Brooke felt a blush work its way up her neck. She was better at accepting Anna’s praise and compliments, but perhaps not quite so comfortable as to be able to accept a compliment like that, in front of all their friends.“I mean, the story of how we began to date is fairly well known amongst our friends. Perhaps we refer to it as in the throes of passion?”
Anna threw her head back with a laugh.“Okay, Honey-B. Why don’t you call Chris, or Nick, and tell them that. I can’t wait.”
The point was valid. She couldn’t imagine admitting to that. Nick would want details, explicit details, and she was certain Anna would give them if he asked, and Chris would lovingly never let her live that down. It would become a trivia question about her for the rest of her life. She could hear it now,Brooke here is so good in bed, she got proposed to right after once.
She could feel her blush spreading across her cheeks at the thought.“Okay, you make a fair point.”
Anna grinned at her.“I know.” Anna tackled her back in a hug, straddling Brooke smoothly as they both tipped backwards in the bed.“I can’t believe we’re engaged.” She kissed across Brooke’s cheeks.“Can I fuck my fiancee now?” She asked, just before sucking on Brooke’s pulse point.
Brooke let out a combination of a gasp and a laugh as Anna nipped playfully at the place she had just sucked. Brooke was absolutely going to have a mark from that.“Yes, your fiancee would quite enjoy that, thank you very much.”
That evening, they got ready for dinner. Neither of them were particularly hungry, as at some point, far too late in the day, they realized they hadn’t eaten and had ordered a ridiculous amount of room service. However, they needed photos at the restaurant if their engagement story was to be believed. So, they got ready in between kisses, happy laughter, and the inability to stop referring to each other as‘fiancee.’
Brooke helped Anna zip up the back of her dress and pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck.“Alright,” Brooke whispered before kissing just below Anna’s ear.“I’m going to go put my shoes on and wait by the door, or I fear we’ll never make it to dinner on time.”
Anna spun in Brooke’s arms, rocking up on her toes to steal a few deliciously messy kisses. Brooke knew it was because the last thing Anna was going to do before they left was apply lipstick, and two years in and she still hadn’t found one that was truly non-transferable.
“Okay,” Anna whispered, fully out of breath.“Okay. I’ll finish getting ready.”
Brooke kissed her one last time—because she’d be an idiot not to—before leaving Anna in the bathroom.
She pulled her dress shoes out of her suitcase, frowning as she felt and heard something sliding around inside her shoe. Inside her left shoe was a note folded around the ring box that contained Anna’s engagement ring. Brooke quickly stuffed the ring in her interior suit pocket and unfolded the note that had been left with it.
B,
I didn’t want you to be stressed about the ring while you traveled and I wasn’t entirely sure how many days into your trip it would take for you to bother with fancy shoes, but I wanted you to have this for your fancy night out. I’ve consulted the council and we all agree, having it with you to propose would be a great idea. If you want to stick with your original plan to propose when you get home, just text me to let me know and we’ll make it happen. But I didn’t want you to get all the way to France and not have it as an option.
-Viv
Ps. She’s going to say yes, don’t overthink it.
Brooke’s eyes watered again. She knew that her friends had known the plan. She knew that this meant they’d prepped her to be able to propose immediately after Anna had, but they hadn’t accounted for Anna proposing hours earlier than intended.
She heard Anna shuffling around, and quickly wiped her eyes, careful to not smudge her eye makeup. She stuffed the letter from Vivienne back in her suitcase. She wasn’t going to overthink it. She was going to propose at dinner. For all intents and purposes, Anna had already said yes.
Chapter Four
Brooke couldn’t stand still. She was pacing a hole in the ground in the groom’s cabin, waiting for Jaqueline, their wedding planner, to tell her it was time. At least whatever tension had been plaguing Vivienne and Chris for the past few weeks wasn’t also adding to Brooke’s stress. She’d made them promise to just be normal for the day. Just one day.
They still hadn’t told her—or Anna—why Christine had suddenly decided to move out of Vivienne’s house, but Anna had made some interesting speculations that Brooke honestly couldn’t refute. She just hoped her friend group wouldn’t entirely fall apart as a result. They’d been friends for nearly half of Brooke’s life. They were two of her three favorite people. Whatever was going on between them had been weighing on her a lot recently, but she couldn’t focus on that today.
They were keeping their promise. Today, they were acting normal. The three of them felt like they used to. They had the added bonus, or tension diffuser, of Nate doing his best to get to know them better. They’d all met at Anna and Brooke’s bachelorette party, of course, but there had been a more than a little bit of drinking that night, and Anna and Allegra had arranged for their groups to play so many ridiculous games, both with, and against each other, that they hadn’t really gotten around to more basic questions about each other.
“B, you’re starting to stress me out,” Chris said with a smile.“You have nothing to be nervous about.”
Her pacing hardly halted.“There are a lot of things to stress about. Someone could drop the cake. The photographer could lose all our photos. Mother and Father might object. I can’t believe they’re here,” she added, though that was more to herself than really out loud.
“And I would personally remove them from the facilities if they did,” Nate said, not caring that Brooke wasn’t actually addressing the room with that last part.
“I hate public speaking. I’m awful at it.” Brooke shook her hands out, trying to force herself to relax.
“But you’re not publicly speaking, Brooke,” Vivienne said. She wasn’t exactly known for her pep-talks, but she was known for solid, blunt advice.“There are all of about fifteen people out there who you’re not close with, and most of those people were hired on for the day. Everyone else, however,” Viv paused, making sure her words were sinking in,“loves you. Both of you.”
Chris nodded, seconding Vivienne’s words. It was a small relief in itself to see them agreeing about something.“Exactly. Brooke, we’re all so, so unbelievably happy for you both. There’s not going to be a dry eye in that room. Did you write out your vows?”
Brooke nodded quickly.“Yeah, I wrote them out.”
Vivienne let out a little laugh.“Alright, well if you can’t get the words out, just hand them to Anna.”
