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I ignore the flutter low in my belly at the sight of that wink. Not to mention how good he’d looked. I need to pull myself together and stop obsessing over Cole for the rest of the weekend. The next few days are about Piper and Luke, not whatever disaster has befallen my dating life.
Resolved to put Cole and Michael out of my mind, I loop my arm through Piper’s as we walk through the lobby. The other women are already there when we arrive. The room is decorated with flowers and balloons and a big banner with “Future Mrs. Wolfe” in big, swirling letters. Piper gasps in surprise as her hands come up to cover her face.
“What is this?” she asks. “This is too much!”
We all laugh.
“You had to know we wouldn’t skimp on the decorations,” Harlow says, walking over to hand Piper a mimosa.
Taking the glass, she looks around the room in awe. “I didn’t expect all this.”
“Having Hannah plan your wedding means nothing is too much,” Quinn says. “You learn to like it.”
“Hey!” Hannah says. “You said you liked it.”
“I loved every second of it,” Quinn says. “I just like giving you a hard time.”
“Bitch,” Hannah mutters.
Quinn just shrugs and I laugh. I know I just met these women, but I think I’m going to like them.
“Okay, ladies,” Claire says, “These mimosas won’t drink themselves!”
I opt to skip alcohol again today. I’m still not over my hangover from two days ago. Hangovers in my 20s used to last until lunchtime. Hangovers in my 30s seem to need 3-5 business days to vanish. That will teach me to drink on an empty stomach. Piper makes the rounds, greeting all the women with hugs before we take our seats.
The morning is filled with laughter and chatting women, champagne, and delicious food. The married women take turns telling stories of their own weddings. Some of the stories are genuinely hilarious. When Claire tells us how she met Garrett and Ronan’s reaction to her dating his best friend, I laugh until tears stream from my eyes. Apparently, he hadn’t been happy to catch the two of them kissing. Things had escalated until Quinn took it upon herself to spray them all with water.
“He was so pissed!” Quinn says, laughing.
Claire shrugs. “Served him right. He was being an ass.”
“It was pretty funny,” Hope says, smiling as she finishes her mimosa.
“How long have you and Ronan been married?” I ask Quinn.
She smiles at me. “Just over a year.”
I smile at her obvious happiness. “Wow. You two seem so comfortable together. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you were high school sweethearts.”
She throws back her head and laughs. “Oh, god no! We knew each other for about 6 months before we started hooking up. Honestly, I didn’t even like him for most of those first six months. I thought he was boring and uptight. Even after we got together, I was convinced it was just a fling. Nothing serious.” She shakes her head, still smiling.
I blink, surprised by this information. “Really? That’s hard to believe.”
“Why?” she laughs again. “Because we can’t keep our hands off each other? How do you think we got the kid?”
I laugh along with her. “That’s fair.”
I toy with the umbrella in my virgin daquiri, trying to figure out how to word my next question. I don’t even know what I’m trying to ask. I just know that I’ve spent the last two days surrounded by happy couples who seem like they have all the secrets to a perfect relationship. I want to know how they did it. I guess I just want to know if it’s possible for me too.
“How long did it take you to fall for him?”
Quinn smiles. “It took me longer than him to figure it out,” she says. “Looking back, I think I started falling for him the first time I met him. But I denied the hell out of it for as long as I could. I wasn’t looking for anything serious. I damned sure wasn’t looking to settle down in a town as small as Oak Hill.”
She gazes down at the drink in her hand for a moment before continuing. “I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Sometimes you just find the right person and all your big plans don’t matter anymore. You realize that what you thought you wanted isn’t what you need. Life is short. And time is one thing you can’t get back. So, if you find the right person, you hold on tight. And you let them know. Every day.”
I nod as I take another sip of my drink. I think about Quinn’s words, and I try to picture myself as happy as she seems to be. I imagine myself with a husband and a baby and a job I love. I already have the job I love. The husband and the baby are a little harder to conjure in my mind. I try to picture Michael as the man beside me and immediately reject the image. It feels wrong.
I can’t picture him doting on me or making any excuse to touch me, picking out baby clothes or changing dirty diapers. He seems like the kind of guy who’d leave that to his wife or to a nanny. I cringe at the thought. I have nothing against people who hire nannies for their kids. But it’s not something I want to do. I want the kind of childhood my mom gave me and Piper. She was there for every milestone and every scraped knee. She read us bedtime stories and played dress-up. That’s the kind of mom I want to be. And I want a partner who wants to be that kind of dad. I won’t settle for less than that.
