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Zann glanced over her shoulder at Kit and Jack, who were waiting at the end of the walk and who, now that Imani pointed it out, she realized were once again doing their inadvertent Bobbsey Twins thing with their matching dusky blue shorts and quarter-zips. “Those are my friends and fellow groomsmen, Kit and Jack. They went to Stonebridge with me and Aspen, and wanted to tag along. Lydia is off with Eve and the rest of that crew, getting ready. You’ll meet her soon enough.”
“Damn right I will.” Imani laughed when Zann rolled her eyes in response, and stepped onto the porch to pull her into a crushing embrace.
Though Zann was a hair taller than Imani’s lean, five-foot-nine frame, her friend was frighteningly strong from all the grappling she did in the Jiu-Jitsu dojo, and she groaned as she slapped at her back. “Okay, okay! Let go. You win!”
“That’s right,” Imani cackled as she let her go. “But, seriously, Wikipedia is…” She whistled. “Wow.”
After the way their conversation yesterday had ended, she’d fully expected Imani to do it, but Zann still muttered, “I can’t believe you actually looked her up.”
“Hey, she’s the one who told me about it.”
“I don’t care.”
“Don’t care, what?” Yasmine asked as she joined them. Like her wife, she, too, was already dressed to shoot the event in a pair of flattering black slacks and a matching button-down shirt. While Imani’s tight buzz cut was made to handle all conditions, Yasmine had pulled her long, black hair into a neat plait so it wouldn’t blow into her face while working.
“She doesn’t like that I internet-stalked her girlfriend, even though her girlfriend basically invited me to do it.”
Zann opened her mouth to argue, but cut herself off. It felt disingenuous to call Lydia her girlfriend when they hadn’t actually put a label on things, but it was probably better than ‘the woman I met and fell for in less than a week’. “Still not cool.”
“Whatever,” Imani sassed. “Look, are we going, or what? The Shining twins out there are creeping me the fuck out.”
“Yeah, let’s go,” Zann agreed. She twisted her shoulders and spun on her heel. When she heard the cottage door close, she said, “Kit, Jack, this is Imani and Yasmine. Imani and I went to film school together.”
She stepped aside as Kit smiled at the women behind her and waved. “Hi there. I’m Kit. Thanks for coming up here to help.”
“Our pleasure,” Imani replied. “I’m Imani, and this is my wife, Yasmine.”
“Jack,” Jack chimed in, throwing a friendly wave.
“And now that we’ve all been introduced,” Zann said, gesturing toward the beach, “let’s go see what we’re working with.”
“Yeah, I want to see if there is anything that’ll get in the way of working with that drone of yours, Zee,” Yasmine said as they all started toward the path that’d take them down to the main building of the resort and the beach.
“Shit, if we’d known you were going to use a drone, we could’ve brought the one we’re working on from our lab,” Jack said. “It’s ridiculous.”
“I didn’t know I was going to be photographing the wedding,” Zann pointed out. “But if you want to send me one, I’ll totally field test it for you if I can keep it.”
“Oh yeah. Because giving away a twenty-million-dollar, NOAA prototype is totally a sound business decision,” Kit deadpanned.
“A what, now?” Imani asked. “The fuck kind of people did you go to school with, Zee?”
“Sounds like really smart people,” Yasmine deadpanned.
Zann laughed as Kit and Jack made a show of straightening imaginary ties. “They are,” she confirmed. “They’re also co-CEOs of a tech company in Boston that they founded.”
“What kind of tech?” Yasmine asked interestedly.
“Eh…” Kit shrugged. “A little of this, a little of that. We get bored pretty easily, so we’re always looking for new projects. I head the Enviro tech division at Titan, while Jack’s team focuses more on robotics and nanotech applications.”
“And Titan is your firm?”
“Yeah, Titan Tech,” Kit said.
“Ah,” Imani drawled, and Zann bit her lip to hold back her laughter at the wry grin Imani threw her way as she said, “And, lemme guess—y’all have a Wikipedia page too?”
“Um, yeah,” Kit said, looking a little confused. Which, Zann had to admit, was fair. Without knowing about the conversation that Imani’d had with Lydia yesterday, the question would’ve seemed to have come right out of left field. “I mean, most large companies do.”
Zann didn’t miss the disbelieving laughter dancing in Imani’s eyes, and couldn’t resist adding, “Eh, she’s being modest. Because she and Jack have invented some wicked cool shit, they have their own pages, too.”