“Logan’s old babysitter delivered it this way. All we can figure is she left it outside for too long,” she said, tightly.
“That can’t be fixed.” Eliana choked back her tears. How could so many things go wrong?
“There’s not enough time to make a new cake, but your dad and Don are at the store right now, getting whatever they can.”
Eliana’s stomach dropped. “Don and Dad?”
“Don likes to bake. He swears he can help fix this.” Mom looked way too hopeful for how skeptical Eliana felt. “We’ll make it work. I promise.”
“The wedding starts soon.”
“They’ll be back in time,” Mom said with more confidence than Eliana thought was warranted. They hugged tightly. “It’s going to work out,” she said with feeling. “The caterers are here already, and the rest of the food looks amazing.”
Eliana didn’t have time to argue. Time was ticking down, and Julia had sent her at least three texts, telling her the make-up artist and hair stylist needed to leave soon for another event, so she needed to get there ASAP.
Her phone buzzed with a text.
Asher:I just got here. Is there anything I can help with?
Eliana:Convince my sister to have a Christmas wedding?
Asher:It may be a little too late for that.
Asher:Are you okay?
Eliana started to write out everything that was going wrong when her phone rang. Logan.
“Hey,” Logan said in a cagey way that made Eliana’s heart completely stop.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Well… Kai and I went over to the zoo this morning—”
“The wedding is at the wildlife conservation center!” Was the world losing its mind today?
“I know. We had a meeting set up with a flamingo specialist over there to talk about what happened to you. Julia knew about it.”
Eliana pinched the bridge of her nose. This couldn’t wait? But Julia knew who she was marrying. “Okay? What did you find out?”
“Oh, it was really interesting. We showed him your video, and he spotted—”
“Hey, maybe we can circle back to this after the wedding,” Kai cut in to say, his voice sounding more than a little strained in the background.
“Oh, yeah.” Logan cleared his throat. “We got a flat tire on our way to the wedding.”
She made a noise that was somewhere between a choke and a scream.
“We’re putting the spare on right now,” he rushed to say. “But we probably won’t get there until right before the wedding starts. So if you could stall—”
Something clattered in the background, and Kai swore.
“I’ve got to help,” Logan said. “Tell Julia I love her and I can’t wait to get married to her.”
He hung up, and Eliana stared at her phone. Her stressed-out heart was going to burst into a thousand tiny pieces and litter the hallway like confetti.
She pulled up her text to Asher and stared at it, and then deleted the entire thing before sending. She didn’t want to get used to him helping her all the time. Besides, hadn’t he seen her look messy enough?
She took a deep breath. “It’s fine, Eliana. You’ve got this.” She forced a smile onto her face.
