Page 22 of Fervor

My fingers were moving at the speed of light as I pieced the colors together. “Oh my God. This is it.”

“Nique, I can see the happiness on your face. Send it over,” Sasha said.

I did as she requested. I stared at my screen, watching for their facial expressions when it came through. Giselle was the first to lift her eyebrows. Mama’s lips parted when she saw it.

“Nique-Nique, this is so beautiful,” Keke said, getting teary eyed.

“Keke, please don’t start,” Sasha said as she wiped her eyes.

I slowly shook my head, but I couldn’t stop the tears from falling either. When I looked back at the screen, everyone was shedding tears of joy. I giggled, and that only caused them to giggle too. “It’s been a long time coming, ladies.”

“That, it has,” Mama added.

“I guess I should include Alexz and Skyler since we are about to look at bridesmaids’ dresses. I want all of you to be comfortable. We can have multiple designs, as long as the colors match.”

“I’ll call Alexz while you get Skyler on,” Keke said.

Alexz answered with a frown on her face, and Skyler answered with her eyes slightly widened. Alexz was the first to speak. “Hey, y’all. We doing an intervention or some shit?”

Everyone laughed. I knew she would say something crazy. She never bit her tongue, and I loved that about her. When we calmed down, Skyler spoke to everyone as well.

“Ladies, I’m getting married, and I would like you to be in my wedding party.”

They both screamed in excitement, doing our signature AKA call, while Keke put her finger to her ear with one eye closed.

“When is it?” Alexz asked. “Wait a minute. When did you get a man and shit?”

I slowly shook my head. “I went through Arranged Hearts like Giselle did. It’s in a little less than three weeks, the second weekend of next month.”

“Oh my goodness! I can’t wait!” Skyler said.

“Well, I wanted to look at dresses for y’all to get a sense of what you like. Here is the color scheme.”

When I sent it over, they both smiled. “It’s gorgeous, sis,” Skyler said.

“Yes, it is,” Alexz added.

I took my time going through dresses and notating their likes and dislikes and approving designs that some of them picked out. I still couldn’t believe this was actually happening. We ended up staying on the phone for another hour, looking at dresses and talking about what the groom could possibly look like. The conversation only made me even more excited. After I filled in the other details about flowers and food, I went and took a shower and did a DoorDash order for dinner.

I listed multiple choices for food. I wasn’t sure what the groom liked or ate, so I wanted them to discuss the food options with him from the list I provided. I wasn’t extremely picky, but I knew that there were people who limited what they ate for health reasons, like Giselle.

After eating, I watched TV for a little while, wondering if he could possibly look like Atwater fromChicago PD. The man was fine as hell. When I finally went to bed, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned nearly all night. My mind wouldn’t rest. I knew I would still spring out of bed in the morning like I’d gotten a full night’s sleep. That was just how excited I was.

That was a lie. I was dragging. I didn’t know what I was thinking. Last night, I got out of bed and played around on the computer, looking at wedding gowns to get an idea of what I liked and what I didn’t. I didn’t finally get tired until three o’clock this morning. Here it was seven thirty, and I felt like I’d just gone to sleep. My ass was too old for this shit. I needed at least six hours of sleep in order to function the next day. I knew better.

Three and a half hours of sleep wasn’t gonna cut it. The shower I took this morning, hoping that it would wake me up, only succeeded in making me sleepier. My body was trained to go to bed after a shower since I always took my showers at night. I had to wear makeup today to cover the bags under my eyes. I already had small natural bags, but now they were even bigger.

When I walked into the office, one of the hygienists looked at me like I’d just rolled out of bed. I frowned slightly, and she cleared her throat and looked away.

“What, Missy?”

“You still have on your hair wrap.”

I rolled my eyes and nearly fell asleep. “Shit. I’m tired as hell.”

“You had a late night?”

“Yes. Excitement kept me awake. I interviewed with Arranged Hearts a little over a week ago, and they found me a match.”

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