Free Frenemies by Megan Crane

extended family thought I was just a pathetic creature with an unusual and/or alarming fondness for royal blue taffeta.
    I stared across the crowded banquet room toward the main table and located Georgia easily enough. She was right where I’d left her: flirting shamelessly with a very hot consultant who worked with the groom-to-be. His name was Justin or Jordan or something like that, and he had
ambitious corporate shark
tattooed all over his excellently maintained body.
    “That’s an accident waiting to happen,” Amy Lee said with a sigh, sitting next to me and also looking at Georgia.
    “I’ll collect the chocolate and the Aimee Mann CDs,” I agreed. “You work on the speech.”
    “I’ve been telling her to look for a different type of guy for the past ten years!” Amy Lee protested.
    “Which is why the speech needs work.”
    We sat there for a moment. I tried to send positive thoughts Georgia’s way, on the off chance Jonah or Jesse (or whoever) was just a lamb in shark’s clothing. But it was unlikely. As a rule of thumb, if Georgia was attracted to him, the guy had to be a jackass. Witness Henry, the ultimate case in point.
    “I have to say, I was looking for a little more excitement,” Amy Lee said. “If I have to put on formalwear, there should at least be something to gossip about.” She shook her head when I nodded over at Georgia. “I can’t bring myself to gossip about something we both know we’ll end up dealing with when it all goes horribly wrong.”
    “I agree. I expected someone to be swinging from a chandelier, or falling down drunk on the dance floor,” I complained, looking around at the sedate gathering. People laughed and sipped drinks on all sides, looking as perfectly well-behaved and about as likely to throw down and get rowdy as a Junior League convention.
    “Henry was panting all over some stick figure with boobs,” Amy Lee threw out there. “But I guess that’s not exactly interesting or new, is it?”
    “He is Satan, after all,” I agreed, without the slightest pang of guilt. The other pang, I ignored. Fostering my friends’ dislike of my enemies was a responsibility I took seriously. There was no time for inconvenient pangs. I sighed. “This party is way too … civilized.”
    Usually when a group of such size was convened by a member of our wider group, you could count on scandal and intrigue. Someone was always kissing drastically above or below their station, and at a different engagement party last winter someone had actually spiked the punch.
    “The night is young,” Amy Lee said, sounding hopeful. She looked around. “I have to get some mandatory mingling in. Oscar thinks we need to expand our practice.” She grinned at me. “I’m assuming you’re not that interested in trolling for patients with me?”
    “You’re assuming right,” I agreed. I made a shooing motion with my hand. “Go schmooze.”
    “Oscar’s much better at it than I am,” Amy Lee said, getting to her feet and smoothing her dress. “He makes people
want
to come get a root canal. But strangely, he thinks we both have a responsibility to our livelihood.”
    “Men are so crazy!” I commiserated, shaking my head. We grinned at each other.
    “What are you going to do? Sit here, feeling blue?” She cracked herself up with that one. I ignored it.
    “I’m avoiding my stalker,” I told her primly.
    “Which we need to talk about.”
    “After you drum up business,” I said, and shooed her away again, for good this time.
    So far, I’d been doing a pretty good job of avoiding both Nate and Helen, both of whom I could see from across the room. (Helen, as it happened, was not wearing a gown that made her look like a gargantuan blueberry. She’d opted for a somewhat more flattering silver dress.) The fact that Nate’s eyes lit up when he saw me as if he’d never ripped my heart from my chest led me to conclude that he had no idea his girlfriend had called me not just eight times