The wedding frau produced another skeptical humph as he gestured for her to exit the car ahead of them.
Georgie leaned in. “Good save, Emperor. Did I happen to make an appearance in your meditation?”
“Silly, Empress of Asshattery, you should know by now that you’re in every single one of my meditations.”
“Are you ready for the Denver wedding underground?” she asked with a naughty glint in her eyes.
“No, but I’ve decided we’ve fallen down the Alice in Wonderland Bridal rabbit hole, and there’s no turning back now.”
Georgie slid out of the limo, and he followed, shielding his eyes from the bright sun. They’d parked outside a large building in an industrial area. Too bad he’d gone total recall sex replay or else he could have concentrated on where they were going. Luckily, a weather-beaten sign next to a rusty metal door revealed their location.
The Denver Porcelain Doll Factory.
“We’re going to a doll factory?” he asked.
The frau tossed a snarky wink over her shoulder. “Mr. Marks, that’s just the cover.”
“Why a doll factory?” Georgie asked.
“You know how unnerving porcelain dolls are. Not even the most hardened criminal would try to break into a doll shop. I’m told people fear all the little eyes staring at them.”
A chill went down his spine. “Are there any dolls inside?”
“Looks like you’re about to find out,” she said, keeping her features stone-cold.
“I’m starting to have a new appreciation for the underground bridal industry. They don’t mess around,” he said to Georgie, lowering his voice as the frau knocked on the door.
He glanced from side to side. “Is that a secret knock?”
The woman frowned. “Of course not! That would be ridiculous.”
He bit back a grin and met Georgie’s gaze. With her pink cheeks and lips pressed into a hard line, she was trying not to laugh either. And a sweet sense of contentment set in. This is how they’d get through the wedding madness. Together—the two of them.
Mrs. Lieblingsschatz ushered them inside. “Everything comes through here. This is where Denver wedding trends and cutting-edge front range bridal fashions are born.”
He gasped, feeling like a CrossFit Dorothy right at the moment in the film where the little farm girl had left the black-and-white world of Kansas and emerged in the bright and glossy Oz.
Despite the building’s dank exterior, the inside shimmered—actually fucking shimmered. Crates of flowers scented the air as rack after rack of lily-white dresses lined the far wall. A cluster of older women sat at sewing machines while young men carried boxes dripping with lace and puffy stuff that went under dresses. Shit! He didn’t even know what it was called.
“Tulle,” Cornelia Lieblingsschatz remarked.
He turned to Georgie. “Did she call me a tool?”
Georgie suppressed another grin. “No, the white fabric that went by us is called tulle, T-U-L-L-E. You made a funny face when you saw it.”
“It’s like a whole different world,” he said as a guy swerved past them with a massive bin of rubber penises.
The frau waved off the dildo delivery dude. “Pay no attention. Those are very popular for bachelorette parties. Ours have super-charged batteries.”
“I bet they do,” Georgie answered wide-eyed.
The wedding frau pinned them with her gaze. “But that is not for you. You two are on the zero-fornication protocol.”
He watched as the bins of cocks disappeared. With this no sex rule, it was a damn shame he couldn’t detach his manhood and toss it into the bin to be locked away. After his dirty meditation in the limo, all he wanted to do was get Georgie naked.
The frau led them farther inside the cavernous space. “Today, we’ll pick colors, flowers, the design for the dress, the cake, and find your perfect wedding rings.”
“We can do all that here, in this place?” Georgie asked.
The wedding planner closed her eyes. “Do you feel it?”
“What?” Georgie asked.
“The magic,” the woman replied.
“Yeah, sure,” he and Georgie answered like two confused kids in calculus class.
Mrs. Lieblingsschatz walked them over to a large computer monitor and tapped the surface. A weather map donned the screen. “You’re having a fall wedding. Lucky for you, on your wedding day, it will be sunny with a high temperature of eighty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Twenty-seven Celsius. Unseasonably warm.”
“Wait a second. How do you know it’s going to be eighty-one degrees on the third Saturday in October?” he questioned.
The frau met his gaze. “My contacts at NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and years of my statisticians crunching Farmers’ Almanac data to within an inch of its life,” the woman answered, tapping the screen. “With everything I know, Mother Nature herself asks me for the weather forecast.”
“That’s certainly a lot of information! What else do you know?” Georgie pressed.
The wedding frau’s smirk was back, and she walked past them. The click of her boots on the worn wooden floor echoed through the chamber as she began to speak.
“Your ceremony will take place outdoors in the Botanic Gardens at sunset, casting a golden glow and illuminating the vibrant reds, the deep shades of rose, and lush greens. You’ll have your first dance under a pavilion, strung with thousands of tiny sparkling white lights.” The woman walked up to Georgie and gently fingered a loose lock of his fiancée’s hair. “You’ll wear your hair up, Miss Jensen, with flowers from your bouquet threaded in.”
“Like a Georgian wedding,” Georgie whispered as if in a trance.
“Is this what you pictured?” the frau asked.
Georgie nodded, then turned to him. “What do you think?”
He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’m good with anything that makes you smile like that.”
“Hmm, no opinion,” the wedding frau remarked, writing in her notebook.
Georgie’s expression fell, and he shook his head.
“It’s not no opinion. I just want Georgie to be happy.”
“But are you happy?” Georgie pressed, her gaze brimming with worry.
He glanced around the wedding wonderland warehouse. “Yes, it’s just that all this wedding hubbub isn’t really…” he trailed off.
Agitation edged out the worry in Georgie’s gaze. “It isn’t really what, Jordan?”
“Georgie, I…” he stammered.
It wasn’t like he didn’t care about the wedding. But questions like should they have an indoor ceremony versus an outdoor ceremony weren’t foremost on his mind. He didn’t care if they got married at a truck stop in Timbuktu as long as she was the one walking up the aisle.
He steadied himself. He needed to come up with the right thing to say. Her gaze grew more pointed as his mind turned to mush.
“Georgie, I…” he tried again, but instead of looking angry, she closed her eyes and inhaled.
“What is that?” she asked on a dreamy breath.
“That would be the cakes,” Frau Lieblingsschatz answered.
Georgie’s face lit up. “We get to do a cake tasting?”
If he were a comic book character, this would be the scene with phew written above his head in huge block letters as the hero dodged a bullet.
“Jordan, they’re baking cakes for us,” she exclaimed.
He’d never been so grateful for empty calories in all his life.
For the next hour, he received a crash course in Weddings 101. A lot of it seemed like a load of bullshit and old wives’ tales, but Georgie seemed to eat it up, and he quickly understood the old adage, happy wife, happy life.
“And now, Miss Jensen and I will part with you, Mr. Marks,” the frau said as one of the wedding minions cleared away the flowers they’d settled on for the bouquet and centerpieces.
Georgie glanced at the row upon row of dresses lining the back wall. �
�Is it time to choose a dress?”
“Yes, the dress and the wedding rings,” the wedding planner answered.
Georgie frowned. “I understand Jordan not being with me when I choose my dress. I want it to be a surprise for him. But why would we choose the rings separately?”
“In my many years of planning weddings, I’ve learned that the choice of wedding bands says quite a bit about a couple,” the frau answered.
“Okay,” Georgie replied, still with a slight crease in her brow.
Was this a test? There couldn’t be a right or wrong wedding band, could there?
“Hans!” she called, glancing around the warehouse.
A small man with thick glasses emerged from behind one of the racks of dresses and joined them.
“Miss Jensen and I are going to attend to the dress, and Hans will take you to our ring room to select wedding bands,” the wedding frau instructed.
He reached for his fiancée’s hand. “I know you’re going to look beautiful in whatever you choose.”
“Good luck with the rings,” she answered, giving his hand a squeeze.
The wedding rings. The rings they’d wear every day for the rest of their lives.
He hadn’t thought much about their actual wedding bands. He’d been so relieved to find the antique engagement ring he hadn’t considered the design of their bands.
“Come with me, sir,” the man said in a gentle German accent, gesturing for him to follow.
Jordan watched as Mrs. Lieblingsschatz and Georgie disappeared into layer upon layer of billowy white dresses.
“The wedding frau is something else,” he commented.
“You have no idea,” Hans answered with the hint of a grin.
They snaked through the building until they reached the end of the hall, and the man unlocked a door. In gleaming lit cases, row upon row of rings sparkled under the lights.
“Wow, you guys must have over a million dollars’ worth of jewelry in here!” he exclaimed with a low whistle.
“Try ten,” Hans chuckled. “Now,” he continued, pointing to the shimmering tables, “what do you have in mind for Miss Jensen?”
“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.
“Take a moment to look. Think about what you love most about her, then choose,” the old man instructed.
“No pressure, right?” he asked.
Why the hell was he so nervous?
Jordan gazed down at the multitude of rings when a sparkling number caught his eye.
“Could I see that one?” he asked.
Hans slid a black velvet display tray out from under the glass and gingerly removed a band.
“A very good choice, Mr. Marks. Pavé diamonds in platinum.”
“Right, that’s what I thought. Pavé makes a mean ring,” he answered, trying not to sound like someone who’d never heard of a pavé diamond.
“Pavé is French for paved. It’s a type of setting where the diamonds are close together as if the ring is paved with the gems,” Hans replied.
“That must have slipped my mind,” he answered with the worst comeback in jewelry knowledge history.
Holy pavé fuck balls! Who was he trying to kid?
He stared down at the bank of rings, swearing they’d doubled or tripled in the short amount of time he’d been in the room. There were so damned many of them.
“I think Georgie would love this pavé ring,” he said, staring at the sparkly circle.
The man nodded and slid the band onto a black velvet finger-looking object.
“And for yourself?” Hans asked.
“Something simple. I don’t wear jewelry, no offense, man,” he added, wanting to punch himself in the mouth for, again, sounding like his brain was pavéd with crap.
“None taken, Mr. Marks,” Hans replied.
“And when I was a kid, I learned I had a nickel allergy,” Jordan added, remembering the awful rash he’d gotten from a cheap gold chain he’d worn in a failed attempt to look cool in middle school.
“I see,” Hans replied, selecting a tray. “I’d suggest choosing a platinum or titanium band. Those, unlike gold, do not contain any nickel.”
Jordan watched as Hans placed the tray of nickel-free rings on top of the glass.
“You’re a fitness trainer, correct?” Hans asked.
“Yes, and I operate my own gym.”
“Then I’d suggest the titanium. It’s hypoallergenic, and it resists corrosion from sweat or chlorinated water.”
Jordan gazed at the sleek rings. “Really?”
“See what you think of this one with beveled edges,” the kind man suggested, passing him the silver-colored titanium ring and teaching him what a beveled edge was. He would have called them ridges, but if he’d learned one thing today, it was that he may be able to knock out a thousand push-ups in one training session, but the mental stamina it took to choose something the size of a quarter damn near wiped him out.
“Beveled, huh,” he said, sliding the band onto his ring finger, then stilled.
“It appears the ring is a perfect fit. I’ll record your size, so we have it,” Hans said, taking a small notepad from his breast pocket and jotting down the information.
Jordan couldn’t pull his gaze from his hand.
“It hits home when you put it on, doesn’t it, Mr. Marks,” Hans observed, pocketing the notebook.
Jordan continued to stare at his hand. “Yeah, it sure does.”
He’d wear this ring for the rest of his life.
“I think this is it,” he said, unable to look away.
“Very good! May I have the ring back, or would you like to test drive it a bit longer,” Hans asked.
“Here you go,” he said, sliding the titanium off his finger.
He glanced around. Thanks to choosing the first two rings he’d laid his eyes on, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He slid his hands into his pockets. “Should I wait here for Georgie?”
“No, no,” Hans answered, returning the tray into the case. “Frau Lieblingsschatz likes to have the couples go through this process individually. You can wait in the room right through that door,” he finished, then gestured with his chin toward the far side of the room.
Right. The wedding frau’s ring test.
He thanked Hans for his help, then entered the waiting room, and took a seat on the couch. He ran his hands down the scruff of his jaw.
Jesus, what a day they’d had, and it was barely lunch!
His stomach grumbled—a reminder that, except for a few bites of cake during the tasting, they hadn’t had one thing to eat at their fancy champagne engagement breakfast. He thought of the carved meat station, and his stomach responded with an all-out rumble.
What he wouldn’t give to have a tube of vegan cookie dough right about now! Despite teasing Georgie about her favorite treat, he couldn’t deny the stuff was delicious. He was about to resign himself to flipping through a basket of magazines to kill some time when he caught a glimpse of a box of Twinkies on a bookshelf.
Not something he’d recommend in his More Than Just a Number fitness and nutrition blog posts, but desperate times called for desperate measures—and being trapped at a top-secret wedding warehouse surely fit the bill. He reached for the box and found three left.
“Hey!” someone called.
Jordan looked up to see the dildo delivery guy.
“Where’d you come from?” he asked.
“Back door,” the man answered, glancing over his shoulder.
“Oh,” Jordan replied. What the hell was he supposed to say?
The men stared at each other as if they were auditioning for a Wild West gunslinger role.
“Did you get those Twinkies off the shelf?” the dildo guy asked.
Jordan glanced at the box. “Yeah.”
“Dude, those are my Twinkies.”
“Can I have one?” he asked as his stomach doubled the plea by emitting a crazy growl.
The man’s expression grew pinched.
“I was going to eat them for lunch.”
Jordan held up the box. “You were going to have three Twinkies for lunch?”
The guy shrugged.
Jordan squared his jaw and went into trainer mode. “I can’t let you do that, man. With all that sugar, you’ll be hungry in an hour. You need to be smart with what you eat.”
“Dude, I’m trying,” the man said, then stilled and gave him the once-over. “Wait, you’re that guy. The CityBeat CrossFit guy!”
“That’s right! My fiancée and I run the More Than Just a Number blog now.”
“I know it,” the dildo dude replied.
Jordan clucked his tongue. “Then, you should know you should not be eating Twinkies for lunch.”
The man’s gaze grew skeptical. “You looked ready to scarf down the box.”
He had him there. But all was not lost.
“How about this,” he proposed to the rightful owner of the Twinkies. “We do a quick strength workout, and then we each have one.”
The guy scoffed. “Right here?”
“Hell yes, right here! There’s never a bad time to get stronger,” he answered, pumped at the prospect of slipping into trainer mode.
“Sure! Why not! I’m on a break,” the dildo guy answered with an excited clap of his hands.
Jordan held the man’s gaze going into beast mode. “Twenty burpees, twenty power squats, then twenty push-ups. Got it?”
“Got it!” the dildo man answered, hopping from foot to foot like a boxer ready to hit the ring.
Jordan rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. “In three, two, one! Let’s go!”
He jumped, then hit the floor, knocking out his first burpee as his Twinkie owning trainee mirrored his moves. This felt good! He’d been a ball of nerves and anxiety, running on adrenaline for the past few hours. His limbs rejoiced with each push-up, each exertion. He could lose himself to the workout and harness the endorphin rush.
“What are you doing?” Georgie ask from behind.
“A micro workout with the dildo guy,” he answered, lowering into push-up position when he remembered where he was and froze.
“I better get going,” the man answered, hopping to his feet as he snagged the box of Twinkies and bolted through the back door.
Shit. He looked like a total nut job, and he wasn’t even going to get a Twinkie.
Own the Eights Gets Married Page 6
