As we file out of Xavier's office, I think Griff might be right. This project is either going to be legendary, or the kind of disaster people tell stories about for decades.
Either way, Emma's getting her wedding, and Savannah's getting a pack that supports her instead of making her job harder.
And maybe I can figure out how to apologize for territorial behavior without making things worse.
Because Xavier's right: Savannah deserves better than how we've been treating her.
Time to prove we can be the pack she deserves, instead of the disasters she's been managing.
Starting with turning an abandoned ski resort into a wedding venue in two months.
No pressure.
But alphas love proving impossible things can be accomplished through determination and planning.
Emma's wedding is going to be perfect.
Even if it kills us.
22
SAVANNAH
I'm stress-sorting Emma's vendor contact list for the third time in an hour.
Inhale. Breathe. Hydrate.
Even Ben & Jerry's cookie dough isn't able to calm me down. Nor is the chocolate brownie, and that always does the trick. Still, one tub of each flavor later, and still nothing. Two tubs and I'll be throwing up and having an early night.
I can't. I won't. I'm determined to fix this problem if it makes me put on a couple of pounds in a day. Hell, I'll even go for five pounds. Forget the Biggest Loser, I could easily be a contestant in the Biggest Heaviest. Or the biggest ice cream eating contest. Breathe. Focus. This isn't about ice cream, but the wedding. Your best friends. But there's no fucking venue in Pine Hollow that can hold a wedding for almost a thousand people.
The dining room table looks like a bomb went off in a Staples store. Vendor contracts scattered across every available surface in what I'm generously calling an organizational system but which probably looks like chaos to anyone with functioning eyes. My laptop displays the seventeenth venue rejection email of the day, this one from a place that apparently booked their last available wedding slot sometime during the Clintonadministration and won't have an opening until the heat death of the universe.
I've got colored pens arranged by importance, which is definitely a sign of mental stability. Sticky notes that have formed their own ecosystem across the table surface. Enough coffee cups to caffeinate a small army, though judging by the caffeine jitters currently making my hands shake, I might have already consumed enough coffee to power a small city.
The guest list sits in front of me like a living document of doom, having achieved sentience sometime around guest number seven hundred and fifty and actively plotting against my sanity ever since. Every time I think I've got a final count, three more cousins appear out of nowhere like wedding planning gremlins.
This is why none of this makes sense. Everyone can come, apparently. Emma's third cousins twice removed? Sure, bring them along, the more the merrier. Dax's college roommate's brother who they met once at a barbecue? Why not invite his entire extended family while we're at it. That random person they met at a grocery store who seemed nice? Absolutely, send them a save the date.
And I'm supposed to be organizing this disaster alone while the actual pack members have mysteriously vanished like they're allergic to responsibility.
Where's the best man? Gone, disappeared into the ether the moment actual work needed to be done.
The groomsmen? Also gone, probably hiding somewhere until the crisis passes and they can reappear for the fun parts.
The bridesmaids? The alphas sisters vanished like they've been raptured, leaving behind only their promises to "help with whatever you need" and then becoming mysteriously unavailable the moment I actually need help.
Meanwhile, the bride is having a complete emotional breakdown about whether she's picked the right pack, calling me every thirty minutes to ask if I think Dax really loves her or if he's just settling for a convenient omega. And I can't even reassure her because honestly? I don't know the answer to that question myself. I'm not exactly an expert on functional pack relationships, considering my own romantic history reads like a cautionary tale about poor decision-making and the alphas who enable it.
I've been home alone for the past three hours, ever since Xavier got called away for emergency surgery and somehow dragged Logan and Griff into some mysterious pack meeting that apparently couldn't wait until tomorrow. They left me here with a phone that won't stop ringing with more venue rejections, a dining room that looks like a hurricane hit a wedding planning store, and the growing certainty that Emma's wedding is going to be held in a Walmart parking lot with folding chairs and a boom box playing the wedding march.
Thank you, universe, for this delightful Saturday afternoon of professional humiliation and caffeine-induced panic attacks.
The sound of vehicles in the driveway jerks my head up from my color-coded catastrophe, pen frozen halfway through my "venues that have crushed my dreams" spreadsheet. Multiple engines. Either they've been off at some secret alpha retreat or they've cooked up a plan that's about to derail my day.
I hover by the hallway like a dog that just heard the treat bag crinkle, too curious to sit back down but not quite ready to fling the door open myself. Through the window, I catch Logan's jeep rolling in behind Xavier's spotless BMW, with Griff's paint-splattered work truck bringing up the rear like a stubborn stain on a white shirt.
Then the door blasts open as if subtlety died a long time ago, and Logan's voice bellows through the house like a man auditioning for "Not Pack Alpha: The Musical."
