Page 9 of Our Big White Lie
“She is.” Loosening her embrace, she met my gaze, her expression tired but soft. “I mean it—thank you.”
“Any time.” Why was it so hard to resist touching her face? “It’s going to be a lot of work, but it’ll be worth it.”
“Yeah. It will.” She shivered, looking around as she blew out a thin cloud of breath. “And we should get home because it’sfreezingout here.”
I laughed, grateful for the break in tension, and we continued to our respective seats in her car. At least the roads were clear tonight; there’d been snow off and on for the past few days, but aside from the most rural backroads, the plows had done their job.
With the heater blasting to ward off the chill, I backed out of Ava’s parents’ driveway and onto the snow-lined street. Before I’d even made it out of the cul de sac, Ava was sound asleep in the passenger seat.
I didn’t blame her. It had been an exciting day and evening, and like me, she’d had some uncertainties about what we were doing. Now the cat was out of the bag, Gail was ecstatic, and Ava could apparently breathe again. Tonight, it was like she couldfinally exhale, and now that she had, she was out cold. I didn’t imagine I’d last long once I was home and in bed.
We were doing this. Gail knew, and she was thrilled, and no one seemed to suspect that this was anything but a real, honest to God wedding. So far, so good.
I still had a lot of mixed feelings, but with Ava sleeping peacefully beside me as I drove us home…
With how genuinely thrilled her mom had been about our engagement and wedding planning…
It was getting harder and harder to doubt that we were doing the right thing.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ava
“Okay.” Mom plunked a huge stack of magazines and binders onto her kitchen table. “I got these from your aunt—she said they helped a lot in planning Ginny’s wedding.”
Tori and I, both seated across from Mom, glanced at each other and then stared at the pile.
“I’m kind of afraid to ask,” Tori said, regarding the stack warily, “but… whatisall that?”
“Wedding vendors!” Mom chirped. She started sorting everything into smaller stacks. “Florists. Photographers. Videographers. Officiants. Caterers. Bakers. Makeup artists. Hair stylists. Printers for invitations and programs. Musicians. Deejays.”
My head swam. Oh, God. We had to make all those decisions? Hire all those people? I was tempted to ask if we could just do a backyard potluck—or hell, elope somewhere—but I caught up and remembered why we were doing this. I wanted to give my mom this experience while she still had time. That meant pulling out all the stops so she could be the mother of the bride.
It meant being an adult and making all these decisions, no matter how overwhelming the whole task looked right now.
And I’d thought compiling a potential guest list had been tough. I’d spent half the evening last night going through everything from my social media friends lists to high school yearbooks, jotting down anyone I thought I wanted to—or should—invite. Whose feelings would be hurt if I didn’t? What if I invited five people from a particular group and accidentally overlooked a sixth? What if I invited someone I barely knew and completely neglected to ask someone who was close to me? As overwhelmed as I was, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if I forgot someone important.
Which I had—Mom had looked over my list and texted me with three different close relatives I absolutely should have remembered.
Holy crap, planning a wedding was stressful. And that mountain of binders was kind of terrifying.
“Uh. Okay.” I shifted in my chair. “Wow, that’s a lot. We, um…” I turned to Tori. “Where do you think we should start?”
She eyed the stacks of literature like they were coiled snakes. “Maybe we should start with our budget.” She opened the spiral notebook in front of her to a blank page.
“Good idea,” Mom said. “Let’s start there. What are you girls thinking?”
“Okay, well…” Tori absently tapped her pen on the notebook. “We figured we have a budget of about five thousand. Seven if we’re willing to use credit cards, but I’d rather avoid that if we can.”
I nodded. “Same.”
“Your father and I can contribute twenty thousand,” Mom said as casually as if she were just offering to buy lunch.
“Twenty—” I blinked. “Mom, that’s an insane amount of money! We don’t need to have somethingthatbig.”
She gave a dry little huff. “Let’s see what you think when we start adding up all the numbers. It won’t go as far as you think.”
I wrinkled my nose. Tori actually looked a bit green.
