“I’m far too busy,” I said and handed him the snack I had made him, still amazed that he was here, alive, and healthy. “I’m Hunter’s best man.”
Alfie laughed. “I can’t believe they roped you into that.” He shook his head. “Those Svensson brothers.”
* * *
I wasn’t as putout by being involved in the wedding as the Svenssons must have thought I would have been. There was something nice about weddings. They were happy and beautiful, and there was something moving about the start of a new family.
Of course, that was assuming that the wedding consisted of two normal people from two normal families, and not Hunter and his litters of brothers, and Meg and her three sisters and, of course, half the town. I had to force my way through people who were crowded around the Gray Dove Bistro, where we were having the kickoff meeting.
Phone cameras were out, and the local news crew was breathlessly narrating the arrivals of the wedding-meeting attendees.
I had originally relocated my company to Harrogate so that Alfie could be out in nature with greenery and fresh country air. I had thought the small town might be better for him after he had spent a year and a half of treatment cooped up in my steel concrete-and-glass penthouse in Manhattan and riding in cars through the cavernous city streets.
The town had seemed quaint, and the people friendly, when we had attended the festivals as visitors. Now that I was a full-time resident, the small-town quirks were much more apparent.
“We have the private dining room booked for the wedding meeting,” Hazel, the café owner, told me.
Ida and Dottie, two of the town’s senior citizens, were acting as bouncers at the stairs. Both were dressed in matching bright pink tracksuits with big gold chains and sunglasses.
“ID?” Ida asked as Dottie crossed her arms.
“Seriously?”
“No ID? Then you’re not going up there.”
“He’s the best man!” Hazel shouted at Ida.
She took off her sunglasses and peered at me while Dottie flipped to a page on her clipboard.
“He checks out,” Dottie said, nodding.
Ida waved me up the narrow staircase.
“I can’t believe I’m missing work for this.” I sighed.
If they were paying a wedding planning company—not just a planner but a whole company—why did I need to be at the kickoff meeting? Wasn’t that the bride’s and the bridesmaids’ jobs? I had thought I would be planning the bachelor party, organizing the rehearsal dinner, and helping Hunter select the wedding ring. Now I was at a kickoff meeting, like this was a major corporate merger or something.
“Hey, Sebastian!” Meg waved to me from across the room. She was standing next to several huge windows that looked over Main Street. “Thanks for organizing food!”
“That seemed to be the only way people were going to show up,” I said dryly.
“They were going to be here anyway.” Meg shook her head. “You’d think with festivals forty out of fifty-two weekends a year, people wouldn’t want yet another town gathering, but you would be wrong.”
We peered out of the windows.
“I think some of my employees are down there,” I said with a frown.
People cheered when they saw us at the window.
“Let’s get this meeting started,” I said, taking a seat.
A dark-haired woman who seemed oddly familiar stood up at the head of the table.
“Welcome to the start of wedding planning!” she said. “I’m Ivy, the lead planner at Weddings in the City, and these are my colleagues.”
The women all introduced themselves and explained their part in the wedding planning process.
“And we have one final member,” Ivy said, looking at an empty seat.
