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Esther chose that moment to walk into the living room looking for me.
“Oh,” Titus said in understanding, his eyes on her waistline.
“Am I interrupting?” Esther asked, pausing.
“Not at all,” I assured her. “What’s up, sugar?”
Rumi snorted quietly. I ignored him.
“I thought you might want to see what we bought today?” she murmured shyly with a shrug.
“The dress?” I teased, heading toward her. My dad could deal with Titus.
“I told you,” she said as I led her toward the spare bedroom. “You can see that on our wedding day.”
“It’s awful, huh?” I joked. “Afraid I’ll change my mind once I see what you picked out?”
Esther huffed and looked at me over her shoulder, rolling her eyes. “Nice try.”
I shrugged.
“It’s really pretty,” she assured me as we reached the guest room. “A little more revealing than I’m used to.”
“Ooh,” I murmured, closing the door behind us as I imagined Esther in a cleavage-baring dress. I immediately shot that image down. I doubted she meant somethingthatrevealing. She’d spend our entire wedding blushing the color of a tomato.
My parents had gotten rid of our old bunk bed and replaced it with a queen, and the entire bed was covered in bags.
“We got tablecloths,” Esther said, reaching into a bag. “But they’re just rentals—did you know you could rent tablecloths?”
“I didn’t,” I replied in amusement.
“We got napkins, too. Your mom said that the club has plenty of dishes and silverware and all of that stuff.”
“They do,” I confirmed, leaning back against the door.
She’d been nervous when they left that morning. Scared, even. But the day with my mom and the girls seemed to have settled her. I thought it might be a stretch to say that she was excited, but she seemed calmer at least.
“We’re going to put these in the middle of the tables,” she said, pulling a little glass vase out of one of the bags and dropping a tiny candle into it. “Pretty, right?”
“Very.”
She stopped, the vase in her hand, and looked at me. “You don’t care about any of this, do you?”
I laughed. “Not really.”
Her shoulders slumped.
“If you like it, I like it,” I assured her, stepping further into the room. “You like it?”
“Your mom’s really good at making things look pretty,” she replied, gesturing at the room around us. “I think it’s going to look really nice.”
“As long as you’re there, I doubt I’ll notice any of it,” I confessed, reaching out to pull her toward me. The vase dropped onto the bed with a quiet thunk. “How are you doin’?”
“I don’t know,” she said, leaning against me, her head tilted back to look at my face. “It feels like we’re in some alternate universe.”
“It’s fast,” I agreed. “That’s why I want you comin’ home with me tonight. Give us a couple of days to get used to each other, yeah?”
“No.” She shook her head, her chin jutting out stubbornly. “Not until we’re married.”
