Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
The scrapbook was open, and Knox was still staring at it.
When Tod quit talking, Knox’s deep voice sounded.
“The one with the lace plates mixed with the one with the candles, and all that fluffy grass and wicker shit.”
My mouth dropped open.
I turned to see Tod now looking down at the scrapbook (Jacques, incidentally, was too), tapping his finger to his lips, through which he said, “I’m seeing it.”
I shifted my attention to the mood pictures in the book.
Holy shit!
Knox chose perfectly.
My man reached beyond me and turned the page.
Both sides were covered in a dizzying array of fabric swatches.
He then said, “No color. Luna’s aesthetic is pure. Serene. She finds the beauty in neutral.”
HOLY SHIT!
He nailed it.
My guy so totally knew me.
I was gonna cry.
I might even sob.
While I deep breathed, Tod was tugging off any swatch that had the minutest color, tossing them to the courtyard grass, leaving us with creams, beiges, soft tans, the most delicate of peaches and the palest of yellows.
“Like that?” Tod asked Knox.
“That’s it,” Knox declared.
Tod slapped the book closed. “Done.” He looked at me. “Get a cocktail and sit down, girlie. It might be a long night.”
He then sauntered away, taking my dog with him.
I turned to face my guy.
“Uh…”
“You love me?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I love you. So it’s gonna happen.”
There it was.
The tears hit my eyes.
He bent and touched his mouth to mine.
When he moved away, he said, “I’ll get the cocktails.”
He went to get the cocktails.
I sniffed to get a handle on it and Raye came up to me. “Did you see your scrapbook?”
“Knox picked our aesthetic.”
She blinked.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
She reached to grab my hand and squeezed.
She and Cap were determined to enjoy their engagement, so as her bestest bestie, I knew they hadn’t gotten down and dirty with their planning yet.
Still, I asked, “Is Cap interested in helping plan?”
“Anytime I look at my scrapbook or talk to Tod on the phone, Cap gets hyper-focused.”
“So he is.”
“No. He gets hyper-focused on my face to ascertain what I’m excited about. And then he’s all the way down with whatever that is.”
She really got a good one.
And so did I.
Oh shit.
I was losing the fight to hold back the tears.
I gave her hand a squeeze this time.
Her smile was trembly. My return one was too.
She saved us from losing it by saying, “That hat is giving me life.”
“Knox bought it for me. Well, Shirleen did, but Knox asked her to shop for it.”
“Do I want to know?” she asked.
“Do you mean, is it sexual?” I asked back.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
She grinned. “Righteous.”
“Did I miss a vote on the OSRA seal?” I asked.
She turned and looked at the podium. “I think they made an executive decision.”
“I’m not mad about it. It’s boss,” I decreed.
“I concur,” she said.
Zach interrupted this by stepping behind the podium we were gazing at and saying into the microphone (mm-hmm, they didn’t really need it, but they had a microphone), “We’re bringing the Oasis Square Wedding Committee meeting to order. Sit down. We have a lot to get through.”
After we rounded the table to pick up the fabric swatches Tod tossed, Raye and I found seats by Shanti and Willow.
Knox delivered my cocktail then went to go stand with Cap, Eric, Javi, Gabe, Roam, Liam, Brady, Shaw, Lan and Jacob because, we’d learned, badasses didn’t sit during Oasis Square meetings.
Though, it was super sweet all those dudes turned up.
“Right,”—Zach pounded a gavel on the podium (see? totally took this shit seriously)—“Oasis Square Wedding Committee officially in order. Our first item of business is that Tod wants detailed notes on the current version of wedding scrapbooks from Raye, Jessie, Harlow and Willow before he and Stevie head back to Denver on Sunday.”
Only Raye and Jessie were engaged, but as I’d just learned, this was the way they rolled.
As if to verify that, Zach looked to me. “You have extra time, Luna, but you need to turn your scrapbook into me and Bill by February fifteenth.”
With no choice, and since this weird sitch clearly didn’t freak Knox, I gave Zach a salute.
He looked down to another scrapbook opened on the podium, undoubtedly Alexis and Jacob’s, and muttered into the microphone, “Moving on.”
I sipped my cocktail (one of Jessie’s, a passionfruit martini—on point, on theme and last, delish) and listened as Zach, Bill and Tod tag-teamed in going through Saturday’s schedule in minute detail, then telling us what we already knew about our assignments, addressing at length the emergency protocols, and going back through the schedule in minute detail. This ended with them handing thick folders to everyone, which had written notes clipped into them about all of what they just spent an hour going over. Along with this were phone numbers and emails we already had.
This concluded with Bill asking, “Any questions?”
No one had any because we already knew all of this before we even hit the courtyard (outside the emergency protocols, but we could have figured that out).