Lovestruck Forever (3 page)

Thomas
had looked exceedingly uncomfortable. “Heidi just thinks it
would be better for us to be off the grid a little bit. We’ve
been getting a lot of fan mail—apparently some people are very
excited about me being in Michigan.” His voice was light, but
there was something in his tone when he said “fan mail”
that sent a little chill down my spine, though I couldn’t pin
point why. Thomas was always getting fan mail—
I
even got a few letters a week, though Heidi’s team generally
kept me from seeing any of that. So why did I get the sense that
something was different?

“Besides,”
Thomas had said, sliding an arm around my shoulders. “I think
it sounds kind of nice, being all cozied up with you miles away from
any neighbors.

So
we had ended up in this sprawling, riverside mansion, set far off the
road and surrounded by trees. It took some getting used to. I was
accustomed to the traditional, suburban track home layout of my
hometown and the overwhelming crowded closeness of Thomas’s
neighborhood in London. Out here, it was actually quiet—an
admittedly nice feature after leaving the craziness of my parents’
place every night.

After
parking in the garage, Thomas deactivated the security system and
held the door open for me. “After you.”

The
garage door entered into the immense kitchen, and I set my purse on
one of the long granite counters. We had rented the place with all
the furniture and kitchen things in place, and it was a good thing,
too. I never would have been able to think of enough kitchen supplies
to fill up all the cabinets. Several times, I had imagined my family
here—even our masses could have fit in this kitchen, and much
more comfortably than we did at my parents’ house. That, of
course, was out of the question—only Sofie had actually set
foot in this place.

“You
okay?” Thomas came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my
middle. I realized that I’d been standing at the counter, lost
in my thoughts.

I
turned in his arms, smiling, determined not to let myself get upset
about my family’s strict propriety.
They
can be crowded in that kitchen if they want
,
I thought, standing up on my tiptoes to kiss Thomas. “I’m
fine.”

“Good.”
He released me, heading for the fridge. “Wine?”

We
ended up on the couch in the den, our favorite place to relax in the
house. The great room was much larger and had a better view of the
river out back, but the furniture was way too fancy to feel
comfortable in. The den was cozier, lined with bookshelves and filled
with slouchy old leather couches. There was even a fireplace, which
Thomas turned on with the flick of a remote control. I leaned into
him, sipping my white wine, while he turned on his laptop.

“Okay.
Let’s see the dream wedding preparations.”

I
navigated to my Pinterest page and opened the secret board of all my
collected wedding stuff. Immediately the screen filled with a collage
of dresses, flowers, decorations, and cakes.

“Wow,”
Thomas murmured. “You weren’t kidding.”

I
laughed. “I just pinned everything I liked. A bunch of the
stuff Meghan has been sending. I wasn’t really trying to narrow
stuff down, you know? I thought it was just for fun.”

“I
like that,” he said, pointing at a photo of a loft space, the
rafters filled with twinkle lights, romantic table settings
glittering across the floor.

“That’s
the Madison in London,” I said. “It’s a schmancy
restaurant in the West End. I thought it would be cool for an elegant
city wedding.”

“Are
we elegant city people?” he asked, wrinkling his nose a little.

He
did have a point there. We loved living in London, but I wouldn’t
really call either of us elegant or sophisticated. “What about
this?” I asked, pointing to a sprawling set up in a barn. The
tables were decorated in mason jars filled with wildflowers and
lanterns hung from the exposed beams above. “Are we rustic-chic
people?”

He
snorted. “Have you ever set foot in a barn before, Lizzie?”

I
giggled. “Not that I can recall.”

“Okay,
maybe we shouldn’t pick a theme yet,” Thomas said
reasonably. “What if we started with the season?”

I
chewed on my lip, scrolling down the page. “These colors are
all for fall.” I pointed at a flower arrangement in oranges and
reds. “That’s really pretty.”

“Fall,
huh? That’s only a few months away.”

“Not
this fall,” I said quickly. “There’s no way we
could pull off a wedding by then—it’s only five months
until October.”

“Next
fall?” His voice was incredulous, and he pulled away from our
cuddle to stare down at me. “Lizzie, we are not waiting more
than a year. No way.”

“Then
I guess fall is out. I wasn’t joking, Thomas, you really can’t
pull something like this off in a few months.”

“How
hard can it be?” he asked. “I mean, we get a venue, a
cake, and some flowers, right?”

I
laughed, patting his cheek fondly. “You’re such a guy.”

“And
you forget that I’m a terribly rich, terribly famous movie
star—rich and famous movie stars can hire other people to meet
their demanding deadlines.”

I
started to roll my eyes, but he pointed at me, a triumphant look on
his face. “Lizzie Medina, we had an agreement. No more eye
rolling when it comes to money talk. We’re about to be married,
miss. It’s your money, too.”

I
scowled, forgetting the pinky swear I had made just last week when he
insisted on buying me a new cell phone to replace the one I had
dropped, though I had argued the cracked screen was still perfectly
usable.

“Fine,”
I muttered. “I won’t roll my eyes. But that doesn’t
mean we need to spend a ton of money on this wedding.”

He
made a big show of rolling
his
eyes then. “There are like, a thousand people in your family.
How will it be possible to
not
spend a ton of money?”

“We
can spend money on essential stuff—like feeding everyone. But
that doesn’t mean we need to get extravagant and hire a wedding
planner and rush order everything just to get married in the fall. A
winter or spring wedding would be perfectly fine.”

“I
don’t want it to be
fine
.”
I could tell that, for all of his eye rolling, he was awfully close
to losing his temper with me for real. “I want it to be
amazing. Perfect. Your dream wedding.”

“Thomas—”

He
let out a frustrated groan, letting his head fall onto the back of
the couch. He closed his eyes, running a hand roughly over his face.
“Why can’t you just forget about the money for once? It’s
such a stupid thing to get worked up about. We’re lucky to not
have to worry about money. Can’t we just leave it at that?”

I
looked down at my hands, feeling my own frustration rise. We’d
had this fight before, many times. I had never liked him spending
money on me. I told myself it was because I was independent and had
been raised to take pride in providing for myself, but I knew, deep
down, that was only part of it. The truth was, I hated that other
people might think of me as a gold digger, someone who would use
Thomas and his wealth just to achieve an extravagant life style. I
didn’t want to be thought of as
that
girl
.

You
can’t live your life worrying about what other people think
,
I reminded myself for what felt like the hundredth time.
You
can’t make your decisions based on some tabloid-reading
stranger’s opinion.

“You’re
right,” I conceded. “We’re lucky to not have to
worry. Let’s not fight.”

He
opened his eyes, turning his head to look at me. “Really?”

“Really.”
I held up a finger. “That doesn’t mean I want our wedding
to be silly and extravagant—no champagne fountains or crystals
in the flower arrangements.”

His
eyes twinkled at me as he grinned. “I hardly think of either of
us as champagne fountain kinds of people.” His face grew
serious. “We won’t be showy, Lizzie. That’s not
like either of us. But I have absolutely no qualms about throwing my
name around if it means I get to marry you sooner.”

“Such
a diva,” I sighed, squealing and sliding away down the couch
when he moved to tickle me.

“Answer
me this,” he said, grabbing my hands and pulling me back toward
him. “If you had your choice, and timeframe was no object, what
season would you want to get married in?”

“Autumn,”
I said automatically. “Maybe October. It’s my favorite
time of year.” I looked down at my lap, a little shy. “It’s
also when we fell in love.” When I raised my eyes, his smile
was huge.

“October
it is, then.”

We
stared at each other for a moment, both grinning like idiots, as the
magnitude of the decision hit us. We were getting married in less
than six months.

“So,”
I finally said, turning back to the laptop screen, still unable to
totally wipe the goofy smile from my face. “We have a date-ish.
We should probably figure out what kind of wedding we want—formal?
Church? Outdoors? Ballroom?”

“There’s
probably one other thing we should decide first.” His voice was
slightly guarded, as if he was worried about my reaction.

“What’s
that?”

“Where
are we doing this? Detroit? Or…London?”

I
swallowed hard. I couldn’t pretend I had never thought about
this. My entire family was based here, obviously, and, like Thomas
had joked, there were quite a few of them. Thomas, on the other hand,
had a much smaller immediate and extended family. It would make more
sense, logically, to have the wedding here, just based on the number
of people that would need to make a transatlantic trip. But still…

“Lizzie?”

“I’ve
always imagined it there,” I whispered. “Every single
time I think about it, I think of us getting married in St. Mark’s
Church.” I met his gaze, his eyes softening, and I knew he was
thinking about our weekly visits to the church when I was living in
London. Though he’d never been much of a church-goer before, he
knew worshipping on a weekly basis was important to me and had joined
me every weekend he wasn’t working.

“If
that’s what you imagine,” he said carefully, “then
that’s where it should be.”

“It’s
a logistical nightmare,” I muttered, shaking my head. “How
on earth would we get all of the Medinas and Flores and everyone else
over there?” I felt a sad little swoop in my stomach, but I
pressed on. “It makes much more sense to get married here.”

“We
could fly everyone over,” he argued. “It might be kind of
cool, actually. Give your aunts and uncles and all those cousins a
chance to see London. You said none of them had ever been to Europe.”

I
sighed, not really wanting to bring up the money thing again so soon
but seeing no other choice. “Thomas, we said we weren’t
going to be showy, right? You realize I have thirty first cousins?
And their spouses, kids, my aunts and uncles…we’re
talking a hundred people, easy. We cannot fly them all there and put
them up. It’s…beyond extravagant.”

“Would…would
they all have to come?” When it was clear I was about to argue,
he raised a hand to cut me off. “Just hear me out. What if we
brought over your close family for the wedding, then came back here
later for a big party with everyone else?”

“I
don’t know.” I fiddled with the hem of my shirt, feeling
a headache coming on. I had thought starting to plan the wedding
would be so much fun, but we’d only been talking for half an
hour and I was already frustrated with the whole thing.

“I
think…I think my parents might be upset if we did that.
Weddings are a big deal for our family, you know? Everyone comes. My
dad would think it was bad form to exclude anyone, including like,
third cousins I’ve never even met.” I remembered Laura’s
wedding a few years ago, how it had happened to fall only a few
months after my cousin Carla’s. My dad and my uncle had gone to
great pains to out do each other, each determined to throw the
biggest, best, most outlandish party. I felt another swoop of dismay
in my stomach. “They’re going to have a hard enough time
dealing with the fact that we’re going to pay for it, that they
won’t be the ones throwing it.”

“Hey,”
Thomas said, tilting my chin up so I was looking at him. “Please
don’t get sad. This is our wedding, Lizzie. It’s for us,
not them. It will make me really sad if you spend the whole time
trying to please everyone else instead of thinking about what you
want.”

I
nodded, but it was mostly for show. It was easy enough to say that,
but a lot harder to really believe it. I’d come a long way when
it came to standing up to my family, but the idea of upsetting them
over an event that was supposed to be joyous for everyone already had
my stomach in knots.

“Let’s
table the London versus Detroit debate for now,” he said.
“We’ll talk to them after the party, see how big of a
deal it would be. Okay?”

“Okay.”
I felt a little flicker of hope in my chest. Maybe if we could talk
to my parents in private, away from Maria and everyone else with an
oversized opinion, we could convince them that the wedding in
London/party in Detroit idea was a good one.

He
pulled me back into his chest, and I nestled there, allowing myself
to imagine the wedding I had dreamed of, in London, where we had
fallen in love, surrounded only by the people that meant the most to
us.

“There
is one other thing we should talk about tonight,” he murmured
into my hair before kissing the top of my head.

“What’s
that?”

“Where
should we go for our honeymoon?”

“Somewhere
warm,” I said immediately, thinking of Malibu. Though spring
was fast approaching in Michigan, it was still cold. And drizzly,
most of the time. If I missed anything about our brief stay in
California, it was the warm sun and the ocean waves.