Page 45 of Cooped Up for Christmas

Had it been this crazy when I was a kid? I didn’t remember it being this insane. Had I not noticed because I hadn’t cared as much? Or had my instincts heightened over the years, providing me with an almost superhuman ability to predict disasters?

Or, maybe—and humor me on this one—these people brought the cray-cray with them in one of their enormous suitcases.

At any rate, I locked myself in my room—didn’t even let Mason and Lola in—and just. Got. Centered.

I took several slow, deep breaths in and out, because I’d read somewhere that it helps calm the mind. It didn’t work, but it felt nice, so I did it again.

All right. I need a wedding in twelve hours. I pictured the wedding in my head, the way I would want it done, and started scribbling notes. Dress, rings, flowers, veil, cake, tiara. Was anything else required?

The cake was no problem for Noel, and I was pretty sure Farley and her posse could cover all the rest. I knew for a fact they had at least two tiaras, not counting Lola’s. So beyond that, we needed decorations—Ken was on that—music, which was coming and…a wedding breakfast.

I made a face. Noel was going to shit a brique when I informed him.

I headed directly for his quarters. Now that the big brunch was over, he’d retreated into his room. After he responded to my knock with a blasé, “Entre,” I poked my head inside and grinned.

“Hey Noel,” I said in a super-cheerful voice. “Farley and Jamison want to get married tomorrow! Can you make a wedding cake? They also want a wedding breakfast buffet before they leave.”

Were they really leaving tomorrow? Oh, glory hallelujah.

Noel did not share my enthusiasm…about any of it. His eyes, and nostrils, flared. “Tomorrow? Merde!”

As I had suspected, the highly-strung chef did not take the news well. He had a hissy fit at the very least. Again, it was in French, and far beyond my schoolgirl vocabulary, so I ignored it. He calmed down a little after Whit informed me that all the guests would be going out for dinner tonight to celebrate at a fancy-schmancy restaurant. I didn’t mention the fancy-schmancy part to Noel, because I didn’t want him to have apoplexy. Fancier than moi? I could practically hear him gesticulate.

However, when he realized that he could take the rest of the night off, once he finished the cake, he was all smiles.

The guests actually left early for their dinner. Judging from their body language, they were getting cabin fever—my favorite kind of fever, because everybody wants to leave the house. Heck, I was at the front of the line waving them good bye.

As soon as they disappeared from sight, everyone sprang into action. I’d already had a meeting with my team, so they all knew what needed to be done and in which priority. Not that I have OCD.

Decorations for the wedding were first and foremost. We could not wait until tomorrow to do something this big and we wanted to have the heavy lifting done before the guests came back.

Coop, Wren, and Ben went to the storage shed to see if they could find anything useful, while the rest of us started hanging draperies. We moved quickly, because there was a lot to do. Ken’s plan had us re-arranging his precious Fairy Ball decorations into a Fairy Princess Wedding. It had the same feel of the Fairy Ball, without all the colored scarves—although he did artfully place the white ones.

The result was amazing.

If you ask me, I don’t think we make enough money.

At one point in this frenzy, I stepped back to see if the drapes were symmetrical, and I backed into someone. Someone who “ooofed”.

Naturally, I whirled around and—

You know how it is when you see someone you’re not expecting to see, in a place you’re not expecting to see them? Yeah. My first thought was, who is this man and why is he invading my space?

It took a second to click, that this person was familiar. And smiling.

And also…he was my boyfriend.

* * *

“Dirk! What are you doing here?” And yes, I blurted it. I didn’t mean to. It just emerged. He was supposed to be in Switzerland.

He hugged me in response. He’d never been much of a talker.

Or a question answerer.

I endured the embrace, which went on for a while—ostensibly to illustrate to me how much I’d been missed. Eventually, he let go.

Had he come to break up? Or propose? Or just say, hey?