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“That would be great,” I agreed, glad Ames had made it clear over the phone that I had no idea what I wanted in a dress. I wouldn’t have been able to pretend to know dress shapes and fabrics, regardless of the amount of wedding shows the girls had forced on me over the past two weeks. We mostly watched them for the drama anyway, and because Wren insisted on setting a ‘wedding vibe’ while we planned details for mine.
“Perfect! I’ll make myself scarce while you guys look around. Just give me a call whenever you have a few choices to try on.” True to her word, Julia left, and I watched her meander over to another area, re-hanging dresses from a previous appointment.
John and Cian roamed through the store, likely checking for exits and taking other security measures that their jobs entailed, while Wren, Ames, and I went in pursuit of dresses. They held up gowns with various textures and styles and fabrics, making me pick out what I liked about certain dresses and hated in others.
It took close to half an hour before we had a handful of dresses I was willing to try on, my taste in wedding dresses apparently much more discerning than my taste in anything else wedding-related. I wasn’t sure why the dress mattered so much to me when so many other details hadn’t, why I kept imaginingthe pictures Dev and I would take, that we would hang in our home after the wedding.
I wanted it to look good.Iwanted to look good, if only so that I could look at a picture from a wedding forced upon the both of us - even if we’d both agreed to it - and look worthy of the man standing at my side. The kind of man who’d agree to marry me to keep his family safe, who gave up months of his life to watch over me, who brought me into his home and treated me with kindness. Not because he owed me or expected something of me or because he worked for my father, but simply because he was a kind man.
Those were the thoughts running through my head as I rejected dress after dress, barely making it out of the dressing room for most of them, knowing already that they weren’t right. They were too modern or too old-fashioned, too basic or too gaudy, too tight or too poofy. None of them fit me, felt right on my body, made me feel that sureness women so often talked about when they picked their wedding dress on tv.
By the fifth dress, I felt discouraged, my skin tight and hot as I tried on and rejected each dress. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted short or long sleeves, a fitted skirt or a loose one, an empire or drop waist. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what those last two things were, barely comprehending the words thrown around between Wren and Ames and Julia, even Cian at times, who apparently had caught onto the lingo faster than I had.
John grew sick of our indecision, heaving himself up off the couch and meandering toward the back of the store while Ames and Julia looked through a rack of dresses nearby, trying to narrow down next choices while Cian and Wren looked up nearby bridal shops in case this one turned out to be a bust.
My back was sore from standing in heavy dresses most of the morning, and I hopped off the pedestal to slump on the couch. My eyes were half-closed when I saw a blur of movement next tome, and I tilted my head to the side to find John holding out a dress with an unsure look on his face.
“Try this one.”
I didn’t even bother to look at the dress, dragging it behind me into the curtained-off area nearby that served as a dressing room. The last dress I’d had on luckily unzipped at the side, and I easily slid the dress to the floor before stepping into the one John handed me. I called him behind the curtain to zip me up after I’d pulled on the dress, not wanting to bother Julia, who was still debating dresses with Ames. I trudged my way out of the dressing room, trying my hardest to veil my frustration. I appreciated the effort on John’s part, even if it felt more and more like I’d be walking down the aisle in a pair of jeans at this point.
Until I finally stepped back up onto the pedestal and glimpsed myself in the mirror, a noise falling from my throat without my permission.
The top of the dress fell off my shoulders, with billowing sleeves that cinched at my wrist. The material had flowery, flowing designs stitched in thread, but the rest was sheer, allowing you to see the bones of the corset-like waist through the cloth. Built-in cups and the overlapping fabric at my waist kept me modest enough for the Catholic wedding every mafia bride was expected to go through. Not that their usual modesty guidelines mattered anyway, considering my father owned most of the priests in town.
“What do you think?” Julia asked, having noticed my arrival in the new dress. I could hear the optimism in her tone, even after roping me into and then out of half a dozen dresses over the past hour.
I took another look at the dress in the mirrors, the shimmer of the threaded designs winking in the fluorescent light. It would glow in the candlelight, reflect the oranges and reds ofthe setting sun, twinkle in the string lights as I danced at my wedding. It reminded me of the type of dress you’d see in a fairytale, ethereal and diaphanous, my hair a shock of color against the translucent white of the dress and the paleness of my skin.
“It’s perfect,” I breathed, turning toward John with an open mouth. “How…?” I didn’t bother to finish the question, knowing the disbelief on my face would speak for itself.
“I know you, Rory. I’ve looked out for you every day for years. I know what you wear, I know your style, what you like. I saw that dress earlier when Cian and I were walking around, and it just reminded me of you.” The sincerity in John’s voice had my eyes misting, but his expression turned wry when he said, “Plus, Declan really likes those wedding shows you three have been watching for the past couple of weeks. I’ve learned a lot over the years.”
I couldn’t hold in my laugh, imagining big, burly, mafia bodyguard John, sitting next to his husband and watching bridal shows on tv. I’d only met Declan a handful of times, since John liked to keep his relationship separate from his work - something I was jealous of but didn’t begrudge him for - but I made a mental note to thank him for his television preferences, since they’d benefited me today.
Julia disappeared with John shortly afterward, ringing up the payment for the dress as Maeve arrived to alter the dress. I’d been lucky enough to fall for a dress with multiple sample sizes, and the one I’d tried on required little change save for a few alterations. Nora was halfway through pinning the dress tighter to my shape, my second glass of champagne going down much slower than the first, when Wren piped up.
“So, are you going to fuck Dev on your wedding night?”
I choked on my sip of champagne, the bubbles fizzing in my lungs as I tried to take a breath. Cian’s cheeks turnedpink as he not-so-subtly excused himself to a far corner of the store, where I was still within eyesight but out of earshot. The only person unaffected was Maeve, who continued pinning me without blinking an eye. To be honest, she was probably used to hemming and amending dresses for mob brides who discussed their wedding night festivities with some amount of discomfort.
“She’s not great at nuance,” Ames explained with a quirk to her lips as she tried not to laugh at the look on my face. “When she first thought she was going to fuck Bex, that was how she told me. Literally. She said, ‘I think I’m going to fuck your sister.’ No build up, nothing. It’s only gotten worse since she started dating Bex.”
“It’s part of my charm,” Wren said with a shrug, raising her eyebrows in my direction as she waited for my answer.
I couldn’t tell if it was the champagne or the first genuine friendships I could remember having in my life or the fact that I had pushed my feelings down so many times over the past two weeks that I just couldn’t contain them anymore.
“I would,” I admitted, fixing my eyes on a far wall so I didn’t have to meet either of their eyes as I confessed, “Iwantto. But things are going so well between us, all things considered, and this isn’t…it’s not a relationship I’ll be able to get out of if things get awkward between us. And I’m not sure that Dev wants me like that. So I don’t know.”
Ames snorted. “He definitely wants you like that. I’ve never seen him look atanyonethe way he looks at you. This morning? That look was not the one of a man uninterested in his future wife.”
“Are you going to leave him whenever they find who’s after you?” Wren asked out of nowhere, her eyes partially narrowed, as if preparing for anger if I answered incorrectly.
“No!” The word burst out of me so loudly Cian startled from his spot at the door, beginning to walk over until I waved him offwith a grimace. “If I left, they wouldn’t get to keep the deal with my father. I…I wouldn’t do that.”
“Then why not fuck him?” Wren didn’t look angry anymore, just confused, and I would have laughed if her total lack of caution wasn’t driving me insane.
“Because I don’t want to ruin what we have going!” I was comfortable, happy, and safe. Three things I hadn’t felt in conjunction in so long that I barely knew how to recognize it until recently. “We’re friends, we get along, we’re comfortable as we are now. But if I pursue him and he turns me down? It could make everything fall apart.”
