It also should be noted that going to Vegas was what I had always wanted to do.
However, I wasn’t certain how Catholics felt about Vegas.
I added this on my mental list to discuss with the nun or priest who Ren set me up with for my literal come to Jesus (and Mary, God and the Holy Spirit) meeting and shared, “I’m thinking it might be a full mass.”
Tod’s head snapped to me, his eyes alight.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jet, the voice of experience, said under her breath to me.
“Seriously?” Tod cried.
“Unless there’s a Catholic priest who dresses like Elvis and has a wedding chapel in Sin City, yeah,” I answered.
“Oh girlie,” Tod’s eyes were getting bright, “you’ve made me so happy.”
Don’t think I was crazy. I was a Rock Chick. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Tod lifted his hands to the sides of his head and wriggled his fingers, announcing, “I feel it! It’s coming over me! You!” He suddenly pointed at me. “Buttery yellow, the creamiest of creams and a bright grass green. You,” he pointed at Stella, “a white bikini, I’m thinking crochet, a lei, maybe a band of flowers around your forehead, and a fabulous sarong.”
Again with Mace muttering, this time through a smile, “That works for me.”
“Tropical island paradise will be your theme,” Tod kept at it and looked at Indy. “And Sadie, ice blue and shimmery glittering winter white.”
That wasn’t bad for Sadie. In fact, perfect.
But no way I was doing yellow and green.
Red and maybe black.
If the Pope approved.
I didn’t share this with Tod. Mostly because the door opened, Ava blasted through it and sauntering in on her heels was Luke with a half-grin going.
Ava did not have a half-grin. She was fuming.
“Tod,” she snapped. “I’m here, but not for the final-final-read-through-preliminary-to-the-finalized-final-final-read-through.”
Clearly she’d got the memo.
“I’m here because the wedding is off!” she finished.
“No!” Tod exclaimed, then proceeded not to react to the dire news that it appeared Ava and Luke were at odds (then again, that happened occasionally; she busted his chops often and Luke, having chops of steel, got off on it) but to something else. “It’s too late to get any of the deposits back!”
“Calm down, man, the wedding isn’t off,” Luke announced.
“It is,” Ava retorted angrily, whirling on her man.
“It isn’t,” Luke replied calmly, staring down his nose at his woman.
“Are you going to dance with me?” she asked.
“Vertically?” he asked back, and I pressed my lips together in order not to laugh.
“Yes!” she snapped.
“Yeah, baby,” he said. “I’ll dance with you vertically, in the bathroom on the plane on the way to Bermuda.”
This was not the answer she was looking for, therefore she whirled back to Tod and ordered, “Start making calls. It’s over.”
“I’m not… I can’t… it’s…” Tod stammered, hand to his throat, eyes wide and filled with panic. Then he shrieked, “The custom order baby blue, aqua and teal M&M’s have already arrived! There’s nine pounds of them already parceled out and ribboned up for wedding gifts! What am I going to do with nine pounds of baby blue, aqua and teal M&M’s?”
“Give them to me,” Ava retorted. “I intend to eat them all in one sitting.”
“Don’t make any calls, Tod,” Luke contradicted Ava’s order as he also ignored her response to Tod.
Ava again whirled on Luke. “I’m not marrying a man who can’t set aside the badass for three minutes in order to dance at our wedding.”
“Yes you are,” Luke replied.
It was at that, Ava had had enough.
I knew this when she shouted, “I’ve been in love with you since I was eight! And I’ve been dreaming of dancing with you at our wedding,” she leaned toward him, “since I was eight! And if you can’t give me three minutes of that drea—”
She didn’t finish.
This was because Luke’s hand flashed out, caught her behind the neck and pulled her to him so she landed face first in his chest. He then bent his neck and his face disappeared from my view as he spoke in Ava’s ear.
But I saw Ava’s face get soft. Then softer. Then the hands she had curled in his tee at his sides uncurled so she could wrap her arms around him.
Luke’s head lifted.
Ava’s neck twisted so she could look at Tod. “Don’t make any calls, babe.”
Tod heaved an audible sigh of relief prior to collapsing into a chair by his albums.
I did not know if this meant Luke was dancing with Ava at their wedding or not.
I just knew that whatever he said made Ava happy.
And seeing that, thinking on how Eddie was with his pregnant wife, and knowing Mace was standing with Stella only a few feet away and she’d barely been out of the curve of his arm in the fifteen minutes they were, what Ren said in that motel room two days before hit me.
And it hitting me made me reach to my back pocket and pull out my phone. I started it up, touched the button to send a text and typed in, Tonight. Post date. Cowgirl, lotus, doggie. Then I hit send.
With the most recent crisis in Fortnum’s diverted, I shoved my phone back in my pocket and moved out from behind the counter to do a sweep of the tables to gather empties when I heard the store phone ring just as my phone at my ass binged.
I yanked it out and saw I had two texts from Ren.
The first, Not positions. Locations. Stairs. Wall. Bed.
His plan was way better than mine.
The second, Love you, baby.
I smiled and sent back, Back at ‘cha just as Jane called, “Phone for you, Ally.”
My brows drew together as I looked at her.
No one called me there. Not friends, definitely. And my informants and “clients” all knew my cell was the only acceptable form of communication.
I walked to the book counter, took the phone and put it to my ear. “Yo.”
“You want Rosie to stay alive, you deal,” a man’s kinda whiny, definitely weasely voice said to me, and my back went straight. “We want Rosie alive ‘cause we want him growin’ for us. We wanna talk about what it’ll take to buy him outta your protection. You don’t deal, face to face, you comin’ alone, we find a farmer who can take over the crops and his pain in our ass gets dead. You hear me?”