“Someday,” she echoed.
Add that to the list of things we really ought to discuss.
It hadn’t seemed pertinent in the beginning, when this had been more of a favor with a theoretical expiration date. But with each passing day, he was realizing he didn’t want an expiration date. He wanted to do this for real.
He held out his hand. “Rehearsal dinner?”
She slipped her hand in his. “Rehearsal dinner.”
~*~
The rehearsal dinner slipped by without incident—a minor miracle as far as Piper was concerned. Given how fast this whole shindig had been thrown together, she kept expecting some disaster to strike that would cause Myles’ grandmother to permanently curse their names. Sooner than she expected, her girlfriends were dragging her away from her groom in the name of bachelorette party.
Piper felt strangely nervous about letting him go. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet all through dinner, and she worried he was having second thoughts.
“You’ll see him tomorrow,” Miranda insisted.
Piper ignored her, slipping her arms around Myles and searching his face. “You sure you’re okay?”
“My toes are perfectly toasty,” he assured her. “This time tomorrow, all the crazy will be over and we’ll be celebrating. Go have fun with the girls.” He sent an arch look in their direction. “No strippers, y’all.”
Tyler crossed her heart. “No strippers. We’ve got something else in mind.”
Myles brushed a thumb across her cheek, much as he’d done to Preston earlier. The gesture made her heart roll over in her chest.
“See you tomorrow, Mrs. Stewart.”
“Tomorrow,” she sighed.
Tyler and Norah had her shoved into a car before she could so much as blink.
“Where are we going?” Piper demanded.
“You, my darling, need to loosen up. You’re getting married tomorrow,” Tyler announced.
“I did remember that, believe it or not.”
“That’s why you need loosening up,” Miranda said.
“I will loosen up once we are on the other side of the ‘I do’s and Suzanne and her entourage have left town.”
“This will help.” Norah passed a gift bag from the front seat. “Go ahead and open it.”
Piper pulled tissue paper out and stuck her hand inside, fingers wrapping around something long and textured. Mildly afraid of what X-rated thing they’d concocted, she slowly pulled the thing from the bag—and began to laugh hysterically. Deep belly spasms of mirth.
“A bedazzled microphone?”
“We’re doing bachelorette karaoke,” Tyler declared. “Because of course. It’s you.”
Piper felt some of the tension that’d been lodged in her chest all week loosen. “Have I mentioned I love y’all?”
“We never get tired of hearing it,” Miranda said, swinging an arm around her shoulders.
Karaoke night had always been a bi-monthly event at Speakeasy. But it was only in the wake of the hugely successful community theater fundraiser back in the fall—brainchild of Myles and Tucker—that it’d become a seriously popular local event. No surprise, to Piper’s mind. You put all the most talented local singers on stage and people tended to enjoy it more than total caterwauling. Ever since, the theater crowd had made a monthly pilgrimage to
binge on pizza and sing. Partly to keep in practice and partly because it was just fun. There was rarely more than one musical per season at The Madrigal Theater.
Tonight wasn’t theater night. But when Piper and her friends stepped into Speakeasy, at least half the people present were part of that crowd. At the sight of her, a cheer went up, followed by applause and shouts of congratulations.