“I know you will—that’s why I’m good.” May smirks. “No problems, remember?”
“Butshe’sthe prob?—”
“Annie.”
“Fine.”
“Your tea ceremony is in an hour,” Michelle, one of the bridesmaids, announces. “Is everyone ready?”
I glance around the room. “No! We arenotready.” I start moving around the room and start tidying, cleaning, hiding things, putting things away. “The photographer is coming to take pictures of all of us before that. We've gotta make it look nice.”
May stands.
“No,” Izzy reprimands. “We’ll clean. You sit and look beautiful.”
May sits, and the rest of us get to work.
Half an hour later, there’s a knock on the door. We all squeal. Apparently, I squeal now.
The boys walk in, and I immediately look for?—
Wow.
Wow.
Is the world tilting on its axis?
Why is my mouth so dry?
Are those angels singing?
I’m still gaping like a fish when Izzy brushes past, throwing a smirk back at me.
“Hey, Nico,” she purrs. “You clean up real ni—ouch.”
Izzy inexplicably flies sideways several feet.
“Was that an actual hiss?” She is cracking the fuck up with her hands on her knees, but I do not know what is so funny. “Did you just hiss at me?”
“Mine,” I hiss at her, before walking towards My Worst Fuckin’ Nightmare but Wettest Fuckin’ Dream Wearing theFuckOut of a Tux. And the smile that he’s shining down on me is filled with adoration, devotion, a little bit of shock, and a whole lotta… love.
“Hey, Ali,” he grins.
“Hi, Chef,” I say, and I pull him down to my mouth by the lapels of his hot-as-fuck tux.
We are getting very reacquainted with each other’s tongues when I hear my dad’s voice call my name in a sharp rebuke.
We ignore him, but we pull away a fraction, our noses and foreheads still touching.
“It’s not fair,” I tell Nico, stomping my foot a little. “It’s uneven. You can’t justlooklike this. I don’t look as good as you do in formalwear.”
The tux is cut perfectly, accentuating the width of his shoulders and the strength in his arms and his thighs. His face is freshly shaved, revealing the line of his jaw, and his hair is styled to perfection. Is thatpomade?
“Nah,” he says. “You look better. Fuckin’ beautiful, honey.” He traces a thumb along my cheek, runs a hand through my hair. Twirls me around by the hand once to check out my ass, presumably. There he goes, making me feel things likepreciousandenchantingagain. He leans in close to my ear. “But I much prefer you wearing nothing but me.”
Are my legs broken? Do I need to change my underwear?
“Where’s Tom?” May calls from somewhere behind us.
