Chapter 23
ANNA & DRAKE'S WEDDING DAY
ZACH
They'd been busy. That's all it was.
Well, Piper had been busiest, it seemed. She wasn't intentionally blowing him off—he was certain of that, at least.
Mostly, certain.
Pretty much certain.
But while he was dealing with new Wild Sacks orders and figuring out sourcing options to meet order demands, Piper was handling wedding preparations.
They texted like nothing was wrong, still saw each other on the regular, but she stopped sleeping over. She didn't invite him to stay over at her place, either.
And, when they were together, it just... it just seemed… rushed.
"You, my brother, look like someone took a piss in your soda." Jase flopped down on the sofa in the suite at The Falcon.
They were all dressed for the wedding in their black tie, hanging with Drake, keeping him entertained and shit. Just until it was time for him to go marry their sister.
"It's probably about Piper." Roman cracked open a beer and sat beside Jase.
"Of course, it's about Piper." Jase rolled his eyes. "The nut sack's got it bad."
Drake sat at the edge of the sofa—already in his tuxedo, just waiting for game time. "You wanna talk about it?"
"No," Zach said, meaning it.
"Too bad," Jase said. "We've got time. We need something to sort, and you've got a problem. This is what we do best before weddings."
Jase, Roman, and Drake all shared a lengthy glance that didn't sit well with him.
"Look." Drake folded his hands together. "Anna says Piper's not herself, either."
Zach nodded because, well, he knew this.
"When you've got a woman who loves you, sometimes it scares her. We're not always easy men to love," Jase said, pulling that right out of his ass.
"Speak for yourself," Roman countered.
"Dude." Jase shook his head. Then he just waved his hand along the front of Roman like that explained everything.
"Why would you say she loves me?" Zach asked, because he wasn't sure he could buy that.
"Trust me. She may not have admitted it to herself yet, and you may not have admitted it to yourself yet, but she is in love with you. And you love her, too," Drake said.
"I mean, yeah, that last part's a given," Zach conceded. "I'm so far gone for her."
"Then what we need to do is go over everything you said at the point that things went downhill so we can see where you fucked up." Jase lifted his shoulders like this was super simple.
Zach stared at the pop top on his soda can. "I don't think I did."
"And that, my brother, is how I know that you did," Jase said. "At what point did you start to feel the pull away?"
He let out a long breath. "Okay, so things were great until I kissed her in the tent when we showed Anna her dress."
Jase steepled his fingers in front of his lips. "Are you a shit kisser?"
"No." Zach shook his head.
"I mean, not that you know. No one would really tell you that. Can we call one of your exes and get them in on this?" Roman asked.
"What happened after you kissed her?" Drake countered, refocusing everyone.
Zach replayed the entire scene with them like they were in a low-budget cop movie and they were finding a serial killer instead of in his soon-to-be brother-in-law's pre-wedding purgatory suite trying to determine how he had fucked up.
Unfortunately, this method illustrated to him exactly the many, many ways he could, in fact, fuck up without even realizing it.
Option one was when he mentioned what Babushka always said in the wrong context at an inappropriate time. He'd already marked that as a high probability.
Option two was discussing how he was certain that everything was now going to work. Which, for the record, he had no idea why that would be a problem, but Roman seemed to believe that was it.
Or, option three was that Piper just wasn't that into him like he was her.
"For our purposes here, that's not an option." Jase frowned. "Because Heather and I like her, and we want her to be in the family."
"Is this whole thing entirely necessary?" Zach asked, forcing himself not to toss his hands in his hair because he didn't want to have to screw with it again, comb it to make it right.
"Are you happily married like the rest of us are?" Jase asked, stretching his arms wide. "No? Then you should sit your ass down and let us help you."
"What if it's not me? What if it's the stress of the wedding and everything else?" Zach asked, hopefully.
"Yeah, that's not it," Drake assured.
"Re-roll," Roman said. "Tell me exactly what you said again after you kissed her."
"I told her things were going amazing and that she'd done so great. That the success was all her and I was grateful."
"Why were you grateful?" Roman asked like they hadn't already been through this three times.
"Because my business is going to do well and she's gonna get her promotion. Everybody wins."
"Okay, hear me out," Roman said this like any of them were giving Zach a choice in the matter. "You said that." He made a circle in the air with his fingertip. "Except she wanted you to be good-kisser and 'into her' Zach and not 'TED Talk business Zach.'"
"I meant that the campaign helped us both. That the success should make her boss sit up and take notice," Zach clarified.
"Right. And she needed you to talk about the future. Reassure that the future is solid for you both."
"That's exactly what I said."
"Not exactly." Drake pulled his lips to the side.
"But good news, now you can fix your fuck up and Nads still gets a new kickass auntie." Jase nodded, deep in his own pride that he'd solved the riddle.
"How exactly do I fix this?" Zach asked.
"Well, first, start by telling her how you feel. Then the rest usually comes along fine," Roman assured.
"Drake, are you ready for pictures?" Mom sauntered into the room, took one look around, clearly knew something was up, but said nothing. That's because she wasn't Babushka.
"They want to get you and your family before the wedding starts," she said instead of prying further.
"Good talk." Jase smacked Zach on the shoulder, already tying his bow tie as he moved.
Roman grunted something, but it wasn't entirely verbal.
"You got this," Drake said, like a man walking straight into a custom-made future he'd been waiting his entire life for.
And Zach? Yeah. He'd botched it. He hadn't meant for his words to land wrong with Piper.
But they had.
And he would make it right.
* * *
Standing at the ceremony site, Zach had one job: don't screw anything else up.
Also, show up for her.
So, really, that was two jobs. Who was counting, though?
The venue—rooftop garden-meets-ballroom fantasy—was already buzzing when they made it to the terrace.
Flower arrangements flowed from gold carts, each one perfectly matching the dusty-lavender palette Piper had fought hard for.
It was perfect without being over-the-top. Authentic in a way that slapped expectations squarely across the face.
Tess got her blue and gold for the cake and those photos, so Piper deftly negotiated lavender and cream for everything else. He had to give her that she came through for Anna.
And in the center of it all—Piper herself. Clipboard clasped under one arm, headset hanging from her grip, pushing a linen-draped table slightly to the left with her hip as she coordinated three conversations and probably solved the mysteries of the human genome on the side.
Zach grinned.
Earlier that week, he'd texted Babushka a single question because Babushka, well, she knew things.
Zach: How do I show up for her?
Babushka: You bring her food.
She'd followed that with a text full of fruit emojis and a Gif of a supportive panda, because Babushka.
That's why Zach had arranged for a waiter to show up with one blueberry kale smoothie before things got too crazy.
It arrived just as he did, passed quietly into Piper's hands with a small, folded note taped to the lid.
She paused. Blinked. Turned the cup slowly in one hand until the note came into view. Peeking just under the cardboard sleeve, written in Zach's messy scrawl:
You've got this. —Z
Piper stilled.
Her brows lifted, lips parting slightly before she pressed them together again. She peeled the note free, held it in fingers that always moved fast, and simply… stared at it. Like maybe the paper itself was offering a moment of reassurance.
She sipped.
Another sip.
And then, across the room, her gaze found his.
She didn't smile. Not fully. But the edges of her mouth tipped up a fraction before she mouthed it clear as day, "Thank you."
Zach's chest squeezed.
He was so in over his head. And he wouldn't change a damn thing about it.
He shuffled to his seat near the front, beside Babushka, who was already dabbing at nonexistent tears with her handkerchief.
The ceremony space had been transformed into upscale romantic rustic with just the right amount of glam football chic, if that even existed. Which, apparently, it did. And it worked.
A Stallion—yes, the literal horse—stood by with a velvet lead and a bowtie, looking oddly dignified under the fairy lights.
Piper had compromised on its presence, only if Tess agreed to babysit both the horse and his handler. Which, judging by the slightly unhinged glint in Tess's eye, had not been a relaxing arrangement.
Babushka nudged him, her eyes already misty. "She did good, your Piper," she whispered, her accent thickening with emotion.
"She's not my—" Zach started, then stopped himself. No point in lying to Babushka. She saw through everything. "Yeah, she did. My Piper."
"The flowers," she continued, gesturing to the cascading arrangements that framed the altar. "They are from the same farm that supplied your mother and father's wedding. Did you know?"
He hadn't. But of course, Piper would dig in and find that detail and then make it happen. Of course she'd make Jase track down that specific family farm, a generation later, to source these exact roses.
That was Piper. The details that no one else would think about. The connections that made everything more meaningful.