There was a part of me, a small but persistent part, that wished Declan and I had done what Willa and Hayes did. Just slipped away and come back already married.
But I couldn’t do that to my parents. I was their only child, and they deserved to be part of this day. Especially knowing that Declan didn’t have his mom here to celebrate with him.
“You look worried,” Penny said. She settled onto the end of the bed and looked at me with those sharp green eyes that had never once failed to see straight through me.
“I’m great. It’s my wedding day.”
“It would be okay if you weren’t entirely great, you know. This is a lot for anybody, and with you, everything gets turned up to about an eleven.”
“No, I’m fine.” I felt the slightest twinge of guilt for the lie. There was nothing anybody could do at this point anyway. “Just thinking about Mom and Dad handling all of this. Especially Mom. She doesn’t love crowds.”
“They are tougher than you give them credit for.” Penny stood and came over to straighten my robe tie, which didn’t need straightening, which meant she was just doing something with her hands too. “They’re going to be here for lunch soon. Then Rose comes to get you dressed. Then we go get you hitched. No big deal.”
I laughed, which was the intended effect. “Just another Tuesday.”
“Exactly.”
The quiet lunch had been Penny’s idea, and it was the thing I was most grateful for today. A few minutes of normal before everything became very not normal. My parents existed in a completely different world from the one I’d built for myself, and incorporating them into it was always a delicate, careful thing.
My mom, Meredith, had grown up on a Christmas tree farm and had never fully left it behind. She’d built her whole adult life around the season she loved, and she and my dad Xavier had fallen into a beautiful, contained life together, the two of them wrapped up in each other and in their shop and in their routines. They loved me fiercely. I had long since made peace with the fact that it was in their own way that the rest of the world would never really understand.
Declan knew this about me, somehow, even before I’d fully explained it. He understood what it was to love your family andstill feel slightly outside of them. It was one of the first things we’d really talked about. One of the first real things, anyway.
The thought of him settled something in my chest.
He was the reason I was here. Not the show. Him.
A staff member knocked softly and came in to set up the lunch, pouring two mimosas without being asked, which I appreciated deeply.
“Come on, Penny girl.” I lifted my glass in her direction. “I don’t get married every day.”
“Not today.” She shook her head. “I need to keep my head on straight. Virgin mimosa for me.”
“That’s just orange juice.”
“Kelsey.”
“You can live a little. Just this once.”
“I really can’t.” Her voice had gone quiet in a way that made me stop and actually look at her. Her eyes were wide and a little desperate and she was doing the thing where she pressed her lips together when she was trying not to say something.
I put down my glass.
I thought back through the last few weeks. Rehearsal dinner last night, she’d had sparkling water. The engagement party. The venue walkthrough. I couldn’t remember seeing her drink at any of it.
“Penny,” I said slowly. “Are you pregnant?”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “But please do not tell anyone. Everett and I wanted to wait until after the wedding to announce it because we didn’t want to take anything away from your day, and we wanted to be a little further along first. He bet me twenty dollars I couldn’t keep it from you this long and I am going to be so angry if I have to tell him he was right.” It all came out in one long breath, like she’d been holding it in for weeks.
Which she had.
“I won’t tell.” I grabbed her hand. “Sisters before misters. But Penny, I’m going to be an auntie?”
“In February.”
I felt my eyes fill up immediately and completely against my will.
