“Thanks for coming,” I yelled after them, even though I’d already said that once before.
Charles pulled me to him and pressed his forehead against mine, creating a little bubble just for the two of us.“Sorry about that. I told you not to invite Cal. He always shows up with her as his plus-one,” he said.
“It’s fine. She’s fine,” I said with a soft laugh. Charles had already chosen me over Breanne a thousand times over. I wasn’t jealous of her desperate ploy for attention. If anything, I felt kind of bad for her. Hopefully she’d find love of her own someday soon.
I’d stopped paying attention to what she was up to after she and Charles broke up. As far as I knew, she was still in the real estate business and doing well.
Last I’d heard, her brother had given up his handyman gig and gone back to school. He wanted to be a lawyer now, imagine that. I guess being wrongly maligned and imprisoned gave him a deep sense of justice, and I admired him for turning his horrible ordeal into something positive for the world.
“Ready for me?” another familiar voice prompted, drawing Charles and me back to the task at hand.
“Bethany!” I shot forward and hugged my former frenemy tight. I hadn’t seen Bethany Peters since she moved to Georgia to look after her delinquent cousin Peter, who had thankfully chosen not to attend today’s ceremony.
“How have you been?” I gushed, thrilled to bits that she was here now. All that frenemy stuff had been nonsense. I wished I had taken more time to get to know her when she still lived so close. I couldn’t change the past, but I could do better going forward.
Another vow for today, and one I intended to keep.
“We’ll catch up at the reception,” she promised. “Oh, and I brought you a special essential oil blend I made. It’s for wedded bliss. Put two to three drops in your diffuser daily, and you’ll live happily ever after.”
“I will, thank you,” I said as she signed my gown in turquoise. She’d always been oddly obsessed with essential oils, and while I’d never been a fan, I would happily take her up on this promise of wedded bliss.
Even though I highly suspected Charles and I would not be needing any help in that arena.
16
And then it was time for the reception. Thankfully we had a huge yard, so we simply had to shift the party over to where twelve circular tables of eight and one long rectangular head table were already set up and waiting. A bonus table sported a host of wrapped packages and a big basket where guests had dropped their congratulatory cards.
Charles had wanted to create a bridal registry, but I insisted it was way more fun not knowing what people might buy. Since I’d won that argument, I had no idea what types of gifts filled the table, but I knew finding out after our honeymoon would be great fun. One of the presents made me a little uneasy though. It was suspiciously wrapped in old junk mail circulars and not very skillfully at that.
“Do you think it could be a bomb?” the boom mic operator asked his buddies as the film men zoomed in on the odd present.
“Oooh, I hope so. That would be awesome!” another of his crew answered. Well, glad to know they were on my side. Entertainment over excellence, I supposed.
My mom had fully taken over MC duties from Mags now that the reception was on. She was quite comfortable in front of a camera thanks to her job as a big-time local news anchor. I assumed the TV show guys didn’t know that—and that she didn’t want them to—because they spent very little time focusing on her or my dad, the semi-celebrities in our midst.
They had figured out that Mags was something of an Internet celebrity, though, and had foisted their star feline Chessy into her arms as they recorded the both of them.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr. and Mrs. Charles Longfellow, III!” my mom announced in her reporter voice as Charles and I rushed out onto the shiny dance floor that had been laid in the yard for just this purpose.
Charles spun me to the delight of our guests, then pulled me close to his chest as our cellist began to play“My Funny Valentine.” We swayed together, heart to heart, as Charles serenaded me with the song he had sworn would always be ours.
The music ended far too soon for my liking, but at least we still had so many more festivities ahead. Our guests cheered and started clinking their wine glasses, indicating that they wanted us to kiss. No problem there!
A second song began to play, and we cleared off the floor to give Nan and Grant space for their first dance as a married couple. While we’d gone with a timeless classic, they’d selected something hugely inappropriate that I recognized from the current radio hits. I think it was a Cardi B song. Either way, I did not want to know how or why this became my eighty-something grandmother’s go-to love song. I did not want to know even a little bit.
When the music ended, Nan pulled me and Charles back toward the house.“C’mon, there’s a surprise for you inside. We’ll be quick, but I wanted you to see.”
Back in my giant manor home, nothing was as I’d left it less than an hour ago. The furniture had been cleared out and a baby gate had been erected at the bottom of the grand staircase.
“Hello and congratulations!” Nan’s friends Gertie and Pearl chimed as we went further into the house. Pearl had taken over at the animal shelter after the last director was caught embezzling, and Gertie had become Nan’s closest friend thanks to all the visits that followed her early morningruns with Cujo. They stood beside a trio of incredibly tall cat trees that were ringed by several bowls of both dry and wet cat food. Some loose catnip had also been scattered on a large throw rug they’d brought, and I could already see Beans from the pet store rolling around and rubbing himself in the stuff.
“It’s a reception for all our animal guests!” Nan announced proudly and with jazz hands. “Didn’t want them to miss out on the celebrating.”
I heard footsteps on the stairs and turned just in time to see Octo-Cat and Grizabella jump over the baby gate in unison. They walked side by side so close they were touching, then scaled the tallest cat tree and took up post at the very top. The two barely fit up there together, but somehow they made it work.
Nan leaned in to whisper,“I suspected he’d make your day all about him, so I figured we might as well give him a party too.”
I beamed and gave her a wink, letting my grandmother know just how right she was about that. True, she couldn’t speak with the animals, but she understood them all the same. I didn’t see the sphynxes anywhere, leaving me to wonder whether Grandma Lyn had shut them in a room so they could think about what they’d done. I hadn’t known her for long, but that seemed like the kind of thing she might do.
“Thank you for coming to our wedding celebration,” Octo-Cat meowed from the top of the tree. “You may leave your gifts at the entrance. And be warned, nobody look at my beautiful bride too long, or I’ll cut ya!” He flexed his claws demonstratively, and Grizabella nuzzled him with great gusto. Apparently she liked the tough guy act. To each their own, I guessed.
“I love it, thank you!” I gushed, realizing I hadn’t said anything at all. I’d been too busy taking in the spectacle.
“You’re very welcome, Angie,” Pearl chortled and fluffed her short hair. “I hope you don’t mind, but I brought a few adoptable pets too. Maybe you could just make it a point to mention that to the guests? It would be great to find these cats homes. What a way to leave a lasting mark on your big day.”
I agreed that of course I would make an announcement. I wanted the homeless pets to find their place too, but if you asked me, our wedding had already left quite a mark.
“We will do just that,” Charles answered for the both of us, lacing his fingers between mine, then lifting our joint hands and placing a kiss on the back of mine.