CHAPTER 30
“So, Samara, how are you liking New Orleans?” Lainey asked.
“I love it so far,” Samara replied.
“How are you liking New Orleans? Really?” Dana said.
“What? It’s a valid question. You just told me you two are dating. Was I supposed to ask how good the sex is?”
“Lainey!”
Dana looked over at Samara, who was wearing a baseball hat, but no wig or sunglasses.
They’d gone to Candace’s bar and sat in the booth toward the back corner, facing the back wall to reduce the chance of people seeing and recognizing Dana’s date, because after a week of being mostly inside Samara’s hotel room, one of their trailers, or her apartment, they had wanted to go out for the evening they had off while the actresses playing Kristie and Maggie had a scene to film together where it would become obvious to the audience that they liked each other, despite one of them believing that she was straight.
Apparently, the real people based on those characters had fallen in love, too, and they’d recently gotten engaged, planning on a summer wedding, according to Bryce.
“It’s great. Thanks for asking,” Samara replied.
“Mara!” Dana exclaimed.
The previous night, they had made love on just about every surface in every room in her apartment, and while Dana wasn’t sure she would ever tire of touching Samara or Samara touching her, they had needed to get out for some fresh air because Dana had been operating on very little sleep, and her body was sore in all the right and a few of the wrong places.
The previous night, Samara had gone down on her while Dana had been leaning against the counter, and the handle from the drawer had dug into her ass, but Dana hadn’t wanted to move because Samara had a very, very talented tongue.
“What? It is,” Samara said, putting her hand on Dana’s thigh.
Lainey laughed and ate a French fry.
“Hey, babe,” Paige said when she slipped into the booth next to Lainey.
“Hey,” Lainey replied, leaning over to kiss her quickly.
“Well, hello there, big secret keeper,” Paige said to Dana as she stole one of Lainey’s fries. “Lainey texted me that you and Sama–”
“Call her Mara tonight,” Dana interrupted.
“Or just Sam. Either is fine,” Samara said and stole one of Dana’s fries, even though she had a pile of sweet potato fries of her own.
Dana smiled at the action.
“Anyway, you two are… a thing?”
“We’re dating, yes,” Dana confirmed and took a drink of her beer.
“That’s amazing,” Paige replied. “Congrats.”
“Congrats on dating?” Dana asked.
“Or, on the great sex they’re having,” Lainey teased.
“Elaine, I’m going to kill you. Just straight up murder you. Mom and Dad won’t mind. They’ve always thought you were annoying.”
Samara laughed at them and took Dana’s arm, wrapping it around her own shoulders before moving into Dana’s side. Lainey caught Dana’s obvious happiness and gave her a knowing smile.
“You ordered without me?” Paige asked.
“You said you’d be late,” Lainey replied.
“By ten minutes.”
“Babe, you’re literally thirty minutes late.”
“But I told you that I’d only be late by ten, and you ordered without me.”
“Oh, my God. You two sound like you’ve been married for a decade,” Dana teased.
“Basically. Why do you think we took so long to pick a date for the actual ceremony?”
“Wait. Took? As in past tense? You’ve picked a date?”
“We have,” Paige said with a smile. “We’re getting married on April fourteenth.”
“April? Next year?”
“Yes,” Paige replied.
“That’s only four months from now.”
“Yes, Dana. It’s perfect timing for us because I talked to Mom and Dad the other day, and they’re moving in May.”
“They’re moving in–” Dana stopped. “They didn’t tell me that.”
“You’ve been busy,” Lainey replied, pointing at Samara.
“And I can understand why you might have missed a call or a text. They bought a place, and they close on it at the end of April, so they’re moving in May.
It also works for Paige and her schedule because she’ll be starting summer workouts with her team in June, and I’ll have summer practice and will be doing a little recruiting.
This way, we can help Mom and Dad move, take a short honeymoon after, and be back in time for everything. ”
“But why not the following year? It’s only four months to plan.”
“Dana, do you not point out on a regular basis that we should be married already?”
“Well, yeah, but I didn’t think you’d only give us a few months to plan it. I figured you’d pick some date two years from now.”
“We didn’t,” Paige replied as she stole another fry from Lainey’s plate.
“Yeah, obviously,” Dana said and added, “That doesn’t give me much time.”
“For what?” Lainey asked.
“The planning. The bachelorette parties. The–”
“We’re not doing that,” Lainey interrupted.
“Why not?”
“We live here; we’ve seen a million of them.
We’ve also been pulled into a few somehow when we didn’t even know the woman getting married,” Lainey replied.
“We don’t need a big send-off where we celebrate our last days of being officially single or something.
We’re not single. We’ve been together for years.
Besides, we actually like each other and love having sex with each other, so we don’t see that as some need to go and sow wild oats or–”
“It’s just a party, Lainey. It doesn’t have to mean strippers,” Dana interrupted. “It’s a chance for you and your friends to get together and–”
“You mean how we already do all the time? I saw Maisie this morning. We went out last night with her and India and had a nice dinner. India got us this really expensive wine. We don’t need a party, Dana.”
“She’s right. About all of it,” Paige said and wiggled her eyebrows at her fiancée.
“That’s my sister,” Dana pointed out.
“We don’t need a party. So, no one has to worry about that,” Lainey said through her laughter.
“What about the rest of it?”
“The actual wedding stuff? I already talked to Linden. She’s going to help us and is giving us the friends-and-family discount.”
“Oh,” Dana said.
“Who’s Linden?” Samara asked.
“One of our friends,” Paige replied. “She and her fiancée own a wedding planning company, and they’re normally really expensive, but they’re going to do ours for super cheap. They told us it helps that we chose April, which isn’t a crazy busy wedding month. We’ve already booked the venue.”
“You did what?” Dana asked, and Samara squeezed her thigh under the table.
“The park by the high school,” Lainey revealed.
“We worked together there,” she added to Samara.
“We wanted to get married on the actual soccer field there, but they said no. Two women and a public school… They didn’t want the parents in an uproar, and we didn’t want people to ruin our big day, so we got the park next to it, which is owned by the city.
Linden already locked it in for us, and it wasn’t expensive to rent for the evening for a few hours. ”
“Oh,” Dana said, knowing she sounded disappointed.
“Dana, I know you wanted to help us plan stuff, but it’s going to be really simple.
We’re getting a caterer – no, we’re not using your old company – and we’re going with a pretty basic cake because neither of us wants any of those crazy flavors or designs.
Other than that, we don’t really need much.
I’m going to wear a light suit and be barefoot.
Paige is going to be in a dress and do the same.
Casual for guests. That’s it.” Lainey wrapped an arm around Paige.
“We love each other, but we already feel fully committed. This is just us making it legal because we want other things to be easier.”
“Other things?” Samara asked.
“Yeah, with taxes and the house we just bought, but also with…” She met Dana’s eyes. “Kids.”
“Kids?” Dana asked. “What?”
“You knew we wanted kids,” Lainey replied.
“You’ve gone back and forth on that for years.”
“Not exactly. But we’re ready now,” Lainey said. “We’re going to try adoption first.”
“You’re going to adopt? Oh, that’s great,” Samara said.
“We’re thinking about adopting an older kid, not a baby. We have the house now, and we want at least two kids, so we planned for that when we bought the place.”
“Adoption is expensive,” Dana noted.
Lainey looked at her in confusion and said, “We know that. Besides, I’m making decent money now. We had a winning season last year, so I got my end-of-season bonus. Plus, Paige is…”
“Leaving the high school,” Paige added after Lainey’s lead-in.
“What?” Dana asked, struggling to keep up with all of these announcements.
“I got the goalkeeper coach job at LSU.”
“She hit the big time. Division I. That’s my girl.” Lainey said proudly.
“Lainey is already a head coach at a very good school. I’m just on goalies,” Paige said humbly. “But it’s a step up for me, and it comes with more money, so we’re feeling pretty good.”
“Yeah. Plus, I’ve got a great recruiting class coming in next season, and the numbers I have to hit to get my bonus again are reasonable, so I think we’ll hit them.”
“Sorry? Bonus numbers?” Samara asked.
“You have your regular paycheck, but if you hit certain goals, there’s a bonus involved,” Lainey explained.
“Last season, I got us over five hundred, meaning we won more than fifty percent of our games. The team hadn’t been great before I got them.
Then, there’s a number of goals scored, getting to the playoffs, winning games in the playoffs, and so on.
When we made it to the playoffs, I got a small bonus for that.
We won the first game, and I got one there, too.
We did lose after that, but it was enough for us to be able to afford the down payment on the house.
Now, with Paige making moves, we’re set up to afford a decent honeymoon.
We’ll probably just do a weeklong cruise or something and then start planning for adoption. ”
“That’s amazing,” Samara replied.
“Dana?” Lainey said.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to act at all happy for us?”