer these questions when she’s asked to be her best friend’s maid of honor. As a cynic, she rejects the notion of marital bliss, but for a friend, she’ll give it her best effort. That becomes more difficult the moment she learns that her old college nemesis, Ainsley Baird, will be playing an important role in the wedding. Brilliant, beautiful Ainsley has many talents, chief among them is irritating Skye. Knowing how easily Ainsley pushes her buttons, Skye just hopes to get through the wedding without needing someone to post her bail.

  One-Off

  Number I of One

  Lynn Galli

  Penikila Press (2015)

  *

  Rating: ★★★★☆

  Tags: Gay & Lesbian, Literature & Fiction, Fiction, Lesbian, Romance, Lesbian Romance, Genre Fiction, Lgbt, Lesbian Fiction

  Gay & Lesbianttt Literature & Fictionttt Fictionttt Lesbianttt Romancettt Lesbian Romancettt Genre Fictionttt Lgbtttt Lesbian Fictionttt

  *

  How much would you endure for your best friend? Would you plan an elaborate event that you don’t believe in? Put up with a woman you never wanted to see again? Fake enthusiasm for an unrealistic pipe dream?

  Skye MacKinnon is forced to answer these questions when she’s asked to be her best friend’s maid of honor. As a cynic, she rejects the notion of marital bliss, but for a friend, she’ll give it her best effort. That becomes more difficult the moment she learns that her old college nemesis, Ainsley Baird, will be playing an important role in the wedding. Brilliant, beautiful Ainsley has many talents, chief among them is irritating Skye. Knowing how easily Ainsley pushes her buttons, Skye just hopes to get through the wedding without needing someone to post her bail.

  One-Off

  Lynn Galli

  Penikila Press

  ONE-OFF. Copyright © 2015 by Lynn Galli. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions of the publisher.

  Cover photo © 2015 Pavels Rumme/ Shutterstock.com. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the publisher’s permission. For information address: Penikila Press at penikilapress@ yahoo.com. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Also by Lynn Galli

  VIRGINIA CLAN

  Forevermore

  Finally

  Blessed Twice

  Imagining Reality

  Wasted Heart

  ASPEN FRIENDS

  Life Rewired

  Something So Grand

  Mending Defects

  OTHER ROMANCES

  Full Court Pressure

  Uncommon Emotions

  Synopsis

  How much would you endure for your best friend? Would you plan an elaborate event that you don’t believe in? Put up with a woman you never wanted to see again? Fake enthusiasm for an unrealistic pipe dream?

  Skye MacKinnon is forced to answer these questions when she’s asked to be her best friend’s maid of honor. As a cynic, she rejects the notion of marital bliss, but for a friend, she’ll give it her best effort. That becomes more difficult the moment she learns that her old college nemesis, Ainsley Baird, will be playing an important role in the wedding. Brilliant, beautiful Ainsley has many talents, chief among them is irritating Skye. Knowing how easily Ainsley pushes her buttons, Skye just hopes to get through the wedding without needing someone to post her bail.

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  By The Author

  Synopsis

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Publications by Lynn Galli

  When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

  –Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing (2.3.242–44)

  One

  Quick, name your top three least favorite things. I’ll jumpstart the brainstorming for you—neighbors who let their dogs crap on your lawn, waiting at stoplights, an infestation of ants in the kitchen, guys who burp out the National Anthem and think it’s charming, helping a disorganized friend move, cleaning the guest bathroom, airport electrical outlet hogs—there are millions more. Pick three. I’ll wait. I have time now that I’ve just found out I’ll be suffering through all three of mine very soon.

  Topping my list: Weddings. Something clearly didn’t get attached to one of my X chromosomes. I never gabbed with high school friends about what my wedding would be like or the kind of person I’d marry or how my dress would look. Never thought about who should be there, what flowers to get, which colors to go with. It just wasn’t me. I’d even managed to avoid attending all but five weddings in my lifetime. When I got an invitation, I’d send an appropriate gift and no one ever remembered that I hadn’t been there.

  Only slightly less annoying: Churches. Not the buildings themselves. They’re nice to look at, but I wasn’t into sitting through religious services. I had many, many opinions about organized religion, none of them flattering. I would throw off the one imposed on me by my Italian grandmother as soon we left her neighborhood if we visited on Sundays. Since college, I hadn’t stepped foot in a Catholic church or any other kind, for that matter. It wasn’t like I’d burst into flames if I entered one, but I tried to avoid them at all costs.

  Rounding out my top three least favorite things
: Photos. Didn’t like taking them, looking at them, or being in them. The appeal of selfies escaped me. When I went to a special event, I used my eyes not my camera for the highest possible definition and my memory to recall the experience.

  All three together added up to my worst nightmare. I’d been lucky so far, but it looked like my luck had just run out. My best friend seemed happy to be bringing my nightmare to life. Giddy even. Her wedding would take place in a church, and as part of the wedding party, I’d have to be in the photos. A photographed church wedding. The minute Dallas shared her announcement, my eyes scanned the area for that burned up dude with knife fingers to appear.

  First up on the agenda, because apparently I would need to help complete some of the items on the prep list for this wedding-slash-nightmare, was to buy her fiancé a tux. Dallas and I had left work early and were currently navigating the tourist laden sidewalk one block over from the National Mall on our way to the tux shop. I’d planned to go back to work after this, but her stunning news was making me reconsider my evening work plan. Of course, the news had come under the guise of what most normal people would consider the greatest honor, but it felt like she’d shoved me into the middle of high-speed traffic. Sure, she was my best friend, but she had two sisters. I should have been off the hook for the wedding party. Especially since she knew my take on weddings. And churches. And photos.

  “Are you still in shock?” Dallas asked me. Her ratings-gold smile flashed so brightly I almost reached for the sunglasses in my bag. “You had to know I’d ask you. You’re too smart not to guess I’d want you as MOH.”

  “MOH?” I parroted, because, yes, I was still in shock.

  “Maid of honor, silly,” she clarified and my queasiness returned. She was the kind of person who used acronyms for wedding stuff because she’d been planning this thing since she hit puberty.

  “Right.” MOH. Someone, get me a bucket.

  “Of course I’d want you,” she blazed on, choosing to ignore my bewildered tone. “You’re my best friend and the most organized person I know.”

  Smart, organized best friend who hates weddings—sure, perfect choice for the MOH. “I thought you’d ask Denver. Won’t she be pissed when she finds out it’s me?”

  Dallas giggled with the kind of glee befitting a sadistic torturer. “Hope so. That hussy chose Detroit as her MOH just because her fiancé told her he thought I was pretty. Detroit! They can’t even be in the same room without getting into an argument.”

  I laughed with her. “How much does Savannah hate that her older sisters call her Detroit?”

  “As much as you hate weddings.”

  See? She knows I hate weddings and yet she somehow thinks this is a good idea. If I managed to keep her as a friend and not kill her sisters by the end of this thing, I’d call that a win.

  “Denver loves weddings.” I tried again to make her see logic.

  “Denver loves the idea of weddings because it was the last time she was really happy in her marriage. I do not want a sometimes bitter near-divorcée helping me plan my wedding and standing beside me at the altar.”

  Slight exaggeration. The last time I saw Denver she wasn’t the poster girl for happy marriages, but she wasn’t contemplating divorce either. I made another attempt at reason. “She’s your sister.”

  “You’re more my sister than she is. I see her once a year and every visit is filled with complaints about her lazy husband, who isn’t that lazy, her asshole children, who are angsty teenagers more than assholes, and her jealous baby sister, who’s not so much jealous as she is angry that she can’t snap her fingers and get everything handed to her like she used to as the baby of the family.”

  We stopped on the street as a huge crowd of tourists set up a roadblock to ogle the exodus from the Capitol. Presumably, the chance to spot a favorite congressional member was too great to miss.

  “Don’t they ever put in a full day?” Dallas eyed the stream of people leaving the building.

  “I’d settle for one vote at this point. Forget an eight hour day, just vote to pass something,” I retorted. Dallas and I weren’t the only cynics in this town, but as newswomen, we were also realists.

  “Let’s push through.” Dallas began elbowing her way through the crowd. She looked more like she was participating in a roller derby rather than just trying to part the horde. It was the best way otherwise—

  “Oh, my God! That’s Dallas Knight. Honey, look who it is. Let’s get a picture.”

  Otherwise someone will recognize Dallas, and she’d be stuck taking pictures with every person on this street. She wasn’t an actress, merely a news anchor, but that didn’t matter to people anymore. If she was on television, she was someone they had to get a picture with. The fact that she looked gorgeous with her long golden brown hair and those big green eyes that could mesmerize and instantly take a person’s measure didn’t help her ability to blend either.

  Dallas, in a hurry and late as usual, didn’t even blink at the exclamation. She kept moving. I grabbed onto her purse strap to stay connected and let her five-foot nine-inch advantage pull my shorter five-three form through the mob. The tux shop was around the corner a few doors down. I didn’t risk looking back to see if the pack was following us. If we made it around the bend quickly enough, a television news anchor wasn’t enough of a draw to pull people off their path just for a quick pic.

  “We ditched them, I think.” Dallas glanced over her shoulder. “Should have worn my hat and sunglasses.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause that fools everyone.”

  “Sarcastic little twit,” she muttered with a smile and turned to face me at the shop’s entrance. “You will try to get into the spirit of this wedding, won’t you, Skye? For me?”

  What was the wedding spirit? Being happy to pay exorbitant prices for a venue, food, cake, flowers, and live winged creatures to fly away as some symbolic gesture of everlasting love or something equally nauseating? Wetting my pants because I’d get to wear a pretty dress I’d never want to wear again? Losing my mind in an effort to keep my best friend calm amid all the stresses that popped with the planning and her family on her big day?

  I nodded stupidly because I liked Dallas as vehemently as I hated weddings. “Whatever you need.”

  She looped her arm around me as we pushed into the tux shop. Colin was meeting us here. I wasn’t quite sure why we were already at the tux buying stage, but not wanting to sound like a moron, I went with it. Her eyes roamed over the shop’s interior and caught on the mirror behind the sales desk. She straightened a lock of hair that didn’t need straightening, which made me notice the wind ravaged left side of my hair. I combed my fingers through the reddish brown strands that came to a stop at mid-neck in a wedge bob style. I tucked the offending side behind my ear, noting that my roots, the ones that showed my natural dark red color, were starting to show at the temple. I’d need to get a color touchup soon and remember not to tuck my hair behind my ears until I did. I hastily pushed the strands back in place.

  “Did I tell you Colin’s cousin arrived last night?”

  My eyebrows rose. “The best man cousin?”

  “Yep, only that doesn’t quite fit.” She gave a final cursory check in the mirror and made one more unnecessary hair tweak.

  “What doesn’t fit?”

  “You know the cousin I told you he spent his summers with and roomed with in college; the one that’s his best friend?” She waited for my nod. “It’s a she.”

  “What?” My jaw edged open. “His best man’s a woman?”

  “Can you believe it? I tried to talk him out of it. Offered to have her as one of my bridesmaids so she could be in a pretty dress instead, but no, he wants her standing up there with him.”

  Her green eyes studied every section of my multicolored hazels for a reaction. She’d told me several times that she wished she had my eyes. They weren’t that unusual. Lots of people had interesting hazel color mixes, but she liked mine with the dark blue ring surrounding oce
an blue irises streaked with green the color of grass that brushed up onto a narrow loop of mocha brown around my pupils. Depending on what I wore, the blue or green might stand out more, but for the most part, they looked nondescript. She had a distinctive eye color that people commented on, yet she wanted my eyes. That’s fine. I wanted her sleek honey brown hair because it was always taken seriously. Try having red hair and not being called “Ginger” before the end of every day.

  “Weird, right?” she prompted after her examination didn’t produce a response from me.

  “Actually, it kinda makes me like him more.”

  Her hand came out and grasped my arm, worry etched on her face. “What do you mean, more? I thought you really liked him?”

  “Simmer down.” I realized I’d have to be more obvious that I was joking when talking about anything to do with this wedding. Weddings must act as a comedy jammer on brides-to-be. “I like him fine. He’s no you, but he’ll do in a pinch.”

  She giggled and I sighed with relief. At least she hadn’t lost all sense of humor now that she was getting married. “Come on, let’s see if they’re here.”

  “Is she going to be in a tux, too?”

  Her hands spread out. “I’m trying to contain this whole thing. No reason she can’t wear a dress and stand beside him.”

  “It’s his wedding, too,” I reminded her. Dallas was the kind of person who’d planned every second of her wedding day in her head over and over, right down to a groom who does every little thing she says. She and I would have hated each other in high school.

  We were led to a private room where Colin was being helped out of a jacket he’d tried on. His broad shoulders spread across half a wall of clothing racks. As co-anchor on Dallas’s weekly newsmagazine show, his face was as gorgeous as hers, his light blue eyes as distinctive as her green, his short black hair as luscious as her long brown, but those shoulders were his most recognizable attribute.

  Beside him stood a trim woman with long yellow blond hair. Yellow, not honey, not wheat, not champagne, yellow as butter, and where Colin’s broad shoulders were his focus, this woman’s frizzy curls that reached to mid-back were as conspicuous as a neon blinking light. Think flattened tumbleweed. No one in this conservatively clad, appearance minded town would walk around with hair that crazy wild. I think I loved it.