“So how do we want this to go?” Luis asks, rubbing his hands together.
“Who is this man again?” Gia Akatov asks her daughter.
“Isolde’s bodyguard,” Adeline explains.
We’re sitting on a velvet couch in one of Manhattan’s most exclusive bridal boutiques. Lennie, or rather her mum, scored a last minute slot. Tristan already had a planned meeting with a potential client. Since I’ll be with the Akatovs, and no one fucks with Gia, it was deemed safe for me to join them.
“I’m sorry Ren didn’t get to go with us,” Lennie says from inside the dressing room.
Adeline throws back her champagne. Her mother, who’s hovering right outside the fitting room, tsks under her breath when she asks for another one.
“Nah, Ren will be pleased just knowing you got an appointment,” I say. It was either take the last minute availability or wait six months.
“Yeah, I hate to break it to you,” Ads adds, “but Luis will be more helpful picking out dresses than Ren would. What?” she asks her mum who appears to doubt Luis’s abilities.
“The Trevino men know fashion,” Luis agrees, smoothing down his tie. He’s already picked out five different silhouettes. That’s when I realized he may or may not have listened in to all of Adeline's and my wedding talk at Leon’s.
“Okay,” Lennie says from the fitting room. An attendant steps out first, helping Len navigate the tulle.
Gia is speechless, her mouth opening and closing. She side-eyes Adeline on the couch, almost panicked.
“No,” Luis declares, pointing. “Absolutely not. Go take that off.”
Adeline bursts out laughing.
“Is it that bad?” Lennie asks, tripping over the fabric as she turns to the three-way mirror.
“Was your inspiration a wedding cake?” her younger sister asks.
“I’m telling you, mermaid is meant for you,” Luis says.
“You’ve been reading all my wedding magazines, haven’t you?” Adeline asks, rolling her head back on the couch.
“Antonio agrees,” Luis mutters.
Gia says a few words under her breath in Italian.
“Mama, it’s going to be okay,” Adeline reassures her.
“It really will,” Len says, turning back to the fitting room. “I mean, honestly, what if I just didn’t?—”
“Just please!” Gia looks up at the ceiling. “Please let me see one of my daughters get married.”
Adeline frowns. “Okay, rude,” she says, clearly taking this to mean her mother thinks her options are limited.
Gia messes with a cross around her neck. “Where is Nat?”
The oldest Akatov daughter should be here.
“Milo shit his pants,” Ads says. “What?”
“You don’t have to say it like that,” her mother chides.
“It’s the truth.”
Gia goes back to muttering in Italian.
Like the party at Tristan’s, I hang back, watching thefamily dynamic. Lennie once said her family shows their love through bickering. There’s an art to it, I realize, as Adeline makes a comment, her little smile showing as she needles her mother into praying. Luis begins to peruse the dresses again. Gia follows, making Adeline laugh. The bodyguard and mother are the most serious about finding a dress today.
