Weddings, my father, Amy—all of it was a distraction from what was most important to me.
Though the couples shower was planned for the coming weekend, I was planning on doing my best to avoid Amy and her aroused looks.
You’re only staying at the party an hour. Two hours, tops.
I wasn’t spending more time than I had to with Amy.
17
Amy
“Why is this wedding such a disaster?” I shouted, pulling at my hair. At this rate, I was going to be a bald maid of honor.
“Nothing I can do,” Archer Svensson said with a shrug. “There are bats in the building, and we can’t allow anyone in there until every single animal is removed and the whole complex is sanitized.”
“Arrgggh!” Several of the bats that had taken up residence in the old Mast Brothers Chocolate Factory screeched and fluttered out of a vent in the roofline of the building.
“We can’t use one of the other buildings?” I begged.
“We are booked up solid,” Mike, Archer’s half brother and business partner, replied. “We have the knitting convention in building B and the origami convention in building C. We were going to use building A for the couples shower, since I’m sure half the town is going to show up. But—”
“The bats. Yes, we know,” Ivy said.
“The couples shower is tomorrow afternoon,” I said helplessly. “Where are we going to find a venue big enough?”
“We could just have it at the Svensson estate,” Mike suggested.
“It’s gauche to host your own couples shower,” Ivy said with a frown.
“Besides, the kids are making biospheres,” Archer added, “and some of the crickets escaped.”
“Oh no!”
“It’s fine. Your grandfather lent us some chickens,” Archer said while Mike rolled his eyes. “But now there’s a chicken infestation. Not exactly the backdrop for a classy couple’s shower.”
“We’ll make other arrangements,” Ivy said as I cringed at the thought of crickets in my hair.
“Here,” she said, handing me a list once we were back in the car. “Start making calls. Someone in this town has to have a suitable venue.”
“Fingers crossed.”
“We have a two-hundred-person wedding booked this weekend that you all are planning. We’re going to be bursting at the seams as it is,” Avery reminded me when I called her.
“I’m doomed.” I groaned.
“If it’s really an emergency,” Avery added, “I do know of another venue!”
* * *
I rangthe doorbell and waited, yawning at the front door. Baxter, standing beside me, let out a yawn of his own.
“You slept all night,” I complained to the pony. “Lazy horse.”
I hadn’t slept at all. Ivy and I had planned to do a quick check-in at the convention center and make sure the Grayson Hotel Group staff were setting the venue up for the couples shower, per our plans. Then we had been planning on running back to the Paryani wedding at the Broughton estate.
Instead, we had had to scramble all evening. We had not been allowed to take any of the décor with us to the new venue because of the bats.
Also, the Paryani bride was up all night, throwing a fit about the flowers. I made three separate bouquets for her and didn’t finish until four a.m. After I took all the flowers over to the Broughton estate and set up, my part was finally over. All I wanted to do was sleep, but instead I had to organize a couples shower.
