64
Icould have just crawled back into bed for a nap when the knock on the door came. I glanced over at Kristo, who had been reading a book quietly on the couch, and he shrugged.
“Who’s calling on us now?” I asked, sighing deeply. I was so exhausted from the last couple of days, all I wanted was to relax and catch up on some sleep and hopefully not throw up anything I put in my stomach. The nausea had just begun to recede, but I was still taking it slow. Kristo and Cleo had taken Jolene for a walk around the neighborhood while I had tried to make myself useful at home and succeeded only in lying very still on the couch, hoping nobody would appear to disturb me.
Kristo stood up, holding his hand out to me to keep me in my seat.
“Don’t move an inch. I’ve got it,” he assured me. I lay there grateful my husband-to-be was so helpful. Damn, but if I hadn’t become a little pampered in this life that he built up for me.
Before he could say a word, his grandmother swept into the room, not just her but what looked like an entire department store’s worth of stuff. Fabric, papers, lists, she was carrying so much, I had no idea how she didn’t wilt under the sheer weight of it.
“What’s going on here?” Kristo asked, and he sounded a little nervous like he half-expected his nonna to turn on him for not being able to figure it out. Instead, a large smile broke over her face, and she held up the bags.
“Wedding planning stuff,” she told me. “Everything you could need to put this thing together.”
“What do you …?” I got to my feet, planting my hand on my lower back and wincing as it twinged slightly. God, if this was how I was just a few weeks into pregnancy, how bad was it going to be by the end?
“Here, let me help.” Kristo looped an arm around my waist and held me up as he guided me over to his grandmother. She was laying out bags of stuff on the table, and Jolene and Cleo had both emerged from their respective hiding places to see what the hell was going on.
“I was talking to Kristo last night,” Nonna explained. “And he told me that you still don’t have a lot planned for the wedding?”
“We have a venue and a date, but that’s pretty much it,” I admitted. “We’ve been, uh, distracted by other stuff for a while, that’s all.”
“You want to get moving on it now,” she told me firmly, and Cleo chuckled from behind us.
“I don’t know what you’re laughing about, young lady. You’re going to be helping.” She flashed around to aim the comment at Cleo. The smile dropped off Cleo’s face at once.
“Can I at least call Darla?” she asked hopefully. “Rope her into this as well?”
“The more hands we have on deck, the better.” Nonna nodded firmly. I stared at her for a long moment, trying to make sense of what she was saying.
“So you want …?”
“We’re going to get this wedding planned,” she told me, catching my face between her hands and smiling at me kindly. I grinned and shook my head at her.
“I’m not sure we can just get everything done in one day.”
“I’ve organized more in less time,” she told me, and she beamed as she saw Jolene rolling toward us. She gave her a big hug. “And we’ll get some help from your sister, right?”
“Of course.” Jolene hugged her back. “Anything I can do. Preferably to do with the food.”
“Okay, let’s get started,” Nonna began, and she pointed to the bags and then to Kristo. “Over there, to the dining table. We need space to spread out.”
Kristo did as he was told, and Cleo called up Darla, and before I knew it, I had a full crew of people right here with me helping me put together the wedding of my dreams. I hadn’t realized how much work went into putting together a wedding like this one. In my mind, it was just about hiring the place and picking a date and hoping all of your friends could make it. But as it turned out, there were so many details to everything that I would never have thought of myself. I was so grateful for Kristo’s Nonna seeing me in a state of disarray and descending on me to help because otherwise, I wouldn’t have had any clue as to what to do.
“What kind of napkins?” Darla asked, lifting her gaze from a pile of swatches and holding up three separate ones. “This one suits the food theme more, but this one goes better with the color theme, and this one—”
“Is sort of a mix of the two,” I finished up for her. “I think I’m starting to get this now. The second one, I think?”
“All right.” Darla nodded, and she grabbed one of the several phones we had strewn around and went to put in a call.
“I’ll help you.” Cleo got to her feet and followed her new crush. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw them exchange those flirtatious little glances. Who’d have thought a librarian and a socialite would make a good match?
“Okay, and this is what I was thinking for the menus.” Jolene pushed a piece of paper toward me, one covered in her chicken-scratch scrawl, and pointed at a particular sentence.
“And this one, that’s the meatless option, but I don’t know if we should make it vegan too,” she explained.
“Go for it.” I nodded. “Make it as inclusive as we can.”