“I don’t,” he admitted. He knew about pretty much every different kind of butter and how it could affect the taste of a pastry, but fabrics were an entirely different world.
“Silk,” Julia said. She took in a shuddering breath and swiped at her cheeks. “Blue or purple. Any shade, at this point, though if given an option, I prefer pastel.”
“Got it. I’ll send you pictures before I purchase.”
“No need. I trust you.” Julia pulled Eliana into a hug, and then surprised Asher by wrapping her arms around his waist in a super tight hug. He left one of his arms hanging awkwardly at his side but brought the other one around to give her a bro-pat on the back. Would he ever get used to this family’s affectionate nature?
He didn’t hate it, but he never expected it.
“Thank you.” Julia beamed up at him, her eyes the exact same shade and shape as Eliana’s. He glanced at Eliana, who’s soft expression did wildly acrobatic things to his stomach. Julia pulled away, and then tucked herself back into Logan’s side. He kissed the top of her head, and it was clear the two of them belonged together. To each other.
Eliana waved at Miss Havisham. “Bye, cutie! Don’t plan any weird weddings without us.” She turned to Asher with a wry smile. “We’d better go. But first, let’s pick up my car. I’m not riding on the back of a motorcycle with a bolt of fabric in my lap.”
Chapter 21
“Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow...” —Louisa May Alcott
Whycouldn’tanythinggoright with this wedding?
Eliana drove into the parking lot of the eighth fabric shop she and Asher had visited. Her phone continued to buzz, and she continued to ignore it, knowing that it was most likely her agent and editor, needing more communication than a thumbs-up.
If she ignored it, it was like it didn’t exist, right? She inwardly rolled her eyes.Sure, that’s mentally healthy.
“This is the place. I feel it,” she said to Asher as they walked through the muggy heat into the blessedly cool fabric store.
“Me too,” he said. “I mean it helps that we called first.”
“Luck favors the prepared!”
Once they’d exhausted all the local fabric stores, which didn’t have enough fabric to make three dresses, they’d called ahead before driving the forty-five minutes to this one, to see if they had the fabric they were looking for. The woman they’d spoken to assured them they did, and they’d raced into the store for it.
“Let’s head straight to customer service,” she said. The woman on the phone said she was going to pull the fabric for her to look at. A young woman in her twenties stood at the counter with a bored expression on her face.
“Hi. I called you earlier about the silk.”
The girl nodded, and moving at the pace of a snail, turned and grabbed a bolt of fabric from a pile behind her.
Eliana’s smile faded. Grandma wanted twenty-one yards, and there was no way that bolt had more than ten.
“Is this all you have?” she asked.
“In the lavender. We have more in sky blue and sage green.”
She grabbed those from the counter behind her as well, but they had even less fabric than the purple one. Her mind went blank as she looked at them, like her brain had stopped working.
“You said on the phone there was enough,” she said, sounding desperate to her own ears.
The woman smacked her gum. “There is, combined.”
“I didn’t mean combined.” She spoke through her teeth as her body’s temperature increased. It was too late to make it to any other store, which meant they wouldn’t get the fabric to Winnie tonight, which meant another delay in getting these dresses done, which meant one more strike against her planning the perfect wedding.
“Well you should have been more specific,” the girl defended. “You asked if I had twenty-one yards of silk in green, blue, or purple. And I do.”
“Or,” she said, knowing she was being too loud. But if steam could come out of a person’s ears, it would be coming out of hers. “I said OR. Not AND.”
The girl shrugged like she couldn’t care less. And Eliana’s phone buzzed in her pocket, nearly sending her over the edge of her sanity and over the counter as she gripped the ledge in front of her.
“I am trying to plan the perfect wedding in a limited amount of time, and you just cost us an entire night of work.”
