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Shannon snaps her fingers. “You. The window. Talk.”
I open and close my mouth. If there are thoughts, they’re not making their way into words. They’re a log-jammed in my brain, stacking up high, the pressure I’ve felt all morning mounting to an almost unbearable level.
Shannon sighs and sits down at my feet, adjusting her emerald-green dress so it won’t wrinkle before pulling a handful of Twizzlers out of exactly nowhere. Maybe from her cleavage? She holds one out, and I start to shake my head, then change my mind and snatch two.
“How about I make guesses, and you tell me hot or cold.” Shannon doesn’t wait for a response before firing off the first question. “Second thoughts?”
Shockingly, no. I still want to marry Eli. It’s just … maybe not for the same reasons I agreed to do so.
“Cold,” I croak, my voice squeaking like an old screen door.
“Worry about all the legal stuff?”
“Warmer.”
Shannon bites off the end of a Twizzler, chewing thoughtfully. “Scared?”
I shrug and fold a whole rope of candy into my mouth. The answer is, of course,hot. Pizza oven-hot. Earth’s core-hot. Shannon might say Hemsworth-hot, which is the highest heat level on her personal rating scale.
“Ah. There it is.”
“Where what is?” Jenny bursts through the door, breathless in a cloud of pink chiffon, returning from a Gran-check.
I decided maybe against better judgment, to have Gran attend the wedding even if she doesn’t remember who I am. Eli promised that Felix, the team’s goaltender, will be her date-slash-caretaker. His girlfriend, Gracie, is playing cello in the string quartet, so Felix offered to help with Gran. Which is super sweet. According to Eli, Felix had a special relationship with his grandmother and was looking forward to this job.
Even after being warned about some of Gran’s escapades.
“Your gran is totally fine. Felix watching her is about the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen, and now I need to find a guy who loves grandmas.” Jenny pauses, touching the pink flower tucked into her braids. “Uh-oh. What’d I miss? I see you brought out the big guns.”
She gestures to the Twizzlers, then pulls two out of the fistful Shannon still has. They seem to be multiplying. Is magical cleavage licorice a thing?
“Bailey tried to climb out the window,” Shannon reports, sounding every bit like a toddler tattling.
Pushing her glasses up her nose, Jenny blinks owlishly as she takes a seat next to me on the couch. “But your dress!”
“I know, right?” Shannon shakes her head.
“I’m glad everyone’s first concern is the dress,” I say.
Jenny nibbles on a Twizzler. “Obviously, we’re more concerned about you.”
“But you don’t want to talk,” Shannon adds. “This is how we wear you down.”
I drop my head in my hands, wishing this were a fainting couch, not just the regular kind in one of many living rooms inside Parker’s parents’ house. I could use a good faint. Maybe a nap. Or a coma. I could wake up, already be married, and then carry on from there. If Eli and I had a totally normal relationship first, I could see marrying him. Not in a two-week period of time like this. Probably not. Then again, maybe.
I’m shocked at how my original crush has grown and deepened into something else at rapid speed. And it’s only getting worse. Every look from Eli, every touch, every kiss makes a swell of emotion balloon in my chest, tightening and expanding until I feel ready to burst.
Every kindness too.
There was last night before he left, when Eli gave me a single, soft kiss while cupping my face so tenderly, I actually felt breakable. Like his care with me meant I’m made of the thinnest blown glass. Every brush of the whiskers in his neatly trimmed beard felt like a distinct electric current, jolting my system with tiny shocks.
Then he said, “See you tomorrow, Leelee,” picked up his bags, and left to stay the night with one of the guys.
Not even a little piece of that felt like it was fake.
Then, when I showed up today, I realized that somehow, Eli managed to put together a whole wedding in the span of a week. All because I didn’t like the idea of getting married in a courthouse. Shannon wasted no time telling me how he’s been hounding her for information—what flowers I like, what I’d like to eat for the reception, the kind of cake I want, what music I like. It’s all about me.
When I then peeked inside the tent and saw big flower arrangements and candles and gauzy fabric stretched across the top of the tent, transforming it into a beautiful kind of dream, black dots filled my vision and I had to grab onto a chair so as not to topple over.
