"Shep, what the ever-loving Hell!"

Rachel burst through the door and rounded on him as he slumped, deflated, on his favorite wicker chair. He had concluded the Sunday service with as much dignity as he could muster—oddly enough, the collection plate had come back overflowing with a haul to rival Easter morning—and quickly ensconced himself in the sacristy as the others mingled on the lawn.

Finally, they'd have something to talk about.

"Don't curse in a house of worship," he snapped. "And you're not allowed back here—"

"For Pete's sake, Shep, it's a glorified kitchenette, not the Holy of Holies!" she barked. "I can't believe you. I can't believe you! What the—what kind of a brother—a minister—I just—you said it would be okay! We talked about it for like ten whole minutes—"

"You can't believe me? Really? You invited my ex-fiancée—the girl who left me at the altar—to come sleep in my home! You are literally asking me stand next to her in a church during a wedding ceremony, like some kind of sick joke! Seven years, Rach—seven years! If you deliberately don't have contact with a person for that long, it's a safe bet that you never want to see that person again!"

"Well it hasn't been that long for me, Shep!" Rachel shouted, her eyes shining. She threw herself down on another chair opposite him. "She's like a big sister to me, you know? I couldn't not invite her to the wedding, but I didn't ask her to be a bridesmaid until I thought I had your blessing!"

"What do you mean it hasn't been that long for you?" he asked.

"Well, I missed her like crazy after...you know. I mean, I was mad and sad for you, but I felt like I'd lost a family member too," Rachel explained. Her collarbones were flushed, but her voice had steadied.

"For like two years she didn't answer my calls or emails, but then out of the blue she called me back. It started a little weird—I mean, we didn't talk that much because of the time difference and work and whatever—but eventually it felt like old times. We even got together over New Years a few years back, and then again last summer, when she flew to the city for a conference! She's grown up a lot—I mean, we all have—but she's still the same, Shep. She's still your Clary—"

"Don't say it," he cut across her.

A reel of five years' worth of imagined texts and FaceTimes and Snapchats played in his head, and that same, low anger seared his belly. He realized it wasn't anger, but shame.

"You talk about me?" he asked hoarsely. Rachel rolled her eyes.

"Shep, c'mon. I'm an Aries. I told her you're happy, that you got married, but not much else, except in passing. We have better things to do than gossip about you," she said with a small smile.

"Why a bridesmaid?" he sighed. "Why?"

"Well," Rachel replied, regaining some of her flutter. "Aside from everything I just said, I noticed the craziest thing when I wrote out the other bridesmaids' names with mine: Rachel, Isabel, Sumitra, Tiffany, Jane, Nika—Anika is her full name—and Holly. Well, if I just had one more girl, with a name starting with C, I'd be able to spell J CHRIST with everyone's name—minus Nika, but with her name I can also do INRI, so it's worth it!"

Shep put his elbows on his thighs and leveled her with an icy stare.

"You're telling me that you asked Claire to be a bridesmaid for a Goddamn acrostic?"

Rachel prickled.

"It has significance, Shep! You know how numerology and symbology are very important to my expression of faith—"

"Right, because Jesus writes the Daily News horoscope," he scathed. "And you and Kyle are destined to be happy forever because you're getting married with Jupiter in whatever house and Mercury in retrograde surrounded by seven girls whose names' first letters spell SHIT N JC."

For once, Rachel had nothing to say. She stood up and stormed out of the sacristy.

"This dad-blamed trinket," huffed Miss Riri, stumping into the room as though she hadn't overheard a thing, "has the vestry sounding like a beehive!"

She tossed Shep his still-buzzing phone, Robin's face taking up the screen.