Date Me Like You Mean It

“Cotton candy,” Aiden said, drawing my attention back to the church.

I frowned in confusion. “What?”

“The color of your dress.”

My cheeks turned bright red. “Yeah, hard to blend in with a dress like this.”

His green eyes shot up to mine, gently narrowing at the corners, but he didn’t say anything more because we were already at the end of the aisle. He paused and let go of my arm, offering me a hint of a smile before turning toward his family. They gathered him in close, his dad wrapping his arm around him for a side hug and his mother beaming at him with pride.

Meanwhile, my own father was snapping photos of me with the extra-large telescopic lens attached to his heavy-duty camera while simultaneously trying not to cry for the fifth time that day.

“I can’t believe my baby is getting married,” he said, sounding close to another breakdown.

Click-click. The camera’s lens snapped open and shut.

“Keep it together, Peter,” my mother groaned. “We’ve got to be strong for Jolie.”

But she sounded near tears too.

She rushed toward me, fussing over my dress and trying to straighten a flower that was sewed onto the bodice right above my heart.

“I don’t think it’ll lie flat,” I told her.

She tsked as if annoyed that I didn’t believe in her mothering skills, and then she whipped out a little alteration pin from her purse. She poked it into my dress (catching my skin in the process) and proceeded to ignore my whimper of pain as she bent that fabric bloom to her will.

“There, perfect. Now stop slouching.” I slouched harder, and she rolled her eyes. “You always were my little rebel.”

Hardly.

My sister’s rehearsal dinner afterward was beautiful. Of course it was. My mother helped plan it, and she’s been hosting parties my entire life as if in preparation for a big traditional Southern wedding. As a regular in the Highland Park social scene, she was made for moments like this.

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get another chance to have a private word with Aiden at dinner, not with all of our respective families there, hogging our attention and asking me pestering questions.

So what will you do now that you’re done with college?

I’d love to backpack to Machu Picchu.

Any plans to settle down?

I’m not sure—I’m only 21.

Do you think you’ll have kids?

What? You know I’m not the one getting married, right?

Then, it came time for the speeches. James and Jolie—(I know, I know. My mother practically had a heart palpitation with all the alliterative monogram possibilities)—had requested that the family make speeches at the rehearsal dinner rather than at the wedding reception, so when everyone was seated and eating their way through dinner, I pushed my chair back, raised my champagne flute, and took a butter knife to the side of it. To say I was nervous is an understatement, and that was before I cracked my flute with the knife and showered myself in bubbly.

Everyone, and I mean everyone gasped in horror as I dabbed champagne off my dress.

“Well, I guess these rehearsals are a good idea,” I quipped. “Tomorrow, during the wedding, I’ll remember to just tap the glass lightly before I give a speech.”

Everyone laughed as an attendant rushed forward to help clean up the mess. That’s when my eyes locked with Aiden across the small room in the Dallas Country Club. He was smiling then, though just barely. Only the right side of his mouth was hitched up to let me know he wasn’t taking amusement from my situation, but instead commiserating with me. The private look sent a shiver down my spine.

I don’t quite remember my speech after that. It was a sprinkling of embarrassing and touching stories about my childhood with Jolie playing the role of the perfect (and I mean perfect) big sister, paired with healthy warnings to James about what he was getting into. Like my mother, Jolie can be quite particular. Since she turned thirteen, she’s never gone out in public without a full face of makeup. She’s had her children’s names picked out for as long as I can remember. She wants everything tied up with a ribbon or a bow, a wreath on every door, a flower in every vase. In fact, at the rehearsal dinner, I’m pretty sure she cried, not because of my sweet speech, but because when I spilled the champagne, some of it made its way onto our grandmother’s heirloom linens that were covering the tables that night.

Regardless, whatever my speech was, Aiden topped it.

After I’d finished and we’d toasted to the bride and groom, he stood to take his turn. He picked up his butter knife, made out like he was going to clink it against the side of his champagne flute, then paused as if thinking it over before setting it back down. Everyone laughed, including me. Then—and I’ll never forget this detail for as long as I live—to confirm I was in on the joke with him, he sent me a wink from across the room before turning his attention to his brother.