Chapter 23 #2
I moaned happily as I bit into one of the chocolate petit fours.
“Treating us to a taste of what Oliver gets to hear when you’re alone?
” Dash remarked wickedly. Birdie and Mel cackled while I resisted the urge to flip him off—that didn’t feel very royal.
Instead, I rolled my eyes and changed the subject, turning to Cora.
She was the wildly talented baker at a local café and patisserie.
“Did you make the desserts?” I asked.
She nodded, her round cheeks flushing a brilliant red. “I did. I started working a day or two each week at The Cakerie and am going to be making your wedding cake.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, Cora! I’m so happy for you,” I said effusively.
“And what of your flowers, dear?” Mildred asked. “Who is doing those?”
Sabine shot a sharp look toward the old woman.
“We wouldn’t dream of having anyone but Sabine do them,” I answered quickly.
Mel leaned in close, her words only loud enough for me to hear. “Not least of which is because you’re scared of her, of course.”
“Absolutely petrified,” I breathed. Sabine was the kind of woman you loved to have on your side and would not want to go up against. I had come to adore her.
As the Golden Gals engaged Cora and Sabine in what could only be called an interrogation about the wedding details (“You haven’t told us anything!
” Polly chided Evelyn, who responded with, “I am too busy to keep abreast of all the palace goings-on, Polly.”), I felt the cold hand of guilt take hold of me again.
It had been easier to think of my arrangement with Oliver as a smaller ordeal when only ourselves and our immediate families were the ones who would be directly affected.
But now that so many of our friends—Dash, Cora, Sabine, and even Vanessa—had jobs depending on our wedding and our lives together, the magnitude of the situation was becoming harder to ignore.
But as much as I didn’t want to ponder my failings as a friend, I found that easier to contemplate than the way things would likely fall apart when I finally told Oliver that I may not be able to have children.
It had been easy to brush off the way he made my heart race as a holdover from our days together at university, like a phantom pain reminding me of the dangers of getting too close to him, before I knew that he loved me, too.
But now we were quickly hurtling toward a precipice, one I didn’t know if I could survive if I went over.
Birdie’s voice jolted me back into my body.
“Now, it turns out that when you marry a king, you don’t really need to put anything on a gift registry.
Apparently, His Majesty has enough monogrammed bath towels already.
” We all laughed. “So instead of gifts, I asked everyone to bring a copy of their favorite book and to write you a short message in it.”
My mouth popped open at my friend’s thoughtfulness.
“I love this idea,” Hilda said gleefully.
“Of course you do. You probably brought the filthiest book in your collection,” Polly clucked. I didn’t miss the wicked grin that spread across her face. I was suddenly a bit afraid to see what these feisty octogenarians were about to give me.
Sabine and Cora went first, the former gifting me a collector’s edition of The Secret Garden and the latter giving me a stunning cookbook called Bethlehem: A Celebration of Palestinian Food by Fadi Kattan.
“The recipes in this one are so good,” Cora said as I flipped through the pages. “But I love the photos and the stories even more. It seemed like something you would enjoy reading.”
“I can’t wait, thank you so much.” I grinned as I moved on to open Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff from Mel and The Secret History by Donna Tartt from Evelyn.
Birdie gave me a copy of By a Thread by Lucy Score, then giggled as she handed me a second package. “This one is from Knox. He didn’t want to be left out of this ‘Bachelorette Book Club’ as he called it.”
I eyed the wrapped book in my hands, clearly a hardcover from the feel of it. “It’s The Fellowship of the Ring, isn’t it?” I asked, knowing quite well that it was Knox’s favorite book.
Birdie snorted. “He said you’d guess that and said to tell you no, it is not.”
“Hmm,” I said, intrigued, then burst out laughing when I pulled off the wrapping paper to discover The Hobbit.
Birdie rolled her eyes. “He thinks he’s so funny.”
Dash followed things up with I Think They Love You by Julian Winters, and then it was time to see what the Golden Gals had to dish out.
Things started off tame with Ida and Mildred’s selections of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Kelly Barnhill’s When Women Were Dragons, respectively. As expected, though, Hilda and Polly were both chomping at the bit for me to open theirs.
I opened Polly’s first and fell into a coughing fit when Kiss of the Basilisk by Lindsay Straube was revealed.
“It’s exactly what you think it is,” Polly said with an impish grin.
“Well, mine is about vigilante serial killers in love! Did you expect that?” hollered Hilda.
I was laughing so hard that I thought I might pee my pants as I uncovered Butcher and Blackbird by Brynne Weaver.
“Mmmm, hand that one over here,” Birdie managed to say between giggles, snatching it out of my hand to read the back cover.
“And give me that other one,” Evelyn said, taking a peek at Kiss of the Basilisk.
“It’s got a prince who is delightfully skilled in the bedroom,” Polly theatrically whispered.
Evelyn dropped the book. “Nevermind, then.”