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Calista eyed the gift in his hands. “What are you giving them?”
“Crystal hockey puck frame. Found it online.”
Dang. That’s what they’d brought. Piper pressed her lips together. Guess he’d done the same Internet search for hockey fan gift that she’d done. She didn’t tell him.
Calista tilted her head. “Wonder how many of those they’ll get?”
Ah, Calista had no such problem.
Liam’s gaze darted to the other guests walking in.
There were a lot of eight-by-ten packages headed to the party. “Hard to know what to give a billionaire,” Piper offered in consolation.
“We’re giving him Dahlia.” Calista crossed her arms over her chest.
“True.” Nice they were having this chat out here. Once they were in the venue, the crowd would make Calista shy and she’d go silent, then dig for her laptop, and then sneak out early. Plus, her sister didn’t sound that thrilled with Dahlia’s pick, and she couldn’t hide her ambivalence as well as Piper could.
Calista’s eyes brightened. “We could throw in an auto repair coupon.”
“Stop trying to top my gift,” Liam teased her. Then he frowned and looked back at his vehicle. “That is a good gift though, my SUV could use a tune-up.”
Calista’s eyes sparked at the mechanical challenge. “What’s the engine doing?” She pivoted toward the parking lot. “Is there a sound? Performance issue? Change in gas mileage?”
Calista would happily spend the evening tearing his engine apart. Piper grabbed her arm. “No, we’re not doing that.” Piper turned her sister toward the dock. “Liam, I’ll text you the address to Dad’s garage. Family discount.”
“Cool, thanks.” Liam sounded genuinely pleased.
They boarded together. The engaged couple—Dahlia in a white cocktail dress, Dodo in a white suit—circulated amongst the guests. The invitations had included twenty-three players plus twenty-three female guests. Piper knew this because she’d helped with the planning.
They walked to the gift table with Liam, and he added his to the pile. Two players strode by and pulled Liam into their group.
Willow joined them. Her dark pixie hair gelled high, her red minidress tight. She placed her eight-by-ten package on top, forming the pile into an exact rectangle.
Piper had no problem spoiling Willow’s attempt at gift giving. She nodded at the package. “Puck picture frame?”
Willow grinned, widening her strawberry-red lips. “Puck-shaped coasters.”
Meh.
Calista took Piper’s arm and led her away without greeting Willow. She had a talent for not caring about the opinions of people who’d done wrong, and she knew the truth of what had happened with Willow and Warren, and the exact timing. They took their assigned seats and introduced themselves to Dahlia’s sorority sisters.
When planning, Piper and Dahlia had kept the tables divided by gender on purpose. Dahlia wanted the mixing to occur organically after the champagne toasts flowed. Their centerpiece, a puck-shaped ice sculpture, held an array of jewel-toned shot glasses. The décor gave the venue a colorful space-age vibe. Piper stared hard. There. That was it. That futuristic-looking tabletop was much more Dahlia than the Applebaum’s old world style. The furniture in her office, heavy. The ring on her finger, old-fashioned. So easy to see where other couples were going wrong. Dahlia wasn’t fully her authentic self, the Applebaum family was oppressing her style.
Stop.
Compromise mattered. It wasn’t like Piper knew how to make a relationship work. She hadn’t brought a date.
Chatter from the arriving guests and soft background music filled the party room. Everyone moved to their tables as Dahlia went to the stage. “We’re so glad you’re here for the celebration. First, for a bit of housekeeping. We have enough drivers lined up outside for everyone, so feel free to take all the toasts you want.”
Dahlia waved the microphone, and the light board attendant shifted the room’s lighting to pink. Dahlia raised a pink shot glass. “If you know me, you know I love coordinating colors. For those who want them, we have a shot to match all the lighting changes. Can’t wait for my two worlds to collide.” She drank the shot.
Guests chuckled, and more than a few glasses lifted to join her in the game.
Piper drank the cherry-flavored drink, sticky sweet, light rum flavor. Not bad.
The lights shifted to blue as Dodo took the stage to welcome them. He told the story of his puck proposal.
Piper handed her sister a blueberry vodka shot. “This will make that story better.”
