“Pretty!” Gracie yelled, reaching for it as Sloane carefully yanked it out of her reach.
“Yes, it is. Thank you so much, Sloane. I can never repay you for this,” April said.
“Don’t worry about it. I get off on this.” Sloane beamed and the girls finally noticed her and decided to be curious.
“What are they doing?” Sloane said as the girls started to inch closer and we all watched.
“Hey, Gracie Grace, why don’t you come meet Sloane?” Ryder said.
“Alone?” Gracie said, inching closer and leaning on Ryder’s knee. Fiona toddled over and stared at Sloane as if she was a being from another planet.
“No, sweetie. Sloane,” I said. “She’s my friend.”
“Fwend?” Fiona said, looking up at me.
“That’s right. My friend.” Fiona inched forward and touched Sloane.
“What is she doing?” Sloane was just as unsure of them as they were of her. I wished someone would video this encounter.
“My God, Sloane, you’re ridiculous.” I put my hands out to Fiona, picked her up and put her in Sloane’s lap.
“Pretty,” Fiona said, pointing to Sloane’s earrings. Fiona had done the same thing to me when I’d first met her.
“Be gentle, Fi,” Tate said, coming back with the coffee. “Remember how we talked about being gentle?”
“Gentle,” Fiona repeated, stroking Sloane’s hair as Sloane tried to smile like she wasn’t totally panicking.
“I want to see!” Gracie said, climbing onto Ryder’s lap and then going for Sloane’s.
“Whoa, be nice to Sloane, Gracie. She’s a little scared,” Ryder said, winking at Sloane.
“I’m sorry, I’m not very good with kids,” Sloane said to Tate and April.
“Neither was I, before I had them,” April said. “I’m the youngest, and I avoided any and all babysitting jobs. I’ll be honest that I’m still not a huge fan of other people’s kids, but mine are pretty awesome.” I had to agree with her. Gracie and Fiona had very studious looks on their faces as they stared at Sloane. She stared back at them and then she slowly crossed her eyes.
It only took a moment for them to start giggling. They loved people who could cross their eyes and had been trying to do it, but had never managed to make it happen.
The ice was officially broken and Sloane became the girls’ new favorite person. She got more excited than they did when Barbies were brought out, along with all their clothes and accessories.
“I think she’s abandoned you,” I said to Ryder as Sloane got down on the floor with Gracie and Fiona to take the clothes off and put them back on the dolls. It was a miniature version of what she did all day.
“For children and plastic dolls that are anatomically incorrect.” He shook his head, but he was smiling.
I sipped my coffee and sat back against Lucah’s arm. After the absolutely horrible afternoon I’d had, this was perfection.
“So Rory and I have an announcement,” Lucah said, interrupting all of the conversations around us.
“Uh, we do?” I said, wondering that the hell he was talking about. Sure, we’d talked about getting married last night, but that couldn’t be it . . .
“Yes,” Lucah said, giving me a look. This was one of those times when he was trying to send me a signal and our wires were crossed. It had happened more when we’d first gotten together, but it had been a while.
“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Sloane said, looking up from the Barbies for the first time since they’d be brought out.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I said, getting up and trying to drag Lucah to the kitchen so I could ask him what the hell he was doing.
“No, I have to make my announcement first,” he said, not budging.
“What are you doing to me right now?” I hissed, fully aware that we were doing this in front of everyone. He ignored me and grabbed my hand even though I tried to keep it away from him.
“We would like to announce that we are moving in together.” His pronouncement was met with silence. Mostly because, uh, everyone already knew we’d moved in together. I smacked him on the arm.
“Spoiler alert: we already knew that,” Sloane said. “You jerk, I thought you were going to tell us you were getting married.” I looked at Lucah.
“Nope, not yet,” he said. “Not right now.”
“Not right now,” I agreed. At least, not at this very second. Tomorrow? The next day? We’d have to wait and see.
Epilogue
Another night, another gown. Only this time there were no steps to swoop down, but Lucah had helped me swoop out of the elevator in dramatic fashion. The dress was even more spectacular than I’d imagined and flowed around me like waves of red silk. It also happened to match the ring that was now a permanent member of my right hand. But my favorite part of the evening was seeing the three Blythe men in their tuxes, smiling and laughing at a shared joke. I got out my phone from the tiny clutch purse Sloane had let me borrow, and took a picture, just to immortalize it. I was going to make a print of it and add it to the photo album I’d started.
Marisol had outdone herself. The venue had a vintage feel, harkening back to the fifties and early sixties, and even the drinks served were from the era. It was like stepping into a black and white movie, but everything was in Technicolor. The majority of the guests were older, and I saw quite a few friends of my parents. They’d had another engagement, or they would have been here.
Poor April didn’t get her wine, but Tate put her cranberry juice in a wineglass and told her to pretend, because this was one of the only nights out they were going to get for a long time.
My other favorite moment was when Marisol took the stage to thank everyone for coming and a voice called out her name, and proceeded to take the stage holding a dozen yellow roses (her favorite) as she covered her mouth and started to cry.
“Did you know he was going to surprise her?” Lucah said in my ear as Mari took the roses from Fin and gave him a kiss that made the entire audience clap and cheer.
“No, I had no idea. That sneaky bastard.” After the two lovebirds exited the stage, they made their way back over to us.
“Way to set the bar too high for the rest of us,” Lucah called out to Fin as I gave him a hug.
“I can’t believe you pulled that off,” I said as he lifted me off my feet. I was so beyond happy to see him.