Page 22 of Rules of Engagement
More people meant more tables, more chairs, more flowers, more supplies, more invitations. "What are we talking?"
As though summoned by his fiancée speaking his name, Lincoln entered the kitchen from somewhere in the house.
"Eliza, good to see you again. Thanks for coming."
"Hi, Lincoln," Eliza greeted. "My pleasure. The sooner we can make decisions on all of this, the better."
"Lincoln, do you have any idea on how many guests you're up to now?" Amelia asked. "Mine went up by twenty-two."
"Oh, probably the same number at least," Lincoln said.
At least? When the rule of thumb was always to round up, twenty-two equaled twenty-five. And twenty-five times two… "Fifty… on top of the forty we'd discussed?"
Carter and Piper entered the house, and Eliza found herself struggling to breathe once more. Didn't the man own a shirt? He had a towel wrapped around his neck, but it didn't cover nearly enough of him.
Add that to the guest list mushrooming at such a rapid rate, and she wondered if the tiny spots in front of her eyes were from stress or lack of food.
"Hey, you ready for a snack, sweetheart?" Lincoln asked his niece.
The little girl nodded before she spotted Eliza and came running over to her.
"Piper, you're wet," Carter said, his tone one of warning.
The girl gave her a damp hug, and Eliza welcomed the distraction since it gave her time to regroup from the change in numbers on a wedding that already pushed her physical limits. "It's fine," Eliza said. "Hugs are precious, damp or not." And she'd take all the hugs she could get right now if it would temper the anxiety rising inside of her like a tsunami.
She never wanted to disappoint a bride, especially not someone so integrated into her inner circle of friends the way Amelia was as Marsali's client and Mac's neighbor. But they hadn't even started planning and the guest list had doubled.
Eliza felt Carter's gaze on her, but she wasn't quite able to make eye contact.
"I went to school again today," Piper said.
"You did? How did it go?" she asked, focusing on Piper's sweet face.
"Great! But Mason fell down and hurt himself and he cried."
"Oh, well, I hope he's okay," Eliza said, unsure of what else to say.
"He is. He got a big Band-Aid, though. It had turtles on it."
"Piper, let's let Eliza work while we get that snack," Carter said. He placed a large hand on his daughter's shoulder and gently steered her toward the fridge.
Eliza tried not to focus on the fact that, as he did so, she was on eye-level with his abs.
"Well, one thing to mark off the list is the venue. We're having the wedding here," Amelia said. "Well, at Mac's. He's offered us the use of his yard."
"Carter, too," Lincoln said to Amelia. "Which made me think of how much you liked the tent at that wedding on Friday. There's plenty of room to do that there."
"Oh, there is!" Amelia said.
"Maybe we could have dancing around the pool here, the wedding in Mac's yard, and a tent with food in Carter’s?"
Lincoln made it sound so easy, but he was talking aboutthreedifferent stations that would need setup, and… a tent?Thattent? The fourteen-months-to-plan tent?
It wouldn't have been such a demanding thing to consider had she not lost yetanotherof her part-time employees to James's new business venture as her competitor. She'd have to find help, and—
"That would be perfect!" Amelia said. "I hadn't had a chance to tell Eliza about Mac's offer, but how great would that be? We won't have to scramble to find a venue, and I could get ready here in the house. We could store everything here or maybe Carter's as it arrived? I hate to impose but—"
"Fine by me," Carter said from his position across the room.
