fake it til you make it | greta van fleet

a family affair | one

You never really expected being your older sister's maid of honor would be so much work. Sure, you knew you'd be expected to help out with planning the event itself, as well as planning the correlating events like her bridal shower and the bachelorette party. What you hadn't expected, though, was for your sweet sister to turn into the bridezilla of the century.

There was barely enough time left in a day for you to think, let alone do anything for yourself ever since you'd agreed to the task. It had really crept on you, too. In the beginning, things had been mostly sunshine and rainbows–but as the date drew nearer, and things were meant to be finalized, the sunshine turned to lightning and that rainbow had become a twister.

Luckily, there wasn't much left to be done, and you could almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. The venue was set, the flowers had been chosen (after a notable tantrum on the bride's part), the caterer had been selected, and the invitations were out in the world. You'd reserved a block of hotel rooms for the bachelorette party, the bridal party's dresses were being altered in record time, and things really seemed to be looking up.

The only major obstacle left was that fucking cake.

Initially, the cake had been the first thing to be decided upon. Your sister had always dreamed of having a tri-tiered, red velvet cake with cream cheese buttercream frosting, and fondant roses. Hell, you were pretty sure there were different variations of the cake doodled in all of her diaries dating back to her preteen years.

But then tragedy had struck, or at least it had in the eyes of dear Penny. The cake had been arranged for months, the selected bakery already having received their deposit, and then one night you'd received a call from your sister. Your eardrums had nearly blown out due to the volume of her wails, and through a lot of deliberation, you'd pieced together her broken words to figure out that someone had stolen her cake.

A friend of her fiance's had invited her to her own wedding, and she'd been horrified to watch the cake be wheeled out–her cake. It was treacherous, mutinous! How had she found her designs? Who would betray her so?

You hadn't had the heart to tell her that her concept of a wedding cake was quite literally the most basic design in history. That, and you also were pretty sure if you'd told her that she'd have gouged your eyes out with her brand new bridezilla claws. You'd bitten your tongue and talked her down from confronting the bride, patting yourself on the back for stopping Penny from embarrassing herself, and eventually, you'd convinced her that there was sure to be a better cake meant for her.

That was how you'd ended up at a bakery at seven in the morning on a Saturday. The Bakery, as it was called, did not consider itself a bakery, in all actuality. The business was marketed as a high-end, designer pâtisserie. In other words, it was a cheap ploy to prey on rabid bridezillas like your sister, but it was by no means cheap.

You'd seen the estimate for a simple three-tier cake, no frills whatsoever, and nearly perished. It wasn't coming from your wallet, though, so you just smiled and told your sister she was a genius for finding such a luxurious place. That had made her happy, at least.

Penny was radiant that morning, dressed in a fancy dress with her hair all twisted up in a sophisticated updo, and her fiance, Mark, was wearing a matching tie. Her eye had twitched when you'd shown up in jeans, with holes no less, but she'd kept her mouth shut so as to maintain her poise. The other guy, though, you really had no idea who he was or why he was even there.

You knew all of Mark's groomsmen, and the swanky lawyer type standing beside him was not one of them. "Sis," she scowled at the name, but you continued, "who's this?"

Apparently, giving attention to the elephant in the room was precisely what Penny had hoped for. She beamed, plum-painted lips spreading in a broad smile as she introduced, "This is Tate! He works with Mark, and apparently, he's rather knowledgable about cake!"