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The author of this story has read and accepted the rules for posting stories. They guarantee that the following story depicts none of the themes listed in the Forbidden Content section of the rules.
The following story is a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only. All sexual acts depicted in this story take place between consenting adults. Any similarities of the characters in the story to real people are purely coincidental.
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Index:
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Title: Four Friends, One Business
Author: RapeU
Chapter Tags: Story setup
Content Warnings: Some natural tension
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After a hard year of graduate school and life throwing boxes of diarrhea at them, a group of friends are eager for summer break. While discussing what plans they have for the summer, the group talks themselves into testing out the wedding business idea. What could possibly go wrong?
Click the spoiler below if you want more background information on the story
► Show Spoiler
Four Friends, One Business
Chapter 1 The First Maybe
Our first year of graduate school was finally over, which meant, for the first time in months, none of us had somewhere urgent to be or something quietly looming over the next morning. Hannah and I had Aisha and Zoe over for dinner, and by the time we finished eating, the apartment had settled into that familiar, comfortable kind of mess that only happened when everyone was relaxed enough to stop pretending they would clean it later. Plates were pushed aside, glasses sat half-full in places no one quite remembered setting them, and music played softly from Hannah’s phone in a way that blended into the background rather than filling it. For once, we’d found that rare pocket of time where nothing pressed against the edges. Not perfect, not finished, but a moment where the weight had lifted just enough that I could feel how heavy everything had been before.
Hannah sat beside me on the couch, clicking her favorite pen without actually writing anything, the rhythm steady enough that it blended into the background unless I focused on it. Aisha had claimed the armchair, one leg tucked under her, scrolling with the kind of focus she gave everything. Zoe was on the other side of me half on the couch and half somewhere else entirely, like she’d arrived mid-thought and hadn’t quite decided to stay. It was one of those quiet lulls that didn’t feel awkward or heavy, just comfortable enough that no one felt the need to fill it.
Zoe did anyway. “So what are we actually doing this summer?”
Hannah shifted slightly beside me, her pen pausing mid-click. “I’ll be working on a lab project.”
I swallowed the last of my cookie before answering, buying myself a second longer in the moment. “I’ll probably be helping Hannah.”
Aisha didn’t look up. “Surviving after a brutal year of research articles and parenthetical citations.”
Zoe nodded like that confirmed something important. “I want to survive and thrive. Preferably in a way that doesn’t involve me waking up before ten.”
“Sleeping in is a myth,” Hannah said. “My body physically cannot do it. I think it’s a nervous system problem.”
“It’s a willpower problem,” Aisha said, still not looking up. “You have to will yourself to stay in bed.” She made a face. “I can’t do it either.”
“I can’t,” I said, glancing at Hannah, “because Hannah wakes me up every morning.”
Hannah shot me a look, the kind that was more amused than annoyed. “You act like I have some kind of laser alarm system to zap you out of bed,” she said, poking my side.
“You do,” I grinned. “Your good morning kisses are enough to tease me awake.”
Hannah snorted, shaking her head in a way that told me she wasn’t going to argue with that.
“It’s adorable how disgustingly cute you two are together,” Zoe said, stretching out more comfortably now that the conversation had fully started moving. “I want to do something this summer. Not just stay in bed and let my apartment decay.”
I leaned back slightly, “Maybe you could take a summer job.”
Zoe shook her head immediately. “Something with the four of us though. Do you remember your idea, Wen?”
I nodded, already knowing where this was going. “The wedding planner business.”
“I want to do that,” Zoe said, and this time there was a seriousness under it that hadn’t been there before. “It’s something that matters. We already did one wedding.”
Hannah glanced at me, then back at her, her expression shifting into something more analytical. “We? I mostly planned our own wedding.”
“And all of us contributed to it in some way,” Zoe said. “It counts. And it went well.”
“It went well because Hannah turned into a project manager with a clipboard,” I said.
“I did not have a clipboard.”
“You had dozens of spreadsheets,” I pointed out.
“That’s not the same thing,” Hannah insisted, even though it clearly was.
“It’s worse,” Aisha said, finally looking up as she slipped her phone into her pocket. “Spreadsheets are just clipboards with commitment issues.”
We laughed, and for a second it felt like the conversation might stay right there, light and harmless, the kind of idea that exists for a moment and then fades without consequence.
Zoe leaned forward slightly. “We can do this. Hannah does logistics, Aisha scares vendors into compliance, Wendy handles people, and I make things look good.”
She wasn’t wrong, which was probably why no one rushed to argue with her.
Aisha tilted her head, already thinking past the idea into what it would actually require. “How much should we charge for it?”
“Grad student discount,” Zoe said. “We undercut the entire industry.”
Hannah frowned just a little, which usually meant she was already halfway into solving a problem no one had officially created yet. “We’d still need structure. Timelines, vendor coordination, contingency planning…”
Zoe pointed at her. “You’re on the verge of saying yes.”
Hannah paused, like she was deciding how much of that was true. “I’m just saying, it’s not as simple as showing up.”
“Nothing is,” Aisha said. “That’s why people pay other people to deal with it.”
Zoe nodded, satisfied. “And they’ll be paying us. The Wedding Avengers.”
“Absolutely not,” Aisha said immediately.
“Terrible name,” Hannah added.
“Z,” I said, laughing a little, “be serious. What we name it actually matters.”
Zoe grinned. “Okay, maybe not that one. We can work on that later. Is everyone in? Are we doing this?”
Aisha leaned back slightly. “I’m willing to try it as a test run this summer. If everyone else is.”
Hannah nodded. “My lab shouldn’t take too long. If we plan it properly, we can make it work.”
Everyone looked at me.
“I’m in,” I said, without needing to think about it. “Helping people on their wedding day isn’t a bad way to spend the summer.”
That settled it, at least enough for now. We drifted into another lull, but it wasn’t the same as before. The idea lingered, sitting just beneath everything else, shaping the quiet in a way that felt different from the easy nothing we’d started with.
Zoe broke the silence again. “I ran into Sums today.”
That shifted something in the room, subtle but immediate once it happened.
Hannah looked over. “Where?”
“Coffee place off Maple,” Zoe said. “She had Precious with her. And Hope.”
Aisha nodded slightly, like that lined up with something she already knew.
Zoe let out a small breath. “She seemed okay at first. Like she was holding it together. But you could tell it was a lot.”
“What happened?” I asked, already feeling where this might be going.
Zoe’s pause stretched a beat longer than natural conversation, her eyes flickering briefly to each of us before she spoke. “Her wedding planner quit. Just…gone. A few weeks before the wedding.”
Hannah straightened beside me. “How many weeks?”
“Two. Maybe three.”
“That’s not much time,” Aisha said.
“No,” Zoe said. “It’s not.”
“She say what they’re doing?” Hannah asked.
Zoe shook her head. “Not really. She kind of laughed it off, but it didn’t feel like a joke.”
There was a quiet pause after that, the kind that wasn’t empty so much as shared.
“Maybe it’s better this way,” Aisha said finally, her tone flat and face a mask of stone. “Maybe Sums will see it as a sign she’s making a mistake.”
I shook my head. “She won’t. Sums truly loves her. Or at least she thinks she does.”
That wasn’t the same thing, but it was close enough for now.
Zoe nodded. “It sounds like she’s still going through with it. I think she’s just trying to hold everything together.”
“Yeah,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. “That sounds like Sums.”
Zoe shifted slightly, like she was still halfway in that conversation. “I just listened. But it was bad. Like, she’s trying to act like it’s fine, but it’s not.”
No one responded right away, but it didn’t feel like silence so much as everyone landing in the same place at the same time. Sums was good at holding things together longer than she should have been.
“It just sucks,” Zoe added after a long pause. “This is supposed to be a good thing, and now it’s just…stress.” She hesitated, just long enough to make it obvious she was deciding whether to say the next part out loud. “What if this is our first one?” she asked.
I blinked. “Our first what?”
Zoe gestured between us. “The thing we were just talking about. Wedding planning. What if we helped them?”
Aisha shifted her weight against the cushions and frowned. “That’s not a small favor.”
“I know,” Zoe said quickly. “I’m not saying we commit. Just…we meet with them. See what they need.”
I looked at Hannah. She hadn’t said anything yet, which usually meant she was already thinking three steps ahead and deciding whether this was worth the trouble.
I exhaled. “It’s Sums,” I said. “She’d help any of us.”
That was the difference. If it had just been Alex, it would have been a firm no for all of us.
Aisha shifted again. “We don’t know what we’d be walking into.”
“No,” Hannah said. She paused for a moment then said, “But we could find out.” That was as close to a yes as she was going to get without saying it outright.
“We’re not committing to anything,” Aisha added.
“Not yet,” Hannah agreed.
Zoe nodded, already reaching for her phone. “Ok, I’ll see if they want to meet.”
“Be clear,” Aisha said.
“I will,” Zoe promised.
“And no one should be alone with her,” Aisha added quietly. She wasn’t talking about Sums.
Zoe nodded once and started typing.
I leaned back into the couch, letting the moment settle around us. The apartment still looked like a mess, the same plates, the same glasses, the same low music in the background, but it didn’t feel quite as simple as it had earlier. We hadn't decided on anything yet, but something had shifted even if none of us said it out loud. Knowing us, that was usually how things got started.
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