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Tori chuckled. “First of all, it’s not a competition. Second, my birthday’s on Halloween. I kind of assumed that meant we would spend that night trick-or-treating, as is the case on every Halloween.”
Emery glared over at me as if I had said that wasn’t happening. “Yeah, Mama. We need to go trick-or-treating.”
“Together,” Bella added as she pointed between her and Emery. “We never see each other.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You girls live together and share a room.”
Bella crossed her arms in front of her chest and scowled just like Emery. “Yeah, but we don’t go to the same school. We don’t have a Halloween parade together.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. That must be very hard for you girls.” I had to work hard to hold back my smile. The problems of toddlers were comical.
Emery nodded, luckily missing my sarcasm. “So hard.”
“Yes. Trick or treating on your actual birthday is a must, but that’s a Monday. What should we do the weekend before?”
“The weekend before, I will be working. People love Halloween weddings.”
“Okay.” She really wasn’t going to make this easy on me, was she? “But that’s why you have employees. Surely, someone else can do the bulk of the work so you can have some time to celebrate your birthday.”
“Marley has been taking on more responsibilities at Stone Barn Events. Speaking of which, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” Tori stood from the couch. “You girls okay if we go out to talk in the kitchen?”
Now that the Halloween debacle was solved, all of their attention was back on the movie they were watching. Emery nodded and Bella gave a thumbs up, neither of them moving their eyes from the screen.
“That appears to be a yes,” Tori said with a laugh. She motioned toward the kitchen. “Shall we?”
As soon as we were in the kitchen, I leaned against the counter. “So, what’s up?”
“I’m thinking about bringing Marley on as a co-owner of the barn. It’s hard to keep up so much work with Bella getting older. Soon, she’s going to be playing sports on weekends, and I don’t want to miss that. I know I was just complaining about money, and co-ownership is going to cut down on that, but time with my little girl is definitely more important.”
“Plus, the barn is doing great now. Even with splitting ownership, you’ll still make a lot more money than you did during COVID, and you made it through that.”
Tori rolled her eyes. “Barely. But seriously, you’d be okay with that?”
Why was she asking me? “That’s not up to me. It’s your business, and I support any decision you make. If you’re asking me because that means you two will have to stay here longer, that’s totally fine. You can stay as long as you want. Emery and I love having you both here.”
Tori furrowed her eyebrows. “I actually hadn’t thought about that, but that’s good to know. I was asking because it was you and Willow who bought the place together. You’re the whole reason it was renovated in the first place. I know it’s sacred to you. I don’t want to do anything without making sure it’s okay with you first.”
“Tori, the barn is yours. That was always your and Willow’s dream, not mine. You’ve done an amazing job with it, and I trust that whatever you decide to do moving forward is going to be perfect.”
Tori’s body visibly relaxed and her smile became more sincere. “Great. I’m so happy to hear that.”
“Okay. Now that that’s taken care of, let’s talk about your birthday.”
Tori’s eyes lit up as if she suddenly had an idea. “What if we took the girls to a pumpkin patch on Sunday afternoon then crashed a wedding on Sunday night?”
“Crash a wedding? Is this wedding taking place at your wedding venue?”
“It is! It’s going to be awesome. All of the guests are coming in costumes and the decorations I picked out with the bride are amazing. The perfect mix of scary yet chic.” She brought her hands together in a praying motion and stuck out her bottom lip. “Please tell me you’ll crash with me.”
“Is it really crashing if it’s a wedding that you’re hosting? Are you trying to get free labor?” I asked, the tone of my voice light so Tori knew I was joking.
“Absolutely not.” She squinted her eyes and brought her thumb and forefinger close together. “Okay, maybe I’ll ask for a little bit of help, but then we’re going to put on costumes and sneak in to dance and party. No one will ever know since everyone will be dressed up and most likely very drunk.”
“So, crashing a wedding?” A nervous excitement shot through me, even though there was nothing to actually be nervous about since Tori literally had every right to be at the wedding being hosted by her venue. “It’s something to check off my bucket list, I guess. Let’s do it.”
***
A week later, we woke up early to take the girls to a farm that had a pumpkin patch, plus a lot of other fall activities, including a corn maze. After doing pumpkin rolling and apple shooting, we decided to try to take on the corn maze.
