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Xander ran his finger over the ring box that he’d transferred into his jeans pocket this morning. “I’m going to ask her to marry me. Will you be my best man?”
A big grin broke out on Slade’s face. “Yeah.” His voice came out as a croak.
Xander had to swallow around the emotions that clogged his own throat. “Thanks.”
Slade cleared his throat. “Jesus, would you look at us? We’re like a pair of girls.”
Xander shrugged. “I’m not going to make any excuses. I’m not afraid to admit that this has gotten me a little bit emotional. I love Tori with all my heart. You’ve been my best friend my whole life. I’m not ashamed to say that this means a lot to me.”
Slade nodded. “And I’m not afraid to admit that I’m all choked up here. It’ll be an honor. Thank you for asking me.”
Xander sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Anyway. Do you want to come back up to the lodge with me? I should go and find Jacob.”
Slade frowned. “You don’t want him to be your best man?”
“No. I love him. He’s my brother. But I never even considered asking him, and I know that he wouldn’t expect me to. You’re it for me.”
“Aww, honey! I love you, too.”
Xander screwed his napkin up and threw it at his friend. “Fuck you. Come on, let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tori stood at the servers’ station, wringing a bar towel in her hands as she looked around. The place was packed already. Of course, all their friends from Napa were here, but there were so many more people, too – people she didn’t even know. That shouldn’t surprise her – they’d been busy all week since the day that they opened. They’d had plenty of locals coming to check the place out already, and there’d been a steady stream of tourists as well. But for some reason, she had it in her mind that tonight would be mostly friends and family. Perhaps that was just because she was seeing it as more of a celebration.
“Hey, are you okay?” Jade came to stand beside her. “You’ve not got stage fright, have you?”
Tori laughed. “No. Nothing like that. I’m not nervous; I’m just taking it all in.” She turned to smile at her new friend. “Isn’t it awesome?”
Jade laughed. “I’ll say it is. I’ll be honest, when I first took this job, I didn’t know if it would be short-lived because the bar would be. No offense or anything…”
“None taken,” said Tori.
“Did you feel the same way?”
Tori shook her head. “No. I’ve never had a moment of doubt about this place becoming a success. I mean, how could it fail? Xander and I are both capable people; we want this, we want it to work. We’re prepared to work hard and do whatever it takes to make that happen.” She stuck her tongue out at Jade. “And once we hired you, it was a sure thing.”
Jade shimmied her hips. “I’m glad that you know what you’ve got here.”
“Oh, I do. And I’m grateful to you.”
Jade shrugged and started to move away. “Yeah well, I’m grateful to you for the job as well. But we’re not going to make this place a roaring success by standing around here talking about it, are we?”
Tori laughed. “No, you have a point there.”
“Looks like you need to do some schmoozing before you get to serving again,” said Jade. She jerked her chin toward the entrance where Clay and his lady, Marianne, had just come in.
Tori hurried out from behind the bar to go and greet them.
“We’re not late, are we?” asked Clay. “I didn’t think that things would get going until later.”
“Neither did we, and no, you’re not late at all. I’m just so grateful that you’re doing this for us. I’m sure you’re the reason that we’re this busy.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Marianne. “Everyone I’ve spoken to for the last couple of weeks has talked about your grand opening and asked if we were coming.”
“Well, we appreciate you doing this.” Tori looked over to the small stage area. “Everything’s set up for you; your guys were over here earlier.”
Clay nodded. “Thanks. What time do you want me to get up there?”
