I didn’t know who Burgundy was, but I didn’t ask, even if it made the mention more confusing, because it was then I noticed their matching wedding bands.
Aw.
Sweet.
“Willow and Alexis,” Luke jerked his chin to both of us. “And Tod planned all the Rock Chick weddings,” he went on.
Tod’s eyes lit when Alexis’s identity was confirmed, but before he could say anything…
“Yo! Willow! You down to…?” Raye shouted out her door and then squealed, “Tod and Stevie!”
She came out of her house and started racing down the walkway.
Raye, Luna, Harlow and Jessie went up to Denver for New Year’s, so they were fully folded into the Rock Chick/Hot Bunch world.
I’d only met a few of them here and there when they came to Phoenix.
And now I was meeting more.
Raye arrived and gave both Tod and Stevie big hugs.
She then turned to the table and threw up her hands in excitement.
“Is this my wedding scrapbook?” she asked breathlessly.
“We’re filling it out, girlie,” Tod told her, flipping it open. “But we got work to do while we’re down here.”
“Oh my God! You have one too!” Raye cried, then opened my scrapbook, which started at a bunch of fabric swatches. “You’re a genius!” she yelled, slamming a pointed finger down on a pastel purple-blue and deep-purple combo and turning to Tod. “I wouldn’t have picked blue and purple for Willow, but in the wedding party photos, those colors will so complement her hair.”
“That’s periwinkle and grape, darling,” Tod drawled.
“It’s perfect!” Raye said.
It kind of was.
She turned the page to expose a picture of a wedding bouquet that had huge periwinkle roses, smaller, slightly darker purple roses, some purple anemones and some other purple, blush and white flowers in an extravagantly feminine bouquet.
I gasped.
Alexis jumped to her feet, asking rabidly, “Which one is mine?”
“Let me see…” Tod was spreading the scrapbooks and slapping them open and closed. “Here.” He shoved one toward her.
She eagerly opened it, made a small noise that sounded like a sob and collapsed into her chair.
“They told me you were all sunshine and goodness,” Tod said. “But now that I see you, I’m wondering if we should?—”
“No.” She was poking her finger repeatedly on a picture of big balls of buttercream roses and hydrangeas with minimal greenery in tall, thin, shining glass vases, all this on a table festooned with more elegant glass décor and candles. “I want that,” Alexis decreed. “Precisely that.”
“You’re blonde, girlie, it might be too much pale,” Tod advised.
Alexis put the tip of her finger between her teeth and bit down on it, gazing contemplatively (also longingly) at the scrapbook.
“What’s going on?”
Uh-oh.
Zach was here.
