Page 46 of D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding

She sucked her teeth. “You know. You be getting all nasty and tryna take my clothes off and stuff.”

“Hwhat?!” I cackled, throwing my head back as I howled with laughter. “What are you even saying right now?”

“I mean, I like it, but baby—” she dropped her hands from my waist to my hips “—at least wait until we get home.”

“Please wait until you get home,” Kayla urged. “If we have to cough up bail money, I want it to be for something juicier than public indecency.”

Mouth open, I gaped at her as Kris busted out laughing. Shooting a quick glance at my mama, I noticed that her hands were on her cheeks and her eyes were wide.

“What’s juicier than having sex in public, Mami?” Ray queried. “Inquiring minds want to know.”

“No they don’t,” Reynaldo grumbled. “And it’s getting late.” Lifting his wrist, he checked his watch before turning to me and Kris. “Do you have other venues?”

There was a low, pleading note in his voice that I identified with. Neither of the two places we’d seen thus far were a location that I could see myself getting married, even if the wedding in question was a fake one.

“We have one more location to check out,” Kris answered, “but our appointment isn’t until tomorrow. Will you be able to make it?”

“Of course.”

Kris grinned and clapped her hands together. “Buen. Alright, people. Thanks for showing up for us. We’re gonna call it a night, but you’re all invited to check out the next place with us tomorrow.”

“Is it just one place?” Mama asked, attention switching from Kris to me.

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered. “We only had three initial locations to choose from. We’d hoped that we wouldn’t have to search long.”

Mama nodded. “Well, I’ll be here.”

“Me too,” chirped D’Niesha.

Everyone else made a similar announcement, bringing a smile to my face. It seemed like we had a good group of supporters which would take us a long way in the competition.

“If everyone will return tomorrow, why don’t we all go to dinner after the final location?”

At Kayla’s suggestion, Mama nodded again.

“That’s a good idea. Hopefully it’ll be a celebratory dinner.” To me, she added, “I’ll see if Darren can come as well.”

“Sounds good, Mama.”

She hugged me which sparked a full round of hugs and goodbyes from the entire group. As cars cranked up, Kris and I held hands as we waved them off. Once everyone had driven away, we started to follow suit, only to be stopped by another task. At the request of Kevin via Felix, we needed to stand between our two cars and talk for a moment. Since I was parked under a light and Kris had parked on a different side of the lot against a fence underneath a cluster of trees, I waited while she went to get her car and pulled into the spot next to me. After she stepped out of the car, we turned to Felix and waited for further instructions. Leaning his head to the side, he peeked around the camera so that we could see his face and pointed toward the space between our two vehicles.

“Can I get you both to move over here and each lean against your own cars? And just talk naturally; it doesn’t even matter what you say. I just want a few minutes of this because the sun is going down and the lighting is damn-near perfect, so if you’ll indulge me a little, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

He wasn’t asking for much, and it wouldn’t have mattered either way since we’d each signed a contract. We did as he suggested, and I had to admit that it was a good look. Posted up as we were reminded me of dating in high school, when there weren’t many places we could go after a certain hour but we just wanted to be around each other, so we’d stand in the parking lot of the mall and talk for hours underneath that big yellow-orange light. I felt that same sort of juvenile giddiness in my belly as I watched Kris lick her lips and brush a hand down the front of her face, my fingers itching with the desire to reach out and touch her. With every moment that we spent together, I learned more about her and continually found myself surprised. Although I had to admit that the most surprising thing of all was that I was able to formulate coherent sentences when around her.

“That went better than I expected,” Kris admitted.

Releasing a heavy sigh, I nodded. “Same here. The locations were downright tragic, but that only seemed to bring everyone together for our benefit. It was pretty amazing.”

“Right!” she laughed. “I hadn’t seen that one coming.”

“I hadn’t seen these terrible venues coming, but I guess I should have.”

“Hell yeah. I watched the first season of the show; they never make it easy on folks.”

“Wait.” I held a hand up, tilting my head to the side as I squinted at her. “You knew it would be like this and you still auditioned? You must like a challenge.”

Laughing harder, she shook her head. “Correction, I love a challenge.”