Page 65 of Last First Love
K.T. shifts her glare to the spicy octogenarian. "Are you saying you have it all figured out already? You barely got here and you haven't even heard the whole story yet."
Aunt Opal bats her eyelashes at K.T. "I'll bet you a hundred dollars I can solve Lily's problems with Daniels in less than ten words."
My eyes widen and K.T. crows as she reaches into the register for a hundred dollar bill. "Show me the money Aunt Opal. I'm going to buy Reed something very special with your cold hard cash."
Aunt Opal reaches into her heavily embroidered handbag and pulls out a wad of receipts and cough drops, but eventually finds a little coin purse that's shaped like a vagina.
I cough out a laugh when I see it, but it gets even weirder when she opens it up and produces a rolled up stack of money with a rubber band around it.
She plunks the funds down next to K.T.'s crisp Benajmin Franklin, then turns to me.
I get this sense of overwhelming importance to whatever she's going to tell me, as if it's a secret phrase her mother or grandmother told her to use in times of uncertainty or trouble.
"Work from Valentine, and tell Daniels you love him."
K.T. frowns at her fingers, where she's been counting out the words Aunt Opal used.
My mouth opens and closes like a fish thrust onto dry land. It couldn't possibly be that simple. "That's not actually advice, is it? Aren't you supposed to give me some speech about being true to myself or following my dreams?"
Aunt Opal shakes her head. "No. You wanted to know how to solve all your problems, and I already told you the easiest, best way to solve them. You can fly out to do the photo shoots from here, can't you?"
I pause, struck by the simple idea that hadn't occurred to me even once during these last few weeks of desperately trying to make as many memories as possible with Ken.
"It could get expensive, but I mean, yes?" It's supposed to come out as a sentence instead of a question, but I'm still trying to figure out the reasons why this wouldn't work and I can't come up with any yet.
K.T. shakes her head. "Shut up and take my money, Aunt Opal."
I hold up a hand. "Wait, wait. The other thing. You expect me to tell him that I love him? Just put my entire heart and soul out there for him to trample on?"
K.T. smacks herself in the head. "You've got to be fucking kidding me with this right now. You literally sat there and told me that you're in love with Daniels and he's been telling you for weeks that he's in love with you. Even I can't see any reason why you're not saying those magic words to him instead of me, and apparently Aunt Opal can't either."
K.T. shoves the cash back toward Aunt Opal, who tucks the funds back in her little pink pussy purse. She gives K.T. a little salute. "A pleasure doing business with you."
Then she turns to me. "You'd better get ready for the wedding. Darcy Albrecht will shank you if you're not ready on time. Or her mother will. Either way, if you end up dead, you don't get to live happily ever after with your hot firefighter boyfriend." She raps on the bar counter one more time and then gives me a little fingertip wave as she struts out the door.
K.T. is staring at the wall and grumbling about Aunt Opal being a grifter. "Are you sure about this?" I finally manage.
"I'm sure that you're going to be late unless you get going right now. You've got all day to think about it, so try to make sure you make good choices and don't screw up the rest of your life, okay?"
I recoil from the words that she says, but I eventually calm down enough to thank her and scuttle home to start getting ready for the afternoon wedding, letting the idea settle in and take root in my mind. I've got time to think about it before I have to deal with hair and make-up, all of which seems like a lot for an outdoor afternoon wedding in my opinion.
I mean, who gets married on a Friday afternoon anyway? Darcy told me it had something to do with the country club availability, which is reason enough right there to never get married or have a wedding reception at a swanky country club I guess.
When I get married, it'd better be a late night one weekend so that everyone there can dance and get tipsy and then sleep it all off before having to rejoin the regular world again.
But since I'm not in charge of anything but showing up in a pretty dress and holding some flowers, I think I can manage a Friday afternoon this once. For one of the founding members of Girl Club, I'd do just about anything.
Including wear this skin-tight bridesmaid dress. Good thing I won't need to breathe for the duration of the ceremony I guess.
I still hate this dress and the Bridezilla who chose it whenI show up to the wedding venue and listen to her and her mother coo over how it looks. But it abruptly becomes the best idea Darcy has ever had in her life when I run into Daniels as the wedding party is lining up and he turns as red as I usually do.
He presses up close to me and whispers that I'm the most beautiful woman in the entire world, and I actually believe him when he says it like that, with his entire heart shining right there in his eyes. But this isn't really the right time or place to talk to him about Aunt Opal's big plans for my future, so it's going to have to wait.
We line up at the lakeshore and make it through the wedding despite some heckling from Aunt Opal. But we make it to the end somehow without me popping a seam or anything, so if my luck is already this good, it should be a little bit of nothing to tell Ken Daniels that I love him.
We head toward the end of the receiving line and Ken hands Darcy our gift, a room key for a fancy hotel a few towns away. Because everyone deserves a special wedding night celebration. I love that we gave them this gift together too. It feels right.
Everything feels right with Ken Daniels. When he leans over to me and proposes that we skip the reception and head to his place instead, I agree without even thinking twice.
