Four days before Emery’s wedding, he, Tessa, and Emery found themselves in Emery’s room. Chase sat at the foot of the bed while Tessa paced beside it. Chase held a book of quotes, feeding them to Emery so she could draw them on cardstock for the photo album book. While they enjoyed the leisurely task—one of the few that Tessa would allow them to work on—Tessa folded her arms, her cellphone in hand as she stressed about the latest wedding catastrophe.
“It’s going to be fine,” Emery assured her, annoyance in her expression, surely because she thought the whole scenario was backwards.
“Going to be fine? The photographer is sick, the event coordinator had a family emergency come up, and you guys live in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, so now I have to figure this crap out in two days. How the fuck am I going to get a photographer in two days?”
She scratched the back of her head, shaking the long red locks that fell to her shoulders.
“I’m sure we can just get everyone to take pictures or something,” Emery said. “Relax.”
“Oh, that’s so cute that you think you can just have everyone take pictures. No. It’s yourwedding. You have to have a professional photographer to capture it all so we can put it into a special book and on social media so you can get a thousand likes when you post it.”
Emery turned to Chase, and they shared a knowing look, because that was sonothow Emery was. “Tessa, I think—”
“It’s not your job to think. I’m going to make a few more calls. See if I can work something out. At the very least, we know we have two videographers coming. Maybe one of them has experience in photography or knows someone else who can help out.”
“I can call,” Chase offered.
“No, that’s my job. You guys finish up with the photo album while I work on this. I’ll be right back.”
She stepped out, leaving Chase and Emery staring at each other in horror.
Oh… my… God, Emery mouthed. “If she gets worked up about one more thing, I’m going to lose my mind.”
She handed Chase a card she’d handwritten before he added it to the photo book that lay on the bed before him.
“She’s made everything such a chore that I hardly even wanted to go to my own bachelorette party.”
“It was fun, though. You have to admit.”
“It was fantastic, but I didn’t realize how much Chelsea was going to drink. She just stopped nursing, so I guess she was thinking ‘go big or go home.’ Oh, God. When she was threatening to piss all over the side of that parking garage, I almost died.”
Chase laughed. “Right? You have some crazy friends.”
“Including you. I can’t believe you put up with us.”
She drew around the edges of another card, making a design like she would have done on the notes she wrote when they were little. Chase picked the book of quotes back up off the bed—one Tessa had stuffed with Post-it notes to signify the ones they wanted to insert throughout the photo album.
“I’m just glad Pa made that rule about family getting hotel rooms,” Emery said. “I don’t think I could have handled everyone running around the house. Everything’s stressful enough without having everyone right on top of us like that. I can’t even with Tessa right now, though. I thought she’d be the perfect person to handle being the maid of honor because she’s a teacher. She works with kids, so I thought she would be able to keep her cool while we were getting everything ready, but she can’t do that, evidently.”
“Yeah. I tried to help her fix the seating chart when Jasper pointed out that his aunt Kara and uncle Bart can’t sit near each other, and she just told me to back off.”
“God, his family is a mess. It’s one of the reasons we had to keep family out of the house. If we let our side stay here, then his side would have wanted to… and no… just no. But I think I’ve found the best way to deal with Tessa is just to leave her alone.”
Chase nodded. “Oh, for sure!”
“I just hope that everything can come together by this weekend.”
He could hear the hopefulness—almost desperation in her voice, and he just wanted to soothe her concern. “It'll be great. She’s doing her best, and if she really does get overwhelmed, you know I’ll step in to help out.”
“I know. I know. That means a lot. I'm glad you're here.”
“Of course I'm going to be here. It's your wedding, Emery. I wouldn't have missed this for the world.”
“You've been incredible to our family through my entire life, and we owe you so much more than you'll ever possibly know.”
“Y'all don't owe me anything. If anyone owes someone something, it's me to you guys.”
She smiled, her blue eyes glistening with the lamplight coming from the nightstand. “You're too generous, Chase. Now what’s the next quote?”
