“No kidding,” Avery said.
“Let me know if you need any help. I love weddings,” Josie gushed. “Oh, you know what? Hazel has a restaurant, the Gray Dove Bistro. She could cater.”
“I have it all taken care of!” Dottie said happily, drink in her hand. Avery’s grandmother was clearly enjoying herself. “Since you clearly have a lot on your plate, I talked to the Harrogate Girls’ Club, and we’re organizing a potluck for the reception. With all those people coming, some of them need to contribute. Ida and Bettina are helping me.”
“I’m sure we can just cater,” Avery said faintly.
“Drink this, dear. You look a little pale,” Dottie said, handing her a cocktail. Avery gulped it. “That’s what community is about. Now Ida already said she was making thirty pounds of macaroni salad. Art’s frying up onion rings, Bettina’s organizing sausages. You’ll have a bangin’ reception, as you kids say!”
“I wanted a nice, classy wedding,” Avery moaned when her grandmother went off to talk to Meghan.
“Maybe Hazel can cater the rehearsal dinner,” Josie said, patting Avery on the shoulder.
Avery sipped her drink. “A mountain of macaroni salad is not going to photograph well.”
“Not too late to elope,” I said.
“If this wedding gets any more out of hand, we may need to.”
“Avery, darling,” Mrs. Schultz said, “good news. The daughter of a girlfriend of mine works at Bergman’s downtown. That department store was voted as the best for wedding registries, you know. They’re booked up months in advance, but I can reserve you two a spot on Sunday to put together your registry.”
“Oh, that’s very kind, but we really don’t need anything,” Avery said desperately.
“Nonsense!” Mr. Schultz boomed. “I know what bachelors are like. I bet you’re living on beef jerky and energy drinks.”
“It’s not quite that dire.”
“We’re going to be requesting charity donations in lieu of gifts,” I said smoothly.
“How noble. We’ll make a donation, but I will still be gifting you something to start the marriage off right!” Mr. Schultz shook my hand then went for another helping of pasta.
“We cannot have people spending money on this thing,” Avery said to me under her breath. “I can’t handle the guilt.”
“We’ll figure something out,” I assured her.
As the party wound down, Dottie stood up on the podium and grabbed the microphone from one of the band members.
“Thank you all for coming to celebrate the creation of a new family. My good friend Ida has offered to host the engagement party for Blade and Avery. We’ll see everyone here next week in Harrogate!”
“Ida cannot host the engagement party!” Avery said to me in horror. Ida was one of the quirky town characters in Harrogate who sounded fun in small doses on a TV show, but when it was two in the morning and she was hawking sex toys outside your apartment window, it seemed a little less quaint.
“You’re going to come, aren’t you?” Dottie asked Mrs. Schultz.
“Of course. Though I must admit part of me is curious to see if you can pull off the wedding of the decade in less than two months,” she said to Avery. “If you can do that, you can do anything!”
* * *
“This wedding is goingto be a disaster,” Avery said later when we were back at my condo. “Seriously—potlucks, half the town in attendance, Ida hosting an engagement party.”
I poured her a drink and handed it to her as she settled on the couch. “We could go to Paris and get married,” I told her. “They have castles there. We could go to Hawaii and have a beach wedding.”
“The point of the wedding,” she said, “is the spectacle.”
“I don’t know—you, me, a hot tub in the mountains,” I told her. “Could be romantic.” I stood behind her, rubbing her shoulders. She moaned slightly. I leaned down to kiss her neck.
“The rules,” she slurred, but she was putty in my hands.
I tipped her head back and kissed her, my hands sliding down to cup her breasts.
