Page 46 of Revenge Brunch and Other Disasters

Sir Stumps-a-Lot sighed from the foot of the couch like a corgi who had seen it all. Possibly orchestrated half of it.

Rhys let out a breath that felt like he’d been holding it for months.

“I love you, you know,” he said quietly, like a secret too important to raise his voice for.

Linda didn’t freeze this time.

She just nodded. “I know.”

Then she closed her eyes again and leaned her head on his shoulder, like it had always belonged there.

And Rhys?

Rhys stayed perfectly still, holding the moment like it was something sacred.

Because it was.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Fighting Flowers and Hiccups

Linda

LINDA HAD DREAMED of her wedding since she was little.

Which was a bold-faced lie. Linda had once used Barbies to reenact gladiator matches and assumed she’d probably marry herself out of sheer convenience, tax benefits, or because no one else would remember to feed her on weekends.

Now she was planning an actual wedding. With Rhys.

It was different. It was warm. It was real.

And also—a complete disaster.

“I swear to god, if these smug peonies look at me one more time, I will commit floricide,” Linda snapped, holding two sample bouquets like she was about to duel someone at dawn. “Roses are too obvious, lilies are one passive-aggressive sigh away from a funeral, and these anemones are judging me in Latin.”

Rhys, ever the calm to her chaos, looked up from the RSVP disaster zone on the dining table. “You’re yelling at plants again, love.”

“I am fighting for our aesthetic, Rhys.”

“You said you didn’t want an aesthetic.”

“I didn’t wantPinterest’saesthetic.Wedeserve better. Something moody. Romantic. A little unhinged. Like a gothic cottagecore apocalypse.”

Rhys blinked. “So…thistles and minor key string quartets?”

“Yes.”

He put his pen down and came to wrap his arms around her from behind. “We can have whatever flowers you want. I’ll find a botanist willing to dye hydrangeas with espresso and blood if that’s what it takes.”

Linda melted a little. She hated him. And by hated, she meantadored with the heat of a thousand microwaves she’d threatened to sue.

But still.

Nothing could have prepared them for what happened next.

Because exactly thirty minutes before the cake tasting—a time sacred, revered, and blocked off on all calendars in glitter ink—Linda realized something horrifying.

“The ring,” she said.

Rhys looked up from his tea, already sensing doom. “What about it?”

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