Chapter 12 #4
“It’s, um... the other wedding,” Emmy managed to mutter. She needed to pull herself together, both to stop ogling her co-worker
and so she could stop the Bride/Groomzilla war about to break out.
Gabe bounced up onto his toes to look into the crowd. When he landed back on his heels, his arm brushed Emmy’s and then stuck
there in a pleasantly tacky bind, as if the humidity wanted to glue them together. He markedly did not move it. “That’s the
other couple?”
Emmy markedly did not move her arm either.
“Yes. Gary and Cary from LA. Ben met them and says they’re nice, but Piper is ready to go full American Gladiators with Cary for the venue. We are waiting for the manager to show up to start the discussion. He’s late.”
Gabe grimaced. “Well, I’d probably be late too if I was walking into this mess,” he muttered. And then, “How can I help?”
Emmy turned to him, noting their arms were still glued together and doing nothing about it. Looking into his dark eyes quieted
her nerves all over again. “You can keep me calm while I keep my sister calm.”
“Done. What else?”
“Umm, manifest a second venue on the property? Teach my sister a valuable lesson about sharing? Find a mediator to help everyone
get out of this alive?”
Just then someone called his name.
“Gabe?”
They both turned to see a harried-looking man with a duffel looped over his shoulder and a backward LA Lakers hat. He wore
a gold watch and had a bright and startlingly familiar smile.
“Wait, Henry ?” Gabe said in shock.
The man dropped his bag on the lobby floor and threw out his arms. “Dude! What are you doing here?”
Before Emmy blinked twice, they were embracing in a tangle of backslapping and matching grins.
“I’m here for a wedding!” Gabe said excitedly. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for a wedding too! I’m the best man!” Henry cried.
“No way!” Gabe turned to Emmy with surprised joy all over his face. “This is my cousin Henry from LA. Henry, this is my girl—
I mean, my co-work— I mean my... Emmy. This is my Emmy.” He stroked a hand through his messy hair and blushed.
“Nice to meet you,” Emmy said, and felt her face warm at his charming fluster.
My Emmy. Her heart grew three sizes.
“Oh, is this the girl? The one your mom said you’re wild about?” Henry asked with a wide grin.
“ What?! ” Gabe screeched and turned a burnt shade of red. “My mom told you about her?”
“No, dude. My mom told me about her. You told your mom, she told my mom, and now like half of LA knows. What did you expect to happen?”
“Oh Christ.” Gabe buried his face in his hands.
“Anyway, good to see you, man!” Henry slapped him on the back again. “Small world to run into each other like this.”
“Yeah, what are the odds,” Gabe muttered, still recovering.
Emmy felt her own cheeks flaming. She knew his mom knew about her, but not his extended family. And, wild about ? That would take at least two couch and wine therapy sessions with Beth to sort out later.
“I need to find Cary,” Henry said, and craned his neck toward the crowd. “I just got here—dude, my flights, I can’t even.”
He shook his head in dismay. “But I guess there’s some kind of drama going on? I don’t know. His texts have been getting progressively
more incoherent. And violent...” He looked down with a grimace and thumbed his phone.
“Wait, Cary?” Emmy said.
“Yeah, you know him too? Wait, are you guys here for the same wedding ? How wild would that be! I mean, I know some of Gary’s friends, but not a ton, so there’s totally a chance we’ve never met and we’re all here for
the same reason.”
The man spoke a hundred miles a minute. Emmy was tempted to put her hand over his mouth just to get a word in. She noted Gabe
instantly adapted to the same style of speech. She’d never seen him around his family other than Captain Carl and wondered
if all the Olsons spoke like auctioneers around each other. Listening to them talk was like watching popcorn kernels in a
kettle with the way they jumped around.
“No. We’re here for the other wedding,” Gabe said.
“Other wedding?” Henry asked.
“Yeah. Emmy’s sister is getting married, and for a second, when you said you were the best man, I thought you might be Ben’s best man, and that would have been—”
“Ben?”
“The other groom. Well, one of the grooms, I should say.”
“There are a lot of grooms.”
“There are. The hotel double-booked the venue this weekend. We were just down here trying to—”
“Oh, shit! That’s what Cary has been freaking out about?” Henry thumbed his phone again. “Ah, I see it now.” He nodded and tilted the screen
to show Gabe. “I didn’t get all the twins and wedding rings and knives and skulls before. But now I do. Makes sense.”
“Totally. So, it’s kind of a disaster, and we’re trying to figure out—”
“ Time-out! ” Emmy shouted. She stepped between them and made a T shape with her hands.
They both stopped blabbering and looked at her.
“First of all,” she said, turning to Gabe, “how many cousins do you have?”
“A lot. I told you I have a big family.”
“We have, like, fifteen on our side alone,” Henry chimed in.
“Second,” Emmy went on, “ he is the best man in the other wedding?”
“It would appear so, yes.”
“Reporting for duty,” Henry said with a salute.
Emmy couldn’t believe it. Her wish had come true. Gabe had manifested an ally for her. Someone from the other side she could
lean on for help negotiating.
“This is perfect,” she said. She threw her arms around Gabe and squeezed him in a hug. “I think you just saved my sister’s wedding.” She kissed his cheek and left him standing there stunned. His mouth popped open like he’d lost his cool and didn’t know where to find it.
Emmy didn’t have time to help him find it. She had a wedding to save.
“Come on,” she said, and grabbed Henry’s arm to head into the bedlam. “We’re going to fix this.”