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Smacking his arm, I took a step back. “Thank you for not being offended by it. As soon as they scented me they decided they were done, and they all have other things they do on the side. I’m still… I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’m okay taking some time to figure it out.”
“We’ll be glad to have you close by, and I expect you and your men to be here once in a while for family dinners. We want to get to know them, and not just as the men who you brought to the wedding, but as your pack.”
I couldn’t stop my smile at the thought.Mypack. “I want that too.”
Mom looked down at her phone. “Oh, the flowers are here. I need to help them be placed.”
That meant Ocean was here too. “I’ll go with you. See you soon, Dad?”
One of his arms was still around me, and he gave me a squeeze. “You bet. Have fun. And I’m sorry, Isolde. We’ll do better for you.”
The quick burst of emotion nearly caught me. I wasn’t the only one who was hurting. I’d done plenty of my own damage when I ran away without a word and put them through hell watching me suffer. “Let’s all do better for each other.”
He nodded stiffly, turning to mask his own emotion. I touched him on the shoulder before following Mom. Ocean stood in the foyer, directing her employees, along with the woman who managed the flower business on her behalf.
Ocean did a lot of work for it, but because of her family, she hid a lot of it, pretending it was a hobby instead of something she’d carefully crafted and cultivated.
So many flowers were coming through the door it was like an entire shop, and Mom was already pointing them straight through to the venue in the backyard. She was in her element.
I bumped Ocean’s shoulder. “Hey, you.”
“Hi.” She smiled, looking fully herself for the first time in forever. “You okay?”
“Yeah. It’s… You, Rin, and I will have dinner and talk about everything, okay? I don’t think I can go through it again today.”
Ocean pointed to the side when a girl came in holding two paper bags full of plastic boxes. “The bouquets can go there, please. Boutonnieres too.” She looked at me. “I totally get that, and yes, please. I need to get the hell out of my house, and I think we all have things to talk about.”
“Are you okay? The last couple of weeks?—”
She cut me off with a hand. “I can’t do it today either, Iz, sorry.”
It only made me more curious, but that was the thing about Ocean. She had to make sure she had a handle on everything herself before she told someone else. She would tell us when she was ready, even though I was dying to know. “That’s okay. How can I help?”
“Do you know who’s standing in for Beau?” She pulled a clear box out from one of the bags. The boutonniere was pretty, with some small white flowers, a petunia, and some pretty greens.
“I don’t.”
“I do,” a new voice came, and my chest filled with love and affection as the guys appeared around the corner. Hawk was the one who spoke. “Since I was the one who punched Beau in the face the first time, Warren asked me to stand in. But it’s okay, Ocean, I can just wear that one.”
She looked horrified. “No, you absolutely cannot.”
Hawk and the rest of my pack looked confused, but I just smiled. “What does it mean, Ocean?”
My friend pressed her lips together, fighting laughter. “It’s petunia, basil, and hemlock. Or rather, anger and disdain, hatred, and death.”
“Oh my god.” I burst out laughing. “That’s incredible.”
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Vaughn said.
Ocean smirked, but she looked at me. “I’ll take a rose from your bouquet and put one together.”
“Perfect.”
Hawk tugged me away. “We need to go get ready. From everything I feel here,” he pressed a palm to my heart, “you seem okay. Are you?”
“I am.”
“Do you want to come back to the house with us?”
