Chapter 39 #2
“We weren’t thinking that,” Mateo called out, earning laughter from the crowd. “But you’re not wrong.”
“Of course you were, you lying bastard . . . but let me tell you something about love, since I’ve been married more times than there are men at this gathering.”
That wasn’t true. She’d only been married once. But she wasn’t Scottish either, so there was that.
She turned to face Shane and Mateo directly.
“Love isn’t the pretty stuff they show you in movies.
It’s not all sunset walks and perfectly timed rain showers.
Love is Shane putting up with Mateo’s need to plan every detail of every moment of every day of every .
. . you get what I mean. His OCD has OCD.
Anyway, love is Mateo pretending not to notice when Shane leaves wood shavings all over the bathroom counter after trimming his beard—and still finding bits on his face an hour later. ”
Both grooms were looking up and grinning now, clearly recognizing themselves in her observations.
“Love is sticking by each other every damn day, even when—especially when—that person is driving you absolutely mental. And fuck me if Mateo isn’t already mental.”
I nearly choked on my champagne as Jeremiah reached over and covered a squirming Debbie’s ears.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” Mrs. H said, waving in our direction. “But the little ones need to learn the right way to cuss sometime, and let’s face it, if ya can’t fuckin’ cuss at a wedding, when can ya?”
No one knew how to respond, so people laughed, shook their heads, and waited for whatever might come next.
Trainwrecks being what they are, no one could look away.
Mrs. H braced herself with another long sip. “Love is fighting about stupid shit like whether the toilet paper should hang over or under, then making up in ways that would scandalize your grandmother.”
I caught Jeremiah’s eye across the table and saw him fighting back laughter.
“So here’s to Shane and Mateo.” Mrs. H raised her glass high.
“For finding each other despite their questionable taste in sports bars and inexplicable lack of trivia knowledge. May your love be as enduring as my threats, and may your fights be as entertaining as your makeup sessions. We’d love to watch both, by the way. ”
The crowd erupted in cheers and applause, but Mrs. H still wasn’t finished.
“Oh, and one more thing,” she said, reaching into her purse and pulling out what appeared to be a small stack of cards. “We may have taken some liberties with your photo props.”
As if summoned by magic, Sisi appeared beside her, grinning like a cat high on catnip, holding up signs directly behind Mateo and Shane that definitely hadn’t been part of the original wedding décor and waving to the photographer to get into place.
The first sign read: “I survived Mateo’s bachelor party and all I got was this stupid hangover.”
Snap.
The second: “Shane’s better half (fight me).”
Snap.
The third, held up by Mike who’d appeared from nowhere: “Ask me about my wood.”
Snap.
The crowd dissolved into laughter as more ridiculous signs appeared: “Italians do it with more passion,” “I promise to love you even when you leave wood shavings everywhere,” and my personal favorite, held up by Omar from his seat in the crowd—with a completely straight face: “Team Groom (the handsome one).”
Shane was covering his face with his hands again while Mateo looked like he was trying to decide whether to be mortified or impressed by the coordinated chaos our friends had orchestrated.
But then Matty appeared with the fattest magic marker ever made, apparently having decided the signs weren’t ridiculous enough on their own. He grabbed Mike’s “Ask me about my wood” sign and added “It’s harder than you think” underneath in his distinctive scrawl.
Snap, snap.
“Matthew!” Sisi shrieked, but she was laughing too hard to sound genuinely scandalized.
“What? I’m being helpful!” Matty protested, bolting forward to tweak Omar’s sign. “Team Groom (the handsome one)” became “Team Groom (the handsome one with commitment issues).”
“Hey!” Shane objected, holding up his wedding ring, as if to prove the accusation false; but Omar was undaunted, grinning widely as he held up his newly enhanced prop for all to see.
The photographer, who had clearly seen worse things in his career, was gamely trying to get some normal shots when Mrs. H produced something large and unwieldy from behind the cake table.
“Where the hell did those come from?” Mike demanded.
“A true Scotswoman is always prepared,” Mrs. H declared, adjusting what appeared to be a very real set of Highland pipes. “I thought we needed proper recessional music.”
“Mrs. H, please don’t—” Shane started, but it was too late.
The sound that emerged from those pipes could only be described as the mating call of a dying whale crossed with a car alarm. Several guests covered their ears, while others looked around frantically for the source of what they probably assumed was some kind of emergency alert system.
But Mrs. H was just getting warmed up.
She launched into what I think was supposed to be “Scotland the Brave,” though it sounded more like “Scotland the Slightly Confused and Possibly Wounded.”
That’s when Debbie decided she’d had enough of being a passive observer.
“Excuse me!” she announced, marching up to the microphone that had been set up for the speeches. She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach it, but her voice carried clearly over Mrs. H’s bagpipe assault. “I need to talk to everyone about dragon weddings!”
The bagpipes stopped mid-wheeze, the sound dying to a whimper as though a Scottish Ms. Pacman had just been eaten by Blinky.
“Debbie, Button, take a seat, okay?” Jeremiah tried putting the cork back in the bottle, but it was too late. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited.
“Dragon weddings?” Mateo asked weakly.
“Yes! When dragons get married, they breathe rainbow fire and everyone gets to ride unicorns to the party. Also, the cake is made of clouds and tastes like cotton candy, which is much better than regular cake because you can eat as much as you want and your tummy doesn’t hurt.”
She paused to survey her captive audience, clearly pleased to have everyone’s attention.
“I think your wedding needs more dragons,” she continued seriously. “And maybe some unicorns. Daddy says unicorns aren’t real, but I think they’re just really good at hiding . . . like ninjas, but with sparkles.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Mrs. H declared, setting down her bagpipes with obvious reluctance.
Debbie, reveling in the rapt attention of so many strangers, continued her impromptu reception hosting duties. She’d decided that the woodworking cake needed some modifications and had somehow managed to climb onto a chair to reach it.
“This saw is in the wrong place,” she announced, carefully moving the fondant miter saw from one end of the cake to the other. “And these tools aren’t organized properly. Daddy organizes his tools by size, not by what they do.”
“Debbie!” I called out, but she was already rearranging the tiny fondant hammers and chisels with the focus of a master craftsman.
“Wait, I want to see where she’s going with this,” Shane said, and I realized he was actually watching her modifications with interest.
The photographer was now openly weeping as he tried to capture anything resembling a traditional wedding photo, but every shot was being photo bombed by increasingly elaborate props, Mrs. H’s periodic bagpipe interludes, or Debbie’s ongoing cake reorganization project.
That’s when things really started to spiral.
A server, clearly overwhelmed by the chaos, approached Mrs. H with a clipboard and a desperate expression.
“Excuse me, are you the wedding planner? We need to know the timeline for the evening. When should we start clearing tables?”
Mrs. H drew herself up to her full four-foot-ten-inch frame and fixed the poor woman with a stare that could have melted steel.
“Wedding planner?” she repeated, her accent becoming more pronounced with indignation. “Lass, I am Moira Henderson, Keeper of the Sacred Haggis and Destroyer of Inappropriate Relationships. I plan battles, not weddings.”
“I . . . what?” the server stammered.
“Although,” Mrs. H continued, warming to her new role, “if you insist on treating me as wedding coordinator, I have some suggestions. First, we need more whiskey. Second, someone needs to teach that photographer how to capture the genuine spirit of Scottish celebration. And third”—she gestured dramatically at the fairy lights—“those lights are far too well behaved. They need more chaos. More . . . pizzazz!”
As if summoned by her words, Shane attempted to back away from the increasingly bizarre photo session and somehow managed to get tangled in the fairy lights Mrs. H had just criticized.
The strand caught around his shoulders, and in trying to free himself, he managed to pull down an entire section of the carefully arranged decorations.
Lights cascaded down like glittering rain, and Shane stood in the middle of it all looking like the world’s most confused Christmas tree.
“Perfect!” Mrs. H declared. “That’s what I’m talking about! Embrace the chaos!”
But the chaos had barely begun.
Somewhere in the confusion, someone had placed the fondant miter saw from Debbie’s cake reorganization project on top of Omar’s head. He seemed rather smashed and completely unaware of his new accessory as he continued holding his modified sign and posing for pictures.
“Omar,” Mike called out, “you’ve got a little something . . .”
“What? Where?” Omar patted his hair, somehow missing the cake saw entirely.
“No, higher. No, the other side. Omar, there’s a cake saw on your head.”
“A what on my what?”
I caught Jeremiah’s eye and had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at his expression of polite panic.
The photographer had given up entirely and was now sitting at one of the tables with his head in his hands, occasionally looking up to capture whatever fresh disaster was unfolding.
“I’ll be scarred for life,” Elliot declared from somewhere behind me, though he was laughing as he said it and taking pictures with his phone.
“This is why we can’t have nice things,” Shane muttered loud enough to be overheard, still tangled in fairy lights with Omar’s cake saw hat somehow having migrated to his own head.
“Promise me we won’t invite these people when we get married,” I said, then immediately froze as I realized what had just come out of my mouth.
Jeremiah’s eyebrows shot up, and a familiar grin spread across his face. “When we get married?”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “I meant if. If we get married. Hypothetically. In some distant, theoretical future that may or may not—”
“You said when,” he interrupted, his grin widening.
“I misspoke.”
“Did you?”
I looked at Jeremiah—really looked at him—taking in the way his eyes were sparkling with amusement and something deeper, something that made my heart skip in ways that should probably have required an emergency helicopter ride to Grady Hospital.
“Maybe I didn’t,” I admitted quietly.
He leaned over and kissed me, soft and quick, while around us our friends continued their campaign of organized chaos, completely unaware of how the Earth had just moved beneath both our feet.
“Good,” he whispered against my lips. “Because I was thinking ‘when,’ too.”
From across the room, Debbie’s voice carried clearly over the din: “And when Daddy and Willie Wee get married, I’m going to be the flower girl and the dragon princess, and everyone has to wear sparkles!”
It was, without a doubt, the most raucous, unhinged, ridiculous wedding reception I’d ever attended.
It was also absolutely perfect.