Gus draws me out of my thoughts when he says, guiltily, “The pictures will be ruined.”
“Why?”
He answers me by giving me an awkward, wobbling smile, and revealing a little gap in his smile. I stare at it for a moment, the spot where his tooth used to be, then I let out a relieved laugh, reaching forward and hugging him to me.
“Oh, you little goof ball,” I mutter, forcing myself to use the breathing exercises Ettie taught me when the wedding stuff really started to ramp up. “You look perfect.”
Gus pushes away from me, looking dubious. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Plus, if you really don’t like it, we could always wait until next year…”
“You arenotwaiting any longer!”
Gus grins over my shoulder and I turn to see Ettie and Sienna standing there. Sienna frowns, but Ettie is smiling at me, going on, “Poor Russell wanted to marry you the day after he proposed. Plus, sorry girl, but I amnotgoing through wedding planning again.”
“Can I please finish your hair?” Sienna asks, raising an eyebrow at me and gesturing at Ettie. “I still need to do hers, too.”
“I thought you were going to be nice now,” Ettie says, giving Sienna a look that Sienna rolls her eyes at.
“And I thought we were going to follow aschedule!”
“If I’m hearing the wordschedule, I’ll assume Sienna is in here…” a deep voice says.
Orie’s face appears behind Ettie’s, and I let out a breath, starting to feel a little claustrophobic, piled into the bathroom with them blocking me in.
“Okay, okay,” I say, shooing them off and picking up my skirt to walk carefully back through into the bridal suite. “Let’s stick to theschedule.”
“Do not lethim,” Sienna says, darting a glare at Orie, “turn you against me.”
“Nothing could turn me against you,” I say, touching her arm, “except if you burn me with that curling iron.”
“What’s wrong with a littlespontaneity? Don’t you think following schedules is a bit boring?” Orie asks, leaning against the mirror and giving Sienna a pointed look.
“Your resistance to schedules is why the new clinic is taking so long to open up.”
The second clinic is opening up on the other side of the city, to serve a whole new population. Outside of the wedding, work on that has been taking up most of Russell’s time.
Between that and my PR firm, there have been plenty of reasons it’s taken so long for us to finally go through with the wedding thing. Russell acted like it was physically painful for him, each month that passed in which I wasn’t actually his wife, but when it came down to it, raising a kid, starting a business, and managing a health care empire were just not that compatible with also planning a wedding.
For a little while there, we were also managing communications with Grande’s law office, trying to stave off a lawsuit. Eventually, Grande and Russell managed to find ahappy medium—a way for the inheritance to roll into the clinics, a loophole that Grande agreed to when Russell assured him this thing between him and I was actually real this time.
“No—thathas to do with red tape,” Orie mutters, “which is totally in your ballpark. You probably love clauses and rules. Don’t you want to color outside the lines sometimes, Lloyd? Don’t you want to spice up life?”
“My life is very spicy, thank you very much,” Sienna snaps back, her cheeks going pink when she seems to realize what she’s just suggested. Orie grins, ready to pounce on that, but I cross my arms and shoot him a look of my own.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask, then, before he can answer. “Unless you’re planning to get in a bridesmaids dress, you’d better have a good reason.”
“As great as my legs would look under a skirt,” Orie deadpans, “I come with a message from Russell.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a small envelope and hands it to me, before doing a small mock bow, stopping to flirt with Ettie, and striding out of the room.
“God, he’s so annoying,” Sienna mutters, pushing her hair back from her face and letting another perfect curl fall from her wand.
“Ri-ight,” I answer, but most of my attention is on the little envelope in my hand. Carefully using a manicured nail to slide along the seal, I open it and pull it out.
Finally getting my woman, after seven years of waiting. Worth it. R.
“Uh-uh,” Sienna says in alarm, pulling a little too hard on my hair and pulling me out of the moment. “No crying—the setting powder is good, but notthatgood.”
