IRINA
There wasa decent slog across the lawn to get to the playground with the pirate ship, so they’d set up a staging tent that would eventually turn into a reception area.
The sun shone bright in the late afternoon, but not so hot that guests would be uncomfortable. Which was good, since she’d kept them waiting.
She didn’t mean to, didn’t want to, but what was she supposed to do when the only time they could move her to was within an hour of her first wedding ceremony?
So she’d enlisted her girls and they’d gone on an adventure.
The audition went long so Becca had to help her get into the gown in the back of Courtney’s car. That went fine until she accidentally flashed a guy on a motorcycle beside them. She seriously hoped that wouldn’t end up on TMZ.
Becca and Courtney helped ensure she made it back with moments to spare. Only a few, but enough so it worked.
That was all then, now was now. She was right where she should be, awaiting her entrance to the ceremony.
The set she’d created on the fly was perfection.
The pirate ship all decked out in red roses that matched her dress and her bouquet. The florist had no problem pivoting from decorating the arches she’d planned originally to the playground pirate ship they’d ended up with.
By the time his team finished with the flowers, it looked like a fairy tale—roses everywhere, some kind of red flowers draped from anything high enough for them to dangle. The people she loved all waiting for her in satin-covered plastic chairs—her parents, her aunts and uncles. Courtney and all of Dimefront.
The curtain pulled back so Linx and Harley could do the flower girl, ring bearer gig. Then Becca waltzed down the aisle like a badass in creamy white Vera Wang.
With the costuming decision to switch up her wardrobe, Irina had decided that since she’d wear red, the bridesmaids would wear white. It’d been a whole thing that took an entire afternoon to figure out.
Though, at the moment, no one was looking at the white dress Becca wore because—
“What the hell is Bax wearing?” Irina hissed to Courtney. “He promised no pirate hats.”
Shit, he’d totally wrecked the ambiance of classy wedding she’d been going for, irreparably pivoting the whole shebang into kid-birthday-party territory.
“Technically, he promised nopaperpirate hats. I didn’t count on him buying the real deal,” Courtney said, obviously unamused.
Not just a pirate hat. Bax wore a whole pirate get-up with an actual parrot on his shoulder. A live parrot that likely knew how to talk.
“If that parrot poops on him during your ceremony, I’m going to lose my mind,” Courtney said. Mostly, Irina would probably laugh, but still…
“Where did he get the bird?” Irina asked.
Courtney pursed her lips. “God, I hope it’s rented and not ours.”
“I did not expect this,” Irina said, her voice pitching a little wonky.
She cleared her throat.
Courtney shrugged a bare shoulder. “I’ll punish him later, I promise.”
“Why do I think that won’t be a hardship for either of you?” Irina did not love that the people getting laid on her wedding day would be everyone but her.
“Hold up two more seconds and then we’re going to have—”
A paparazzo burst through the back of the tent, snapping photos erratically.
Two beefy guys in security uniforms were four steps behind him.
“You planned this?” Irina asked without moving her lips and working on an appalled yet still happy facade.
“Uh-huh.” Courtney made a gesture to security, and they closed the gap, removing the photographer from the tent. “Since we don’t have helicopters. There’s also a guy hiding in one of Bax’s favorite trees.” She leaned closer and whispered, “He doesn’t know.”
