One of the supervisors followed my gaze, nodded, and immediately started giving directions to adjust it.
That part still surprised me sometimes. Not that I knew what I was talking about, but that people listened when I said it.
“Rory!”
I turned at the sound of Orim’s voice before I even saw her.
She came walking up with sunglasses on, phone in hand, already talking before she got close enough to greet me properly.
“We need to finalize seating before I lose my mind,” she said. “Your guest list keeps changing and I’m about to start uninviting people myself.”
I sighed, shifting the clipboard Lav gave me to one arm.
“It’s not changing, Orim. It’s evolving,” I corrected.
“It’s chaotic,” she said. “You added thirteen more people yesterday!”
“They weren’t added, they just confirmed late.”
“That’s adding, smart ass.”
I rolled my eyes and waved her away. “Okay, well, they’re coming. So figure it out.”
She stared at me for a second over her sunglasses.
“Marlon cool with all these people coming to this wedding? You know how he goes.”
“I have bigger things to worry about,” I replied, going back to my clipboard. “Besides, when he decided to marry me, he knew what he was signing up for. I ain’t no damn cheapskate. And we got a kid on the way? He better get used to this.”
She stepped closer, lowering her voice slightly even though nobody was close enough to hear us anyway.
“How you feeling about all this?”
I let out a breath.
“Like I’m ‘bout to take the biggest test of my life and I ain’t study enough.”
She nodded slowly.
“That sounds about right.”
We both smiled at that and she pulled her phone up again.
“Okay, back to business. Venue is set. Catering is locked. Music is almost done. The only thing missing is?—”
“My father,” I finished.
She lowered the phone slowly. “Yeah. You still haven’t reached out?”
“I’ve drafted the message like five times,” I said. “Deleted it every time.”
“Why?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know what version of him is gonna answer,” I admitted. “And I don’t know what version of me is gonna respond.”
She nodded. “That’s fair.”
