Текст книги "That Wedding"

Автор книги: Jillian Dodd

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

I'm starting to hate these blue and white checkerboard chairs. They're like mini torture devices. I look down at them and study them a little closer, half expecting shackles to be hidden under the rolled arms and on the wooden legs.

If it's not bad enough that I'm sitting here, Phillip told me on the way in that if I wasn't good I didn't get margaritas after.

Does he think he's my dad?

I don't need his permission to get margaritas!

Maybe today we need to talk to him about the whole smothering thing. I'm pretty sure margarita blocking equals smothering.

Can you technically die from lack of alcohol?

Pastor says, "So today, we want to talk about the past."

Phillip butts in. "We're not going to discuss JJ's parents."

I smile at him. My hero.

Maybe he's not so bad after all.

Pastor replies. "Well, you can pretend all you want that it doesn't affect you, but JJ went through something traumatic. You both did, but that's not all we need to discuss. Everyone comes to a relationship with a past. Past loves, secrets, sometimes children. They've had relationships that were successful, and relationships that were failures. We want to make sure you're both on the same page. How much do you know about each other's past?"

"We know everything! I've known him my whole life!" I say.

Phillip smirks at me. "Not everything. I learned a few things I didn't know about your past the other weekend."

Oh, please. He's not going to bring up that I slept with the bartender, is he? He hasn't said one single word to me about it, and he's gonna choose NOW to talk about it?

Pastor says, "What did you learn, Phillip?"

I give Phillip my evilest glare, but he doesn't look at me. He continues. "I just learned that I don't know everything about her, like I thought I did."

Duh? Like I was gonna tell Phillip about every boy I slept with? Sleeping around was fine for Danny, but I wasn't really allowed. Like Phillip and Danny would've gotten mad at me. Part of the reason I never brought a guy home with me. Danny and Phillip would've crucified him.

"I don't know everything about your past either," I tell Phillip. "We were close, but like the dreams we talked about, we didn't share everything with each other. I'm learning new things about you too."

"True," he says. His eyes get sparkly, and I can tell he's moved from thinking about my past to thinking about naughty dream week and probably about last night. Phillip doesn't mind being treated like a dessert. He says I can lick whipped cream off anything I want, anytime I want. Which I wanna do again very soon. Like maybe tonight.

When that's what you have to look forward to in your future, why would you care about the past?

Phillip turns to Pastor and says, "I don't think we should be dwelling on the past. I think we should be focusing on our future."

This is why I love that boy.

And I love him even more when we get to his car. He kisses me quickly and deeply then picks me up and sets me on the hood. He's standing between my legs and leaning his torso tightly into mine. He grabs my legs, wraps them around his waist, and pulls me in closer. A couple of things cross my mind before I unzip his pants. It's really a good thing the parking lot is dark and deserted, and I'm really glad I wore a dress.

I call Lori while Phillip is in a meeting. "Do you think our past matters? Like does it freak you out that Danny slept with a lot of different girls?"

"Not really. His past is what makes him who he is. Plus, I figure he got it all out of his system. I don't think your past has to define you. I wasn't exactly a saint either."

"That's for sure, and that's a good way to look at it. You kinda threw me under the bus the other day. Phillip and Danny didn't know about Bradley."

"You hooked up with him off and on for two years! How did they not know that?"

"I never told them. I always said I was staying at the sorority house if I wasn't coming home. They don't know much about the hookups side of my past. Like the guys I was in relationships with, they knew about. The hookups. Not so much."

"Did he get mad?"

"No, we had stupid couple's counseling last night. He sorta brought up how he thought he knew everything about me, but he really doesn't. Then I think he started remembering Monday night, and it distracted him. While we were having our tastings, I told Phillip I wanted to cover him in whipped cream and chocolate and make him my dessert. He stopped and bought stuff on the way home, so I did. It was so fun. Phillip is so damn sexy. I can hardly stand it."

"Did you really? Didn't that make a mess?"

"It would have, if we would've been in bed."

"Where were you?"

"The kitchen. Like mostly the counter, well, then the floor. We cleaned it all up, but I still keep finding little random chocolate smudges. They make me laugh."

"Jade, I'm a little worried about you. Do you really think couple's counseling is stupid?"

"Yeah, didn't you?"

"No, not really. I kinda enjoyed it. It was fun learning about ways to be a better couple. He made us think about issues that we hadn't thought to discuss, and I was glad we did."

"You were always a better student than me."

"I studied harder, that's for sure. You hardly ever studied, but you got good grades. That used to piss me off," she says.

"I just have a really good short-term memory. I can't remember any of it now."

"Well, I think you should take counseling more seriously. You and Phillip need to be able to work through things, not just have whipped cream sex."

"Danny told me you solve your conflicts with sex."

"No, we don't. He just thinks we do. If we talk it out first, then I reward him with sex. The sex is all he remembers. I think he has a short-term memory too."

"You're a tricky girl."

She laughs. "So this weekend!! You ready to find the dress of your dreams?"

"I am. Do you really think we'll find a dress?"

"I know we will!"

Tonight, we're both sitting in bed. I'm on my ipad, flipping through wedding cake designs while Phillip is watching, well, I have no idea what he's watching.

He's on the Discovery channel, and every time I glance up, I see big, huge crocodiles eating something.

It's really disturbing me, so I try not to glance up, but, yuck, I accidentally do.

So it's really no wonder with all this wedding planning going on in my mind that my subconscious would play havoc with my dreams.

I walk out onto a stage as an announcer says, "And on today's journey through the dark recesses of Bridalville, we find our heroine, Princess Jadyn, on the search for the perfect wedding dessert."

I sit at a big golden banquet table, eating dessert after sinful dessert. An audience claps at me when I choose to have purple edible flowers flown in from Guam for my special day. "She's so creative," the announcer says.

Then it's my wedding day. Phillip pulls out my chair at our sweetheart table. We sit down, and I feel so lucky. Phillip is beaming at me. Our friends and families are at all the surrounding tables waiting to be served dinner.

Our amazing Kansas City strip steaks are being delivered. For some reason, we decided it would be very cool to have the steaks carved like an ice sculpture. The steaks are somehow standing on end, and they've been carved to look like a crocodile. Now you would think this might look a little scary, but at the time we picked it out, Phillip and I thought it was adorable because it looked like the crocodile was smiling at us and wishing us a happy life. He was a cute crocodile, like the one from Peter Pan.

But just as our guests are oohing and aahing over our creativeness and how real they look, the crocs come to life, jump up out of the wedding plates, and start to eat up all our guests. One by one, I watch my guests get swallowed up by their crocodile steaks. I start to scream!

Phillip wakes me up.

I tell him about my horrible dream. "What do you think it means?"

"Maybe you're afraid no one will come to the wedding. That we won't have any guests."

"No, that can't be it. These people were already at the reception, and who comes to the wedding and skips the reception? I mean, the reception is the best part."

"People that don't wanna get eaten by a crocodile, perhaps?"

"Smart ass. Well all I know is, I'm not getting the steak."

"I guess I might have to agree with that. Maybe we should call Amy in the morning and go with the filet medallions instead."

I look at Phillip. He has pillow head, and the side of his cheek has red lines across it from where he was sleeping on his hand. I grin at him and move my hands under the sheets. "You know, I think I'm so scared, I might not be able to go back to sleep. You might have to distract me."

He pulls me closer to him as I run my hands down his abs. "How am I supposed to do that?"

I press my lips against his yummy smelling neck, graze my tongue down the side of it, and rub my hand between his legs. "I bet you can think of something."

We're in New York, and Lori is quite prepared with a car to drive us around and a list of stores for us check out. She says, "Jade, if you can't find a dress here, you're doomed."

"Nothing like a little bit of pressure to start my day," I mutter back.

"You didn't get coffee yet, did you? You're always cranky without coffee. Did you eat breakfast?"

"Um, no." She sighs at me. "Don't give me that sigh. I'm going to try on wedding dresses! I needed to look perfect, so I spent a lot of time getting ready." I lean over and whisper in her ear, so the mom's can't hear. "Plus, Phillip would NOT let me out of bed. He's insatiable."

Lori giggles with me then asks the driver to stop at the next coffee shop. She comes back with a latte and a chocolate chip scone for me. I'm happily sipping coffee and thinking about how Phillip looked when I left this morning. All those sexy muscles lying there naked, twisted up sheets down by his feet. The way his eyes sparkled when he spoke. How I can't even remember what he said because I kept thinking how I just wanted to take my clothes off and pounce back on top of him. I think about what I would've done. How I would've run my hands across his broad shoulders. How I love the way his abs feel in my hands. How muscular his butt feels when he's.........

His mom interrupts my thoughts by shoving a file folder in front of me. Mrs. Diamond tells me they clipped out some photos of dresses they thought I should try on.

I thank them and flip through the photos, not really looking at them. My mind is back to sexy places.

We went to a few boutique stores. I tried on some dresses, but nothing wowed us.

Around noon, I'm introduced to a bridal consultant named Hillary. She's short, blonde, and extremely peppy. I like her enthusiasm right away.

Hillary says, "I'm going to steal the bride away for a little while. Enjoy some champagne, and we'll be back out looking like a bride."

Hillary leads me back to a dressing room, where we sit down. "So tell me about the groom."

"His name is Phillip Mackenzie, and I've known him my whole life. He was my best friend growing up, my college roommate, and we got engaged a couple months ago on our first date."

"Wow, really? I've never met anyone that got engaged on their first date. So how about your budget?"

I tell her my dress budget. She nods and says, "Have you tried on any dresses?"

"I've tried on about thirty."

"And have you liked any of them? Do you have pictures of dresses you like?"

"I have a stack that people think I should try on. I don't want to waste our time though. I know that none of them are the one."

"Okay, why don't you tell me what you liked or didn't like about the dresses you've tried on."

"I hate hoop skirts. I don't want anything heavy. I wanna be able to move."

"Got it. Now describe to me how you want to look on your wedding day."

"No one has asked me that question before."

"Well, I'm going to help you find the perfect dress. It's my job to ask the right questions."

I think about how I want to look. "I wanna look timeless. I want my daughter to look back at my dress twenty years from now and not know when I got married. I kinda want to look like Grace Kelly. Not her wedding gown, that was too lacy. More like the fifties classic strapless dresses. But no, that's not really right either because I don't want to look dated. I definitely want strapless. I want the dress to be soft and light, so I can move around in it. I thought I wanted something very tailored and plain, but when I try on dresses like that, they don't seem dressy enough, so I think I need a little bling. I know most brides probably come in and know exactly what they want. Like they want to look a certain way, but all I want is for Phillip to think I look amazing. I did try on a dress of each silhouette. Everyone thinks I look best in a strapless mermaid style. I sort of feel like a bridal failure."

"You're not a failure. You just haven't found the right dress yet. You've told me a lot about what you want and don't want. I'm going to pull a few dresses. Be right back," she says in a very chipper voice.

I say a silent prayer that Hillary can figure me out.

That today I will find my dress.

While I'm waiting, my phone buzzes. I pull it out of my purse.

Danny :)  XXX theme wedding requires a XXX bridal dress. Hint:

Following is a photo of a woman that you'd assume is a bride, since she's wearing a veil and dressed in all white. I'd say she's probably a very naughty bride. She has on a white lace corset, sheer lace thong, fishnet thigh highs, and patent leather platform heels. Only the classiest shoes for this bride. Over all of this is a sheer robe. The robe is sporting a feather collar, or maybe it's a white boa, I'm not sure. She also has extremely big hair, bright red lipstick, and a cherry halfway in her mouth. Maybe that's a new wedding dessert I should consider.

Ha!

Me:  OMG! Veryyyy classy!

Danny :)  If you decide you wanna try on dresses like this. One that will fit your theme, ditch the women and let the best man help you pick it out. I'm told it's one of my duties to see my groom is well taken care of.

Me:  You're a goofball. Are you with Phillip and the dads?

Danny :)  Yeshhh :) and Mac likeyyyyyy.

Me:  Are you drinking?

Danny :)  I have a game tomorrow, so not really, but everyone else is. Lori says brides sometimes wear a second dress to the reception, and it should fit your theme. So we ordered this for you. You can thank me later.

Me:  More like Phillip will be thanking you. Tell him it definitely fits our honeymoon theme.

Danny :)  You have a honeymoon theme?

Me:  Maybe.....

Danny :)  Phillip says you do, but won't tell me. He also said to tell you this outfit reminds him of whipped cream. What does that mean?

Me:  Well, we can't use XXX for the wedding, so......and ask him about the whipped cream. OMG, Danny, it was so HOT! Just don't let the dads hear!

Danny :)  I'm jealous.

Hillary walks back in the room with four dresses. There must be something about having a complete stranger see you practically naked that makes you feel like you can talk to her about anything. While she's getting me all done up, I find myself telling her that it's kinda hard for me to be picking out a dress without my mom. I tell her how my mom loved bling and how I used to fight against it, but the older I get, the more I don't mind just a little bit of sparkle. For some reason, it makes me feel more like her.

The first dress she puts me in is actually quite pretty. I know for sure, it's not THE dress, but it's probably the first one that I don't dislike. It's a strapless mermaid style dress. It has just a bit of bling across the waistline, but the rest of it is pretty plain. Like the simplicity of the design is what makes it gorgeous.

I show Lori and the moms.

"This isn't the one," I say, "but it's very pretty, don't you think?"

Lori loves me in strapless, and the moms love the mermaid style. Maybe we're getting somewhere. Maybe today I will find a dress.

Eight gowns later.

Hillary knows more about me than my best friends. Not only have I told her about my parents, but I told her how we were going to have a long engagement, but moved it up. How the wedding is going to be romantic. How the date magically fell into place. How it's the day after my parents' anniversary. How I feel like they gave me a wedding gift.

I tell her about the ballroom, the candlelight, and the food.

When she goes to grab more dresses, I'm embarrassed to realize that I've been totally spilling my guts to her.

We've tried on beautiful dresses, but none of them are right. I'm starting to feel like a failure again. And I'm not the only one that's feeling that way. Hillary doesn't seem as chipper. Lori and the moms are starting to look bored and frustrated with me. They've loved quite a few of the dresses, and I'm pretty sure they think I'm nuts.

Naked is starting to sound better and better. Maybe I could just buy a veil and have one of those artists come paint my body white.

Ha! If the Chiefs make the playoffs, I could leave the paint on, add some red and yellow, and go to the game! I'd probably get on TV. Like if I didn't get arrested first.

Hillary is a very patient trooper though, and she comes back in with four more dresses. She's just about to put me in another dress, I already know I'm going to reject, when my cell rings. I had left my phone sitting on the chair, so I can see that it's Phillip calling me.

"It's Phillip, the groom!" I say excitedly. "Do you mind if I answer it quick?"

"Sure," she says.

I answer and say, "Hey."

Phillip's soft dreamy voice fills the room. "Hey, Princess. How's the dress shopping going?"

I apologize to Hillary. "Sorry, I must have hit the speaker button." I turn off the speaker and say to Phillip, "I'm still looking, but I think we're getting closer."

It's a total lie.

Both Hillary and I know this.

I tell him I need to go, and he tells me he knows I'll find the perfect dress today.

As I'm ending the call, I notice Hillary looking at me kinda funny. "He calls you Princess? Is that his nickname for you?"

I nod my head and launch into the story about how when we were ten, Mary Beth Parker told everyone not to play with me. How Phillip still did. How I told him he acted like a prince. How since that day, he's called me Princess. How he's always called me Princess in private, but lets it slip out now in front of our friends. I even get a little misty when I tell her about how we used to play games as kids. How I would be a princess, and he would rescue me from dragons. How as we got older, he rescued me for real. When my parents died. From bad dates. Flat tires. You name it. How when I was little, my parents told me I should marry Phillip. How I laughed and told them I was marrying a prince.

Pretty much, I gushed on and on about how amazing Phillip is.

Hillary's eyes light up. She gets a big grin on her face and says, "I have an idea."

She dashes out of the room while I think about Phillip. About how much I love that boy. I need to keep reminding myself that's what this wedding is all about. I'm going to marry the boy I love and have always loved. I think that's why I've been having such a hard time. I'm trying to find a dress worthy of that love.

Maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way. Maybe I should think about what kind of dress Phillip would like.

I think about the dress he bought me for our engagement, freaking covered in sequins, but still tailored and simple.

Hillary is grinning as she bounds in with another dress. She looks peppy again. "This dress is not a mermaid style. We've been getting sidetracked by what everyone thinks you look good in. You told me you want classic and romantic. Timeless. Mermaids are fashionable, but they aren't timeless. I want you to try this dress on with your eyes closed. I want you to see it in front of the big mirrors for the first time."

She seems super excited and sincere, so I say, "Okay."

I mean it's the least I can do for the woman who's probably going to need some kind of deep post-traumatic stress counseling after dealing with me.

I close my eyes as she slides a dress on me.

Then she holds my hand and leads me on the now familiar walk out front.

"Keep your eyes closed," Hillary whispers to me. "I'm going to grab a veil."

I want to open my eyes. I can hear the moms and Lori whispering.

Hillary pulls back half of my hair, slides a comb and veil into it, then lays a headband across the top of my head.

"Okay, sweetie, now you can open your eyes."

I look in front of me.

Staring back at me isn't me in another dress.

Staring back at me is a BRIDE.

And this bride is wearing the most beautiful dress I have ever seen.

The top of her dress is strapless and satin. It fits the bride perfectly and accentuates her thin waist. Crossing her waist is a band of beautiful crystals. The gown of her dress is layer upon layer of frothy silk organza. Her hair is half pulled up, her blonde curls are cascading down her shoulders, and there's a long veil with a crystal headband that perfectly finishes the bride's dress.

It takes a second for me to realize the bride I'm looking at is me.

I get little tears in my eyes. I've been looking for so long, and I'm so happy I didn't buy another dress because this is EXACTLY how I want to look for Phillip. This dress is a combination of my tailored style and, well, kinda like a princess. A princess that isn't going to the ball in a big hoop skirt. This princess is more like a fairy princess, and she's going dancing in a frothy, swishy, twirly skirt that feels like she's wearing a cloud.

It's perfect.

I'm dabbing the little tears from my eyes when Hillary says, "Finally, the tears. So what does everyone think?"

I pry my eyes away from the gorgeous bride in the mirror, I mean, me, and look back to see their reactions. They're all in tears too.

Danny's mom gets up and hugs me. "Honey, you look so beautiful. Look at those gorgeous crystals." She backs up, looks at the dress again, and shakes her head sadly. "Your mom would have loved this dress. I really wish she was here with us today."

I cover my mouth with my hand. I can't hold back the tears anymore. Just hearing that my mom would love my dress makes them flow down my face.

Hillary hands out tissues because we're all bawling.

"So is the fact that we're all blithering idiots over this dress mean it's the one?" Lori asks.

"Yes," I say. "This is definitely the one."

Mrs. Mac says, "You look a little like a princess," as she dabs her eyes.

Like Phillip's princess, I think.

"I'll take it," I say.

Then I stare at the bride in the mirror some more.

I can't wait for Phillip to see me in this dress.