“Hey.” He gave me a great smile as he slid his arm around me. “I would’ve met you at your car.”
“I know, but I got in just fine by myself.”
He leaned in and gave me a quick kiss, but not so quick that I missed the taste of beer on his tongue. I wasn’t a fan, but it wasn’t so gross to me that it bothered me. Harrison was clearly a couple of drinks in, though not even close to buzzed or drunk. He was just having a good time with his friends.
“Want a drink?”
I shook my head. “I’ll just take a diet pop. Whatever they have.”
“I’ll grab that for you.”
“Hey, Luna,” Beck called over the music, louder than he needed to be. “Where’s the wedding?”
“When’s the wedding?” Killian asked. He’d been watching me since I’d gotten here. The weight of it had already begun making me uncomfortable.
“It’s March 14th, but that was just decided today,” I told them. “As to where, I have no idea.”
“You get your dress yet?” a vaguely familiar woman asked. She had shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair but I didn’t know her name, though.
“I haven’t started looking.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Seriously?”
All I could do was nod, but then I excused myself to a sort of quieter spot and called Jessica.
“Hello?” she asked, not sounding the least bit sleepy, so at least I knew I hadn’t woken her up.
“You need to come here.”
“Uh… where? Luna?”
“Of course it’s me. I know that my name pops up when I call and I also know exactly what picture you have in your ID.”
She laughed. “Sorry. You sound… different.”
“I’m at The Speakeasy with Harrison and some of his friends and I don’t know most of them. The ones I do know I don’t think like me very much. Except maybe Beck. I don’t know. You’re my maid of honor, so you are duty-bound to come when I call.”
“Calm down. Is this a wedding thing?”
I shrugged. “All I know is that some people wanted to get drinks to celebrate the engagement. Please come so I have a friendly face to look at.”
“Pretty sure Harrison is a friendly face, especially after you told me about last night. I bet he’s real friendly.”
I slapped a hand over my face. Why had I told her everything? “Please?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there in like ten minutes. I’m not changing.”
“Perfect.”
Then I could return to Harrison and take my drink from him. Though now I wished I’d asked for something stronger. Not really. I had to go into work early for a delivery in the morning. The last thing I needed was any effect from alcohol.
“Where’d you go?” he asked me.
“Told Jessica to come.”
“Oh, good idea.”
Then I was lost in a sea of conversation, most of which I wasn’t a part of. There were just things that went with spending time together and I didn’t spend any time with any of these people.
It seemed like forever before Jessica arrived, but according to the clock on my phone, it had only been nine minutes. The girl worked fast.
“What’d I miss?” she asked when she approached the table in a pair of black leggings, an oversized sweatshirt with her hair pulled back. This wasn’t what she’d normally wear for a night out and she barely had makeup on. This was why she said she wasn’t going to change but she was still beautiful. I immediately wrapped my arms around her and squeezed while whispering thank you in her ear. “No problem,” she said.
Beck grabbed Jessica the beer she’d asked for and before long, Jessica was more comfortable with this group than I was. Harrison eventually took a seat on the edge of the booth and pulled me onto his knee.
We laughed and I heard some stories about Harrison that I hadn’t been told before, though I thought a lot of them must have taken place when I’d been in Arizona. Most of those came from his brother. It was as if Killian wanted me to know that Harrison had a good life when we’d been apart. Which was what I’d wanted. Hearing it didn’t hurt my feelings, but it seemed like Killian was trying to. Either that or make me feel guilty.
“Come to the restroom with me,” Jessica said super close to my face.
I nodded and hopped off Harrison so she could lead me to the other side of the bar. Once inside the restroom, she said, “What’s with you?”
“What do you mean?” I hadn’t thought anything was up with me.
“Your face is betraying you, honey.”
“Again I ask, what do you mean?”
“The way you’re looking at Killian. You look like you want to put your foot through his dick.”
My laugh bounced off the tiled walls of the restroom. “Maybe I do.”
“Why?”
“It’s like he’s purposely telling stories about Harrison from when we were apart just to annoy me. Or make me feel bad.”
She shook her head. “He might be. You said he was… not all that supportive at dinner last night.”
“He wasn’t,” I told her quickly.
“But that’s his problem to get over.” Jess came over to me so that we were basically toe to toe. “You’ve got your man, Luna. And you’re going to marry him. You are happy about marrying him, right?”
“Of course I am. I love Harrison. You know that.”
“OK, so his brother comes with him and you two will have to work it out. But don’t let him ruin tonight for you. OK?”
I nodded. She was right. This wasn’t about Killian and how he felt about me. This was about Harrison and how we felt about each other.
“Besides, I’m trying really hard not to look at Killian like I want to do something very different to his dick.”
I groaned. “You’re going to make me throw up.”
“He’s an ass, but he’s hot as hell. Don’t worry. I won’t do anything to his dick, but I might admire it from far away.”
“I guess I can’t stop that.” I pulled at the hem of my shirt as I tried to decide how honest I wanted to be with her and then I remembered this was Jess. I wanted to be one hundred percent honest.
“It’s more than just Killian. Like all these people wanted to have drinks to congratulate Harrison—”
“And you.”
I rolled my eyes. “And I have no one, basically.”
“Uh, excuse me.”
“I mean my family is gone, Jess, and all of this talk about getting married just reminds me of that fact. Every. Single. Day. It’s non-stop.”
My best friend came over to me and pulled me into a long hug before letting me go just far enough for her to hold on to my shoulders.
“I know this is hard, Luna. I know. I’ve been there with you through it. But your mom would have wanted you to do this and be happy. She loved Harrison and hated that the two of you weren’t together. Plus, you do have other friends. They’re just not here.”
I choked back the tears that had formed and cleared my throat. “You’re right.”
Jessica linked her arm through mine and guided me from the restroom.
When we were back at the table, Harrison yanked me back to him and when Jessica had the chance to speak, she did. I had to love my best friend.
“Everything OK?” Harrison asked against my ear. I nodded. This wasn’t the place to explain.
“One of the funniest things I’ve done with Luna,” Jess started, “was when I went to visit her in Arizona. I’m pretty sure her neighbor was either in a sister-wives situation or a sex cult and every time we’d pass their apartment, they’d invite us in. So we’d get creative on ways to get by them without being noticed.”
“Oh, god.” I slapped a hand over my face at the memory of what she was about to tell all of them.
“This, I want to hear,” Harrison said with a chuckle.
“The apartment building was the kind that opens to the outside, so we went up to the floor above hers and tried to shimmy down the side of the
walkway onto her floor. At the same time.” Jess’s laugh was infectious. Everyone was already starting to chuckle and she hadn’t even gotten to the funny part yet. “We were both dangling there and finally I said we had to let go. So we did. Except for part of her impossibly long hair got caught on the way down. A patch, small but enough, pulled out of her head, then she hit her ankle on the railing of her floor. I skidded over the cement, scraped my ass, and bloodied my elbow.”
The table roared.
“The best part,” she continued, though she was becoming unintelligible from her laughter, “was that the sex cult neighbors we were trying to avoid rushed out to help us. So we didn’t even get to avoid them.”
Even I was laughing at the memory. I wouldn’t have called that the best memory the two of us had, but shit, we hadn’t been able to stop laughing the whole time. Then or now. It had been pretty funny.
“You were both all right?” Harrison asked once we’d settled down.
“We were,” I said.
“Other than a sore scalp, a skinned ass because I was wearing a skirt, we were fine,” Jess said. “But we couldn’t catch our breaths to tell the sex cult people that we were fine and they thought we’d lost our minds.”
“They thought we were high,” I told her.
“That too and we hadn’t so much as had a glass of wine.”
That lightened my mood and the rest of the night went much better. Though I did leave before Harrison. He protested and said he’d head out too, but I insisted he stay and hang out with his friends as long as he like.
He walked me to my car and kissed me senseless then watched me drive away.
Turned out he didn’t stay long. He finished his last drink, which I knew was just a pop because he wouldn’t drink much then drive, then he came home.
I’d just gotten into my pajamas for the second time that night when I heard the front door close and the locks turn.
At the top of the stairs, I asked, “I thought you’d be longer.”
“Nah. We were just finishing up when you left anyway.”
“Well, it was nice of your friends to want to get together,” I told him as he took the stairs two at a time to get to me.
“Your friends too if you want them. Holly might be obsessed with your hair.”
I flicked it over my shoulder. “Well, it is beautiful.”
“Yeah, it is.”
I followed Harrison to our room and flopped onto the bed while I watched him change.
“I was thinking,” I told him.
“About?”
“The wedding.” That got his attention. His very interested eyes locked on me as he continued to undress. “Would it be possible to have the actual wedding at the winery?”
He took two steps toward me with his hands on his hips as I tried to ignore how tightly those boxer briefs fit him and tried not to think about what was inside. I wondered if constantly wanting him was only going to be part of the honeymoon phase of our relationship, but if it was, I’d enjoy it while it lasted.
“I know you have weddings there in the summer and it wouldn’t be outside, but what about in that main room where the fireplace is? If it’s going to be as small as I want, we could totally fit right there.”
“You want to get married at the winery?”
I nodded. “Neither of us are church people, so we don’t have one of those that means anything to either of us. The winery is important to both of us and much more aesthetically pleasing than my spa. What do you think?”
Harrison came to me and cupped my cheeks with both of his hands. He traced his thumbs over my cheekbones. “What do I think?”
I wet my lips quickly and nodded.
“Luna, I think that’s the best idea either of us has had since I decided to ask you to marry me.”
His lips brushed across mine as if to tease me. It worked, too, until I pushed up and he had no choice but to give me the kiss I’d been thinking of since I’d left for work this morning.
“We just have to keep it small,” I told him once our lips parted.
“We were already doing that.”
I nodded absentmindedly as he shucked off his boxers and slid his pajama pants on.
“I am thinking, though, that maybe we should have the reception there as well.”
“How would that work?” he asked.
“We could do a little cocktail hour in that side room, which would give them enough time to set up the main room. It’s just friends and family, so I don’t care if they can see it being set up. Your staff does this kind of thing all summer. Not like it’ll be different because it’s inside instead of outside.”
“I think we can make that work. We have a caterer that we work with. Whatever you want.”
It was almost as if he weren’t standing there looking hot as hell as we spoke. Still, he was in just the boxer briefs with all of his hard muscle on display.
“I’m going to brush my teeth and then I’ll be back.” He kissed me again quickly. “Get in bed. I’ll be right there.”
I did as he said and waited for him.
Suddenly, I was very excited about this wedding. Not that I hadn’t been before, but now as details started coming together, it was more real.
A different fluttering filled my chest. Not like when I was anxious or nervous. No. This was excitement.
I wanted it more than I could’ve imagined and I promised myself and, silently, Harrison, that I wouldn’t let my moments of sadness take anything away from this. We were only getting married once. I wanted it to be perfect.
Yet there was still so much more to do.
“I’m glad you came out tonight,” Harrison told me as he turned the lights off on his way to bed.
“Me too.”
The bed dipped under his weight, but once he was there, I could snuggle in beside him.
“Killian’s your best man, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You two will have to get new suits.”
“Yeah, we were planning on going Saturday morning.”
“Perfect. Jessica and I are thinking dark gray if that works for you.”
“Anything you want, Luna. I’m happy if you are.”
My head rested on his chest and I could hear the rhythm of his heart against my ear. “Jessica and I are also going dress shopping on Saturday, too.” My pulse amped up at the idea of asking my next question, which was ridiculous. She’d already offered herself up but I still had this little niggling of doubt that he might tell me it’s a bad idea. Sometimes people said things in front of you that they don’t mean. “Do you think your mom would want to go with us?”
Harrison squeezed me tightly to him. “She’d love that. Want me to call her?”
“I’ll call her tomorrow.”
13
Harrison
Luna had said she was going to call my mom on Wednesday to see if she wanted to go dress shopping with her and Jessica. That night when I was at work, I got a call from my mom. She was just lucky enough to catch me on my dinner break.
“Hey. What’s up?” I asked when she answered.
“Did you know Luna was calling me today?” she asked with tears in her voice because, yes, I could hear them.
“I did.”
“Harrison.” She sniffed. “Do you have any idea how much it means to me that she wants to include me in this?”
I smiled at that. Mom loved Luna and while she wouldn’t want to overstep any boundaries, she wanted to be a comfort in light of everything Luna had lost. She’d told me that more than once.
“I think I do.”
“Thank you for asking her to do that.”
I scrunched up my eyebrows. “I didn’t ask her to invite you. She asked me if I thought you’d want to go. I said that you would.”
“It’s just such a hard time for a girl not to have her mom and if I can help in any way, I want to be there for her.”
“She knows that, Mom,” I told her, my heart growing over how much my fam
ily loved my girl. “Obviously, or she probably wouldn’t have asked. When are you going?”
“She said Saturday afternoon. We’re going to Natalie’s Bridal in Traverse City. It’s the closest. Luna and I talked for a few minutes about what she was thinking and while you’re not allowed to see the dress, I don’t think I’m spoiling anything.”
“You haven’t said anything.” Other than the name of the shop and while that did give me an idea, it wasn’t exactly a picture of her dress.
“Well, I asked her what she was thinking and she doesn’t want a big wedding dress, but she does want something beautiful with color.”
That smile grew. “That’s my Luna.”
“And Harrison, your dad and I would like to pay for it for her. Do you think that’s overstepping?”
“You don’t have to do that. Luna and I are paying for everything.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “But her mom would’ve insisted on paying for her dress, I think, so we’d like to do it if it’s OK with her.”
I wasn’t really worried about the money. Not because any of us were rolling in it, but Luna didn’t have expensive taste and there was no chance she’d spend thousands of dollars on a dress.
“She just opened a business and while she said it’s going well, I know that can be a stress on the savings account,” she said as if to justify what she wanted to do. “And so did you.”
“Yeah, but we’re OK, Mom.”
She let out a long, put-upon sigh. “I know you are. Are you saying I’d be overstepping?”
I thought about that for a minute. Would Luna think she was? No. I didn’t think so. “How about this,” I told her. “Offer. If Luna really doesn’t want you to, don’t push. Does that work?”
“That’s perfect.”
“I’ve got to get back to work, OK?”
“Have a good night.”
After ending the call with Mom, I got back to work, but I kept thinking about whether or not I should mention this conversation to Luna and decided against it. I had faith that Mom wouldn’t push if Luna said no.
All of Me: A Holiday Bites Novel Page 8
