Chapter 16
DARCY
“I was taking a sip of water when I saw that post, and let me just say that you’re lucky to be sitting here with me because I nearly choked to death,” Reina said dramatically. “I saw stars, and then there was a bright light. The works.”
“I knew it was a joke, so I got a good laugh out of it,” Tansy said as she grinned. “It’s no wonder the two of you are so great together. Your sense of humor is clearly very compatible.”
Rosie had been staring at me since she sat down, leaving her food completely untouched. She waited until it got quiet and then asked, “It was a joke, right?”
When I shook my head, my sister shrieked with laughter before she said, “Darcy has always been the wild prankster in our family. You should have seen her the day we told our parents we were leaving Denver. She got up on their table in the middle of the country club dining room and started twerking!”
“Where is your ring?” Rosie asked.
“I haven’t seen you without that ring in years,” Tansy said with a frown. “Why didn’t you get it back?”
“I’m not gonna take back his engagement ring,” I said before I took a bite of my bagel.
I had finished that bite and was about to take another when I realized the three women were staring at me like I’d just sprouted horns, so I asked, “What would you say if a man asked his fiancee for the ring back? “
“Well, if it was his fake fiance then I wouldn’t see a problem with it,” Rosie said quietly. “But you’re not acting like this is a joke.”
“Because it’s not. I asked Crow to marry me last night and he said yes.”
The front door chimed, so I got up and hurried around the corner to greet Jewel, who was here to drop off Ursula for the day.
“Good morning, future Forrester,” Jewel said cheerfully.
“When can I start calling you Aunt Jewel?”
“When you decide to shrug off this mortal coil and walk toward the light,” Jewel said, just as cheerfully as before. She kissed Ursula and then handed her over before she asked, “When’s the wedding?”
“I think it’s going to be on Saturday afternoon at his parents house.”
Jewel laughed before she said, “Of course it is.”
“There’s already a big party planned, so Crow is going to ask his parents if they mind letting us get married while everyone’s already gathered there.”
“You’re not kidding?” Tansy gasped from the doorway behind me.
I giggled before I said, “No. I’m being serious. We’re getting married on Saturday and of course, I’d like for you to be my bridesmaid.”
“I need to call Marcus,” Tansy said as she pulled her phone out of her back pocket.
“So do I. I’m going to ask him if he’ll give me away.” I looked at Jewel and then back to my sister before I asked, “Do you think that’s weird?”
“Honey, I’ve been to so many weddings at that house I couldn’t even begin to list them all, and every one of them was unique in its own way. At this point it takes a lot to shock any of us, and even if you walked up the aisle wearing a blow-up unicorn costume no one would blink an eye.”
“How do you know if someone has gone off the deep end and needs to be committed?” Tansy asked loudly. I looked over and realized that she was on the phone, and then laughed when she said, “It’s Darcy. She’s got a brain eating amoeba or something and thinks she’s getting married on Saturday.”
“Put him on speaker,” I urged as I carried Ursula over to the front of the store.
I put her down in the small fenced-in play area that she seemed to prefer, probably because it was in the corner and didn’t see much traffic, and then laid her blanket down for her to snuggle into.
When I turned around Tansy had her elbow propped on the counter with the phone held aloft so I asked, “Marcus, will you walk me down the aisle on Saturday?”
“I’d be honored, sweetheart,” Marcus answered. “Is this a formal event or . . .?”
“Oh, God, no!” I answered with a bark of laughter. “I want everyone to be dressed comfortably, which means Crow probably won’t even have a shirt on!”
“He will if you ask him nicely,” Marcus replied.
Jewel laughed before she suggested helpfully, “Sometimes a bribe helps.”
“Isn’t it a bad idea to play into her delusion?” Tansy asked as she looked down at the phone she’d set on the counter.
“It’s not a delusion. While we were at dinner last night Crow and I made a plan.
When his parents get to the hospital to visit Rev this morning he’s going to talk to them about having the wedding during the cookout, ask his grandfather to officiate, ask his sister to play the wedding march on her violin as I walk down the aisle, see what it will take for me to get out of my lease, and ask some of his other cousins to help me move in this evening since Rev will probably be getting out of the hospital tomorrow. ”
“You’re serious?” Tansy asked again.
I nodded before I said, “I’m going to meet Crow at the courthouse this afternoon to apply for our marriage license.”
“Does Clancy . . . Were you going to . . .” Tansy’s eyes welled up, and I hurried around the counter so I could pull her into my arms for a hug.
“I sent Clancy a text last night that said I needed to see her before school, and I planned on asking both of you to be my bridesmaids, but then Reina and Sophie showed up, and things got out of hand.” Tansy sniffed, and I tried to choke back my own tears as I whispered, “I know it’s wild and crazy, but I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather have by my side for the adventure. ”
The bell over the door sounded again, and I looked over Tansy’s shoulder and saw that Jewel was holding it open for Clancy, who looked worried when she saw me embracing our sister.
I glanced down at the phone and saw that Marcus had already hung up, so my sisters and I were alone now, except for Ursula who was growling at Clancy from her enclosure.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” Clancy asked as she rushed across the store.
“Darcy has lost her shit. She’s engaged and thinks she’s getting married this weekend and now she’s gonna be a mom and you’re in love with Brawley and I’m going to be all alone but I don’t care because I just want the two of you to be happy and I don’t know what I’m going to wear and I can’t believe she’s getting married,” Tansy ended her hurried explanation with a wail that made me cringe, wondering if it was possible to have substantial hearing loss from a hug.
“Is she okay?” Clancy mouthed as she stared at Tansy’s back in shock.
“I’m getting married on Saturday and I’d like for you to be my bridesmaid.”
“Say again,” Clancy ordered.
“She proposed to Crow while they were on their first date and she’s gonna move in tonight and get married on Saturday and Marcus is going to walk her down the aisle and now we’re all going our separate ways!” Tansy wailed.
“I proposed to Crow,” I said simply as I patted Tansy on the back. Clancy’s brow furrowed so I hurried to say, “Yes, I’m serious, and yes, I’m getting married on Saturday.”
“You’ve done a lot of wild shit in your day, Delphine Middleton, but this is the icing on the cake!”
“I know it seems crazy, but . . .”
“We’ve always been a little nuts,” Clancy interrupted as she walked up behind Tansy and wrapped her arms around us. “But we’ve always been nuts together. Of course I’ll be your bridesmaid.”
◆◆◆
CROW
“She proposed to you,” my sister Lark said with a grin as she walked into the room ahead of my parents.
I smiled as I nodded and then lifted my left hand and wiggled my fingers like I’d seen women do when they flaunted their engagement rings. Lark and Mom cackled while Dad just smiled and shook his head.
“Boy, you’ve been doing things ass-backwards your entire life, but this one takes the cake,” Dad said with a grin. He took Rev out of my arms and asked, “When’s the wedding?”
“I was thinking we could get hitched at your house this weekend while everyone’s already there for the cookout.”
“You want us to plan a wedding in three days?” Mom asked.
Lark burst out laughing before she asked, “Of course! That’s perfectly normal in this family, isn’t it?”
“I have to ask, son, are you sure the two of you aren’t moving too fast? I know you’ve got the little one here, and that might make you feel like you need to rush into things but . . .”
Lark snorted and then started cackling again, and Mom was laughing so hard she could barely breathe, with tears streaming down her cheeks.
She leaned forward and grabbed the rail across the foot of the bed and leaned on it while her other hand rested over her stomach. “Oh, shit . . . stop. I’ve gotta pee.”
She cackled even louder when Dad asked, “I guess I don’t have much room to talk, do I?”
“Compared to your dating history with Mom, Darcy and I have been together for ages.”
Lark wiped her eyes and then reached out to touch Rev’s cheek before she said, “You and I already have something in common, don’t we?”
Dad laughed at the reference, or it might have been because he was watching Mom waddle toward the bathroom as she tried to stop laughing before she had an accident.
Lark and I had heard the story of how our parents met in a bar and then spent the weekend together.
On the third day, a state worker brought Lark to Dad with the announcement that she was his child, but wasn’t sure if his lifestyle was conducive to parenthood.
Mom swept in and declared that they were getting married the next weekend, and that’s exactly what they did.
We’d been a family since then, and I couldn’t remember a life that didn’t include Dad, just like I couldn’t remember my biological father at all. Against the odds, Mom and Dad were still just as in love now as they had ever been, and in the course of their marriage had raised all of us as a family.
From the day we met Bird Forrester he’d been our Dad, and had never once referred to us as anything other than his sons, just like Mom had always been a mother to Lark. Even after they had children together that shared both of their DNA, our parents never treated us as if we didn’t too.
Even though her sudden appearance in my life had been quite a shock, and I was terrified of what the future would bring if Rebecca tried to take her back, I knew without a doubt that Rev would be my daughter in every way, and she wouldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t part of her life.
After seeing how invested in Rev’s care Darcy had instantly become, and then talking to her last night over dinner, I was sure that Rev would feel that same love from her.
And, of course, she’d feel the same thing from every member of my family.
They’d accept her into the fold just as easily as they had Darcy and even her sisters.
They already loved Darcy. As a matter of fact, Brighten had been walking on air at the thought of having another woman around all the time.
They’d banded together more than once against us, using what they considered rational arguments, to explain why we didn’t need to do something that Hawk, Griffin, and I thought was perfectly acceptable.
I still didn’t care what they said about it - building a breezeway from the second floor of my house over to hers wasn’t nearly as outlandish as they made it seem.
Neither was installing a zipline, although that wouldn’t work for the puppies, who spent just as much time at Hawk and Brighten’s as they did at my house.
I shook away the thoughts of home improvement.
A microscopic piece of brain that I usually ignored knew that Darcy and Brighten had a good point.
We didn’t really need a breezeway when it took less than a minute to walk from my door to hers.
But that didn’t mean we didn’t want it - at least for me, Hawk, and Griffin.
Someday, Rev would be able to weigh in on decisions like that - although, I had a feeling Darcy and Brighten would do everything they could to coax her to the dark side just because she was a girl.
“Why are you concentrating so hard? Trying to form a thought? I’ve told you that you shouldn’t tax yourself, big brother.”
I flipped Lark off before I asked my dad, “What do you think about building a breezeway from my house to Brighten’s to make it easier for Griff and the puppies to go back and forth?”
“I think that’s a very reasonable suggestion. I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to —”
“Reasonable?” Mom asked as she walked out of the bathroom. “Of course you would think that.”
“Brighten and Darcy shot the idea down too.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Lark drawled.
“We tried for a zipline first, but . . .”
Mom looked at Lark and said, “I promise I never dropped any of you on your head when you were infants.”
“Not any of the girls,” Lark mumbled.
“Let’s get back on track here before your mom and Lark stage a riot on Brighten and Darcy’s behalf,” Dad suggested. “Wedding. Details. Information. Now.”
“I’ve gotta call Pop to see if he’ll do the service, and while you guys are staying with Rev today I’m going to meet Darcy at the courthouse to get the marriage certificate.”
“Solid plan.”
“Other than that I don’t think there’s really much else that needs to be planned. Everyone is already going to be there, there’s gonna be plenty of food and entertainment, and . . . well, that’s a wedding, isn’t it?”
“That’s how our family does weddings,” Lark agreed with a shrug. “I think you’ve got it covered.”
“I’m getting married this weekend!” I announced with a laugh that sounded more than a little unhinged, even to my ears. “Holy shit!”
Dad snorted before he said, “You’ll be repeating that last part over and over again every day for the rest of your life.”