Dear Diary,

Well two days and many dollars later and the deal is done!

On Thursday I spent most of the day at my friend's house, sunning and swimming at the pool. When he got back from work we went to his mom's for dinner (I have known his clan since I was young so they feel a bit like family). We left dinner early and went back to his house with the intention of getting into the jacuzzi, but it started to storm... not just rain, but STORM, so that wasn't really possible. No matter, I had to get up very early the next morning.

We were up at 6am and friend dropped me off at the hotel before 8am. Steffy and her mom picked me up and I rode with them to pick up the cake and dress and take care of a thousand little details. We got to the reception hall and spent several hours preparing the space- part of the way Steffy and Matt were saving money. Steffy's cousins and other family members all showed up to help. That's when I saw her brother ironing a tablecloth, and I said OH MY.

I knew Steffy had a brother but had never met him. I'd even seen pictures of him, but I didn't really have a sense of what he was like in real life. It was just one of those things where as soon as I looked at him, I felt a deep attraction and I could tell he found me attractive too. Oh, yum.

After setting up everything at the hall we went to the rehearsal. I was a little disappointed that as a bridesmaid I wasn't paired up with Brian, Steffy's brother, but rather another of Matt's friends (I would soon learn that it didn't matter much anyway). We did our rehearsal and after that went to the rehearsal dinner at one of Steffy's relatives' house. Brian sat next to me at dinner and was really sweet and attentive. The party got rowdy at the end of the night, and the girls all went back to our hotel.

In the morning we had a women's breakfast with all the bridesmaids, mothers and Matt's sister. I found Matt's family to be a little annoying. His mother is always butting in and his sister had a way of talking that just made herself the center of everything. Babytalk was there, and fairly well behaved, when she wasn't clinging to me (she has a tendency to hug a little too long and touch a little too much, in my opinion). After breakfast we took our time getting ready- hair, makeup, lots of laughing. The boys showed up in their tuxes looking nice, and we all got our pictures done, then it was off to the church for the ceremony, then it was all about food and dancing and celebrating.

The guy I was paired up with- Phil, the one who walked me down the aisle and whatever- is from very close to my neighborhood. While we were setting up reception hall he asked me who I was dating and I said no one. I heard him make a joke to the other groomsmen that that was about to change. At the actual reception the table seating was non-traditional, there wasn't really a bridal party table. The bride and groom were seated with their family at one table, and the bridesmaids and groomsmen were divided in no particular fashion between two other tables. So I was actually sitting near another groomsman and the best man, while Phil was at another table. He actually seemed to get upset that I was getting along with the other groomsman. I danced with Phil a bit. He's not a very good dancer and he wouldn't put his beer down. He suggested I give him my number at the end of the night. I wasn't very attracted to him at all but I said okay, I guess there's really no harm in giving somebody my number.

I danced with the other groomsman, Peter, quite a bit, and also Brian. I was having a really good time dancing. I went to use the restroom, and when I came out Phil was waiting for me. He grabbed me by the arm and said "C'mere" and pulled me into a dark corner behind the door. He bent down as if to kiss me and I said, "Seriously? You're going to try to kiss me after you've been drinking all that beer?" I was disgusted because a) that's nasty and b) we didn't have any kind of connection like that and he was totally misreading the situation. It might have been one thing if a guy had asked me for my number and wanted to take me out to dinner and get to know me, quite another when he wants to pull me into a dark corner and make out. He didn't seem to get it at all, and thought that maybe I didn't want to kiss him because I am allergic to the wheat in the beer or maybe because I wasn't drunk enough myself. He even said, "What if I told you I was a good kisser?" Dude, please. Every drunk man thinks he is a good kisser.

Anyway after that, Phil was obviously upset with me. He wouldn't look at me. Oh well. I kept dancing with Brian and Peter. I told Jen, one of the other bridesmaids, what happened. I was not aware at the time that Jen is the type of girl who gets drunk and tells everybody everything. So when I was slow dancing with Peter and she was dancing with Phil, they came closer to us and Jen asked if we wanted to switch partners so Phil could try to make out with me again. Uh. Awkward. Later, when she was apologizing, she explained that she thought perhaps it was the kind of thing where we could all "have a good laugh about it." Obviously, it was not. Phil remained pissed and passive-aggressive and that was that.

I drove the group back to our hotel and we were supposed to continue partying, but somehow everyone disappeared. Brian was left without a ride home, the other bridesmaids wanted to put their pj's on and go to bed. It was Brian and I hanging out by the pool. I told him he could stay in our room, he said it would be weird with three girls there. As you could imagine I was wishing I had my own place to invite him back to. Instead we made him a bed in the foyer part of our room, tucked him in and gave him a dry, but long and tender kiss on the mouth goodnight... Oh, his lips were so damn soft. He was luscious... I went back in my little bed and Jen and Babytalk were actually weighing the pros and cons of sleeping with the bride's brother. I couldn't do it though.

Wouldn't it just cause problems?

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