Page 7 of I Choose You

“Well, do we have any postage stamps?” he asked, grinning.

Kody and I exchanged a glance.

“Uh, yeah? Of course, we do,” Kody said.

“We’re shipping things all the time,” I added.

“I’m going to need a lot of stamps.”

“Why?” Kody and I asked it at the same time.

“For all the wedding invitations, of course!” He held up a cardboard box, emphasizing his intent.

Kody groaned, and I sighed.

This is moving fast.

“Oh, sure.” I shrugged. “I’ve got some time before a meeting.”

A half hour later, we’d only gone through a quarter of them. The cards were printed on a matte paper that was hard to separate from the pile, and the envelopes’ adhesive was pulling the flaps too. I held back from complaining, but Kody had yet to get a censor.

“Why can’t one of our secretaries do this?”

“Because stuffing personal correspondence isn’t what we pay them for.” Dad rolled his eyes. “Stop acting like this is beneath you.”

“There’s just so many of them,” he replied.

“One hundred and fifty,” Dad answered.

“You sure had them made quickly.” I picked up the card to actually look at it. We’d been sorting them together on auto-pilot, and this was the first time I was skimming the fancy calligraphy and inset foil of the decorations on the border.

“I proposed two weeks ago,” he said. “But it was harder than we realized it would be to get all three of our kids together to announce it. We wanted to tell you boys and Mercedes before announcing it officially.”

Why? To see how we’d react? I wasn’t sure how Mercedes felt about her mom remarrying, but her gasp clued me in enough. Shocked, she was surprised about Margaux’s engagement. Kody and I were stunned. I wasn’t sure what Kody’s first thought was, but I couldn’t help but wonder about what this meant for Dad to finally move on after Mom.

I frowned, looking up at Dad when I reached the line for the location. “Uh…”

“What?” He picked one up and skimmed it over. “There can’t be a typo.”

“It says ‘to be determined.’ You’re sending out invites, but you don’t have a venue picked yet?”

Dad shrugged, but I knew how to read him. He was slightly uneasy, although he replied so casually. “We’re working on it.”

Kody picked up the next invite. “The wedding is a couple weeks away!”

“No, it’s not. It’s just shy of two months away. We’ve got time to find the perfect place.”

But why get engaged and hurry to marry? “Well, you can hold off on the invites until you have a place. Why rush?”

“Because we don’t want to wait.”

“So, instead, you’ll hurry up before you’ve got everything figured out?” Kody asked.

Dad shot him a look of exasperation. “We’re not hurrying anything.”

“How are you not hurrying? It’s all happening so fast. You’ve only just met Margaux and—”

He lifted a hand, cutting me off. “I know it can seem like it’s going too fast, but trust me, I feel good about this. For the first time since your mother passed away.” He lifted one shoulder and let it fall, returning his gaze to the invitations. “This feels right. Margaux feels right.”