That Wedding (18 page)

"That's a good idea. Kind of narrow it down. How did you do it? Like plan your wedding? I'm so overwhelmed by choices. How did you know what colors to chose? Did you have a theme?"

The wedding coordinator brings us glasses of champagne and starts asking me all sorts of questions. When my wedding will be, what my colors are, what style dress I want. Do I want it casual, formal? I'm pretty sure my eyes glazed over, and I just got that deer in the headlights look.

Katie lowers her voice and says to the coordinator, "She just got engaged. It's her first time."

"Yes, it is. Please be gentle with me." I turn back to Katie. "Seriously, how did you do it?"

"Just pick some colors, find your dress, and the rest will all fall into place. I promise."

Although I secretly hated the dresses we wore for her wedding, I'm now sorta applauding the fact that she had the courage to even chose one.

She touches my hand and says quietly, "This probably isn't the best time to tell you, but I don't know if Eric and I are going to make it."

"Make it to the wedding? But I haven't even set a date yet."

"I mean, make it. Our marriage. I'm not, we're not......I'm not sure. We fight a lot. I just don't know if it's going to last."

"Oh, Katie!" I hug her. "I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, this stays between us, but Neil and I have gotten close again. He's really been helping me."

"Neil's been helping you? Katie, he's had a crush on you since the eighth grade. He's not the person you should be getting marital advice from."

"I'm not. We're just friends. I mean there's sparks, but we just go to lunch. Talk. He listens to me."

"They always listen when they want in your pants. And that's a direct quote from YOU! Do you remember telling me that, when I was telling you that Jake wasn't really a jerk because he listened to me?"

She giggles. "I do remember that! God, he was a jerk."

Lisa skips back to where we're sitting and pulls me off the couch. She says in a perky voice, "Okay, we're ready for you to start trying on! I'm so excited you asked us to help you pick out your dress!"

Katie rolls her eyes at me from behind Lisa.

"I'm not sure I'll find a dress today, but everyone tells me I need to start planning."

"Have you set a date?" Katie asks.

"Not yet," I sorta lie. Not really though since we haven't picked an exact date.

Katie was right. The first dress Lisa has me try on is a huge pouffy hoop-skirted ball gown. This dress looks like something designed by Cinderella, Barbie, and Lady Gaga while they were sitting around getting high on mushrooms, or crack, or whatever drug makes you hallucinate. Not that those people would partake in those activities, but if they did, I'm thinking this is the dress that would be born from it. I have never seen so much satin, tulle, lace, glitter, sequins, and fabric roses, all in one place.

I look ridiculous.

You know those bobble head dolls, with the big heads and the little bodies? I look like a bobble head in reverse. A teeny head on top of a big huge body. I walk out to the middle of the store to give the girls a good laugh.

Katie smiles as Lisa screeches, "OH MY GOD! That's THE most GORGEOUS dress I have EVER seen! Don't you just love it?"

Could she possibly be serious? It looks like a bedazzler threw up on me.

"Uh, it's quite gorgeous, but I'm not sure this dress is like the one," I say.

She disagrees. "I know it's the first one you've tried on, but oh, JJ, that's got to be your dress. It looks amazing on you. Turn around. I'm dying to see the back of it better."

As I'm trying to turn myself around in this dress, which I'm pretty sure is like trying to maneuver a Hummer into a Mini Cooper-sized parallel parking space, the skirt hits a decorative column with a vase sitting on top of it. The whole thing topples over. If it weren't for Katie's quick reflexes, the vase would've hit Lisa in the head and probably killed her.

Which probably would have put a damper on the occasion.

Needless to say, three hours, and God knows how many Cinderella gowns later, I'm a bridal dress failure.

As in I have no direction, no idea what I want, and no idea when I'm going to figure it out.

I call Phillip and tell him that it's imperative that he meet me at Hooters. I need some hot wings, beer, and Monday Night Football to erase the trauma of this afternoon.

Danny texts me.

I wake up to Phillip kissing my shoulder. My back is spooned tightly into his chest. I'm still half asleep, half dreaming, but notice his kisses feel rough. The scruff on his face is tickling my shoulder.

"You need to shave," I whisper.

He runs his scruff up the side of my face and pulls my hips into a serious case of morning wood.

"Dang, Phillip, been having some good dreams?"

"Reliving last week, I think. We should have naughty dream week every week. Starting now."

After an amazing wake up, Phillip left for work, and I texted Danny.

I open up my laptop and see just part of Danny. One broad shirtless shoulder, half a muscular pec, an angular jaw, messy blonde hair, and one blue eye. Danny sucks at Skyping.

"Danny, the computer is your like your center. Line up under the ball."

He grabs the sides of the computer with both hands, and his whole face comes into view.

"You need a haircut," I tell him.

"What are you, my mother now?"

"No. How come you're up so early?"

"Lori was craving blueberry muffins."

"So you had to go get her some?"

"No, she's baking her mom's recipe. I'm keeping her company."

Lori yells from nearby. "Jade, why aren't you at work?"

Shit. She's way too smart for her own good. Who would even think of that?

"Um, I'm going in later. Working from home this morning," I lie.

Danny can usually tell when I'm lying. He says I always look up at the sky. He grins at me. His Devil Danny grin. Shit. He knows I'm lying.

I try to play it cool by saying, "What?"

"So, I heard the big news." He keeps grinning at me.

What!? Phillip promised he wouldn't tell. No. Phillip always keeps his promises. Danny must be talking about different news. "Um, what big news is that?"

"Naughty dream week was a big success."

I inwardly sigh with relief. "Yeah, it was a lotta fun. Phillip seemed to like it."

"He did. I talked to him on his way to work this morning. Heard all about how naughty you were."

"Did he say what he liked best?"

Danny looks at me confused. "Shouldn't you know that?"

"Oh, yeah, probably. I think it was the baseball. We almost got caught. Like if Cookie would've shown up a minute later, we would've been doing it."

Danny shakes his head at me. "Nope, that wasn't his favorite."