“Eight and a half,” he repeats. “Anyone else you want to invite?”
I consider inviting my mother along for this. But thankfully, I think she’s wedding-ed out.
“Maybe Julia,” I answer, suggesting the band manager’s assistant, who has become a close friend to all of us lately. “But I don’t want her to feel like the odd girl out.”
“Julia’s actually leaving to tour with My Hero,” Shawn informs me. “Since we’re not touring this year, Christian thought it would be a better use of her time to work with them.”
“She’s got her work cut out for her.”
Shawn nods in agreement.
“So I guess it’s just the lot of us,” he says.
“I guess so.”
Shawn makes the reservation and pulls me into his lap, even though we’re in public.
“I want you to have the perfect wedding, Aya…”
“Stop, please,” I tell him. “I had the perfect wedding.”
“You had your mother’s perfect wedding. This one will be for us.”
That’s true. My mother never married and probably never will, so she projected every wedding fantasy she’s ever had onto me. But I want Shawn and I to be able to do this our way too. We deserve that.
“I like that,” I tell him. “Thank you.”
He doesn’t say ‘you’re welcome.’ He just kisses me.
Someone at the workstation behind us clears her throat, so I guess we’re getting a little too friendly for the business center of a nice hotel. Shawn wraps up with the lodge’s website and leads me down the hall, towards the restaurant where our families are still eating.
“Do we have to go back in there?” I ask.
“We can hide out in the suite,” he suggests. “Order room service. Eat breakfast in the bathtub.”
“Sounds messy. But fun.”
And so, so tempting.
I sigh.
“Okay, one last thing for everyone else,” I tell him. “Then we get to go home and it’s just us for awhile.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Four
Shawn
After an evening of teaching the advanced pole dancers, Aya pretty much belly flops onto the bed and is dead to the world for the next hour. Perfect.
I keep my voice down and call Cora. She answers on the first ring.
“Shawn? Everything okay?” she asks.
“Has Aya ever said anything to you about a pink wedding dress?”
“Don’t you think the time to ask that would have been before the wedding?”
“Come on. I’m trying to surprise her,” I say. All of the guys in the band and their significant others are on board for the trip and the second wedding idea, but no one knows about this part. “She mentioned something to me about wanting a blush pink wedding dress, and I wanted to know if she’s ever pointed out a specific one or…”
“Not to me,” Cora says. “We went shopping with her mom and all she tried on were white dresses. Not even ivory or champagne. Like… white, white. Her mom insisted nothing else would do.”
“I know.”
“Maybe she did some shopping online,” she suggests. “I’m not saying poke around on her laptop, but…”
“You think she looked at wedding dresses online?”
“I’m sure she did. She probably started looking for dresses, like, seconds after you proposed. Every girl does.”
“Hm…”
“Her password is ‘pancakes,’ by the way.”
“I know that.”
I thank Cora and we hang up. I check the bedroom to make sure that Aya is still asleep and find her laptop on the coffee table. I type in her password and look through her search history for anything that looks like a wedding dress site.
“What are you doing with my computer?”
I look up from the screen and see Aya standing over me with her arms crossed over her chest.
Busted.
She doesn’t necessarily look mad. Just confused.
“Shawn?” she asks.
“Sorry. Couldn’t find mine.”
Her eyes wander to the other side of the room, right by the window-seat.
“Right there,” she says, pointing.
“Oh.”
“Shawn, I’ve got nothing to hide on that laptop. You’re welcome to look through it. But not if you won’t tell me why.”
“I was looking for… a gift for you,” I tell her. It’s not technically a lie. The dress would be a gift. “I was nosy. I was looking through the stuff you shop for.”
“Hmm…” she murmurs. Then she turns a little pink. Like she’s blushing.
“What?”
“I’ve been doing a little… honeymoon shopping.”
“What kind of honeymoon shopping?” I wonder, intrigued.
I can’t help myself. I go to her most recent search history.
Whoa.
“See anything you like?” she asks.
I’m looking at a specialty lingerie site. Mostly white, lacy bridal stuff. Little bits of flimsy fabric that would barely cover her body. My mind races. All of this would look amazing on Aya.
And on the floor.
“You know I don’t care what you wear…”
“I know,” she says. “But I wanted to pick something special for you.”
I close the laptop and pull her into my lap. I try to kiss her, but she pushes me off.
“Shawn, I’m so gross,” she protests.
“I don’t care.”
I don’t. Sure, she smells like she just worked out, but I like her sweaty.
“I need a shower.”
Okay. I can work with the shower. I take her hand and lead her into the bathroom. She gets undressed while I turn on the water and the room fills with steam. I strip off my clothes and pull her under the spray with me. I grab the shampoo bottle and squeeze some into my palm.
“Turn around,” I tell her.
“Huh?”
“I’m going to wash your hair.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I thought…”
“We will,” I whisper. “This first.”
She turns around and I work the shampoo through her long, black hair. After a few minutes under the hot water, with my hands on her, she makes a contented noise, low in her throat. Her head droops forward a bit, like she’s relaxing into a good massage.
I rub her shoulders and the back of her neck as we rinse the shampoo.
“Do you miss the blue?” she asks, suddenly.
I laugh. When I first met Aya, she had been bleaching her hair and dying it a sort of silvery blue color.
“Do you?” I ask her.
“I don’t know,” she says, softly. “I mean, this is way easier. And I like not using the bleach and all the chemicals anymore.”
“True.”
“But I just feel… Ugh,” she groans. “I feel like I want to do something crazy. Like dye it pink or cut it all off.”
“Okay, definitely don’t cut it all off.”
“Why not? Wouldn’t you love me if I had a cute pixie cut?” she teases. “Or maybe I could buzz it and rock that look?”