Chapter 16
ZOEY DUKE
“You look so good that I’m not sure I’ll be able to leave you alone.”
I looked over my shoulder and smiled at Garvey before I said, “You don’t have any choice because if we don’t leave now, we’re going to be late.”
“But you look so beautiful that I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist.”
“Try,” I said as I wrapped the elastic around the end of my braid. “Are you riding out with me, or will you show up later?”
“I can come now,” Garvey said. “I’d hate to miss the show.”
“What show? It’s a wedding rehearsal, not a circus performance. We’ll be in and out and then have dinner.”
“Holly and that other lady are in charge of making sure everything goes smoothly, right?”
“Right.”
“And they’re going to be telling everyone where to go, when to walk, where to stand, and all of that?”
“Of course.”
“But it’s not just anyone they’re bossing around, babe. It’s you and your friends and a bunch of men who don’t usually answer to anyone.”
“We can take direction!” I argued.
“If it’s worded more like a kind suggestion rather than a direct order, your girls might play along. Anything other than that, and there’s gonna be chaos.”
“We’re not that bad.”
Garvey hummed and said something under his breath, and when I glared at him, he just smiled and said, “Sure you’re not. I’d still like to be there to watch the show.”
“We’re grown women, and we know how to obey instructions.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that lie, but Garvey took it a step further and burst out laughing before he choked out, “Yeah. You’re all so good at that.”
“I should just leave your ass here,” I said as I stepped closer to him and wrapped my arms around his neck.
He pulled me flush with his body and rested his forehead on mine.
I knew exactly where this was going, so I tried to pull away.
He held me there and growled in my ear when I said, “Although, maybe if things go smoothly, we can find a secluded spot on the ride home and do all the things.”
“All the things?” Garvey asked eagerly.
“All the things that are possible to do when half-dressed in the cool October air.”
“Okay, so maybe not all the things, but some of the things,” Garvey agreed.
When my phone dinged, I knew it was one of the girls asking why I hadn’t arrived yet, so I pulled away so I could reply that we were on our way. When I looked back at his face, he said, “I love you, Zoey.”
“I love you, too, babe.”
“Just wanted you to know that.”
“I know because you tell me all the time.”
“And I mean it every time.”
“So do I.”
Since our motorcycles were already out from our earlier ride, it only took a minute for us to get on the road.
We skirted town and used the back roads to get us to the Conner neighborhood, where Bella’s family had built a venue just for her wedding.
Once we passed the security building at the gate, it didn’t take us long to pass through the main street, where Bella’s parents and aunts and uncles still lived, to get to the back of the property, where the wedding would be held.
There were already plenty of motorcycles and vehicles parked along the street, so Garvey and I found a place and parked ours in the line before we held hands and followed the stone pathway that had been installed a few weeks ago.
“They went all out for this, didn’t they?” Garvey asked, looking around at what had recently been an empty field.
“They did.”
“I don’t get why she’s risking bad weather and wind to get married outside when she could have her pick of venues here or in New York.”
“It’s got sentimental value to her family. The spot where they’ll be standing when they exchange vows is the same spot where her biological father proposed to her biological mother. She later stood in the same spot and had maternity pictures made while she was pregnant with Bella and Dylan.”
“Oh, damn,” Garvey said, his voice low with emotion. “It makes sense now.”
“Finn and Lena never kept it a secret that she isn’t their biological child, and she feels like she knows her biological parents because Finn and her uncles tell stories about them all the time.”
“It’s nice that they’ve kept their memory alive,” Garvey admitted.
“Bella’s mom was Finn’s twin sister, and she’s named after her mother, aunt, and grandmother. The accident killed all of them, as well as her father and grandfather. That’s who Dylan is named after.”
“Shit,” Garvey whispered sadly. “I can’t imagine losing half of your family all at the same time.”
“Their aunt died soon after the accident, but Bellamy was kept on life support until Bella and Dylan were big enough to be born.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, so Bella and Dylan’s birthday is the day Finn’s twin died.” I knew that would hit Garvey even more than it would most people because he was a triplet and had an identical twin brother. I felt the same way because of my relationship with my twin, Zane.
“Makes me want to call Corey and Marley and say nice things or something equally unlike me.”
I burst out laughing and said, “If you called either of them and started professing your undying love, they’d assume you’d been kidnapped and call out the cavalry.”
“I should do it just to see their reaction.”
“Nah. No sense in scaring them unnecessarily. Hold on to that ammo for some time when they tick you off,” I told him with a grin. “If I called Zane and told him how much he means to me, he’d ask me what the hell I wanted and then call Mom to tell her that I was plotting something nefarious.”
“He’d probably be right.”
Once we were at the end of the pathway, we stepped up onto the wooden platform that had been built to hold all the chairs for the service and would later become the dance floor for the reception.
I gave Garvey a quick kiss before I hurried over to my friends, who were listening to instructions from Holly and Bernadette.
“What did I miss?” I whispered to Lark as I moved to stand beside her.
“Walk slowly, go to your spot, stand still, smile but not like you want to kill people, walk back slowly.”
“Basic wedding stuff.”
“She keeps talking about the smile thing, and I think Janis is just as confused as I am.”
“Because when either of you smiles, it means you’re plotting something.”
“No, it doesn’t!” Lark argued.
“Test the theory,” I suggested. I looked around and caught Dylan Conner’s eye before I told her, “Smile at Dylan.”
Lark smiled, and Dylan reared back as if she’d somehow slapped him from across the lawn. He looked around uncertainly, as if he was waiting for something big to happen, and then warily glanced back at Lark before he wrinkled his nose and mouthed, “What the fuck?”
“See? You’ve really gotta work on your smile.”
“I do not. It’s fucking fabulous!” Lark growled angrily.
“If by fabulous, you mean psychotic, then you’re right.
It’s fabulous,” Rain said over her shoulder before she turned around to look at her cousin.
“When you and Janis smile like that, it’s like watching a clown.
You know he’s plotting your death, but you’re so mesmerized by the enormous smile on his face that you almost forget you should be running. ”
“I don’t know why I still talk to any of you,” Lark grumbled.
Bella heard her complaint and grinned before she said, “I’ll help y’all practice smiling like something other than an apex predator tonight over dinner.”
“I think all of you could use a lesson or two,” Holly suggested.
“How did I get lumped in with all of them?” I asked.
At the same time, Rain gasped in outrage and said, “My smile isn’t scary at all!”
“All of you are full of shit,” Holly retorted.
“Let’s practice together,” Bella suggested as she put a hand up to start a countdown. “Three, two, one, smile!”
On cue, we all smiled really big, and Bella winced before she said, “Let’s dial it down so we don’t scare everyone all at once.”
“Kenny thinks my smile is gorgeous!” Cydney boasted.
“Because your smile is made by your lips, which can probably suck the chrome off a trailer hitch,” Lark snapped.
“Suction has nothing to do with the size of a person’s lips,” Cydney argued as Holly nudged her into line.
Holly waved Dylan over as she pushed Rain a few steps ahead of Lark and then yanked my arm to put me into place.
“Must you be so damn pushy?” Cydney asked once she was standing in front of me.
Rather than grab her arm, Holly motioned for Janis to go to the front and was rewarded with one of those smiles she’d been bitching about.
“I swear, I thought you were all pains in the ass when you were children and hoped it would get better with age, yet here you are as adults proving that it’s not something that you grow out of,” Holly complained as she positioned Teague in front of Janis.
As soon as Dylan got close enough, Holly ordered, “Get between Rain and Zoey, and if any of the girls start to bicker, smack them in the head.”
“As if,” Janis muttered.
“Try it, Dill Pickle,” Bella threatened from behind all of us. “Please! Do it for me!”
Dylan didn’t answer, just lifted his hand up with a one-finger salute and ignored the rest of us like he’d been trying to do for years.
“Where are the kiddos?” Holly asked. She motioned toward Tabby and Brett, who were sitting on the sidelines with the twin boys, and they sent the little girls with them over to us. As they ran in our direction, Holly asked, “Where’s the ring bearer?”
“I’ll call Cyrus to find out,” Bella answered. Before she could put the phone up to her ear, her cousin Cyrus jogged up with his son right behind him. “Sorry we’re late! The inspector was being a pain in my ass and . . . Shit. Sorry, Bella.”
“Not a problem, Cy,” Bella assured him. She looked down at his son Liam and asked, “Are you ready for the responsibility of carrying our rings?”
“Like a security guard?” Liam asked.
“Kind of.”
“Do I get a badge?”
“No.”
“A gun?”
“Also, no.”
“Am I gonna get paid?”
“Well, no,” Bella said as Cy frowned at his son.