Page 43 of The Wedding Situation Romance

“Is there a wedding that doesn’t excite you?” I mumble as I drive at a snail’s pace through the woods. This wedding in the Catskill Mountains, which doesn’t surprise me. This is Nick and Ophelia’s wedding, after all. What does surprise me is that they failed to mention needing four-wheel drive to get to said wedding. My Mercedes isn’t made for this, and my mood is dropping with every inch of altitude we gain.

“No,” she smiles. “But this one I have secretly been looking forward to the most,” she says, still fussing with that damned dress. “It’s boho,”

“It’s in BFE, is what it is,” I say.

“You don’t like the mountains?” she asks.

“I don’t like off-roading in my car,”

“You’re always so grumpy,” she says.

“And you’re always so–can you knock it off?” I snap.

“Knock what off?” she asks, clearly oblivious to what her boob jostling is doing to me. It’s kind of hard to focus on not hitting a pothole with the potential of ripping out my power steering when Quinn’s breasts have the potential to rip through her dress.

“Fussing with the dress,” I tell her. “Why did you wear it if your tits won’t stay put?” I ask.

But Quinn just smiles. “Because they look good in it,” she says, and I make no response. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re not very big.” Still no response. “No one likes small boobs,” she goes on. “They need all the help they can get. And this dress,” she tugs on it again. “Does a good job of that.”

“Not if they don’t stay put,” I say, and Quinn just shakes her head. She’s still smiling. Still excited about the wedding. And still trying to get her dress under control.

After another grueling thirty minutes that should have been ten, we finally make it to the wedding spot, which is nothing more than a clearing in the trees near a stream. While there is a large,cabin-esque event hall, Nick and Ophelia chose a wooden area no less than a ten-minute walk from there. It’s damp, dirty and going to fuck up my three-hundred-dollar shoes.

“Take them off,” Quinn says as we get out of the car.

“I’m good, but thank you for caring about fine Italian leather,” I tell her, checking my phone before shoving it in my pocket. Then I smack a mosquito that landed on my neck, no doubt leaving a bloody squash on my skin.

I am not a camping man.

There is a reason I live in the city.

“That wasn’t a suggestion,” she says as she slips out of her sandals. “Didn’t you read the invite?”

“That’s what I have you for,” I joke, but she’s not smiling. Not until she says the words she knows are going to make my skin crawl.

“There is a strict no-shoes policy,” she reminds me.

Fuck. That’s right. I do vaguely remember her saying that. I just didn’t think that we would be barefoot in the woods.

But I do it anyway. For Nick, who, despite his absurd wedding regulations, is still one of my best friends. And also to prove to Quinn that I’m not easily shaken. Even when I step it something squishy that seeps between my toes the moment my shoe-less foot hits the ground for the first time.

“This is so beautiful,” Quinn says as she tugs me down the path towards where we will be sitting.

“Which part? The mosquitos intent on eating us alive or the thorns we keep stepping on?”

“Oh, hush,” she says, and I flinch as I trip over a tree root. “This is beautiful because it’s simple. There’s no glamour. There’s no flash. There’s no vaulted ceilings or marble floors,”

“I thought you liked vaulted ceilings and marble floors,” I say, referring back to AJ’s wedding just two weeks ago.

“For that bride and groom, yes. Because it was what they wanted. Because it symbolized them. But this, this is Nick and Ophelia. The trees. The flowers. The stream.”

“The bugs,” I say, and she swats at me. And there is something about the way she does it that tempts my lips to smile. But I am not an easily tempted man.

“This is wild, isn’t it?” Drew asks, coming out of the literal, natural woodwork with Cassidy on his arm and falling into step with us.

“Not the first that came to my mind, but sure,” I say.

“I think it’s fun,” Cassidy says with a smile, and I turn to Quinn, realizing they haven’t been introduced. But before I can say anything, Quinn does it herself.