Page 62 of Bookish Boys Don't Date Social Girls
“You looked stunning up there,” he says. “I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.”
“Thank you!”
He leans forward and whispers into my ear. “I can’t wait until pictures are over so I can kiss you and not worry about messing you up.”
I peek through my lashes at him and whisper back, “Thank you for respecting the no smudge rule.”
“It’s so hard,” he groans.
“I know.” I waggle my eyebrows. “But we’ve almost made it through.”
Ava pipes up. “I’m so excited for the reception. I want to dance.”
I see panic flash across Dylan’s face and laugh.
“You know I can’t dance, right?” he says.
“Everybody can dance at a wedding reception,” Bek says.
Of the group of us, she’s the only one who has been to a wedding reception before, and she’s been to several. She has a lot of cousins.
I turn to Brent and scan his lean form, which looks every bit as good in a suit as I suspected he would. “Can you dance?”
“I’m decent.”
I think of how naturally graceful he is and suddenly, I’m as excited about dancing as Ava is.
Mom calls for the wedding party and families of the bride and groom to go up to the altar to start pictures.
“We’ll be over in the reception hall grazing on appetizers,” Ava says. “I’m starving and I’m gonna need fuel to dance the night away.”
I laugh when I see the panicked expression return to Dylan’s face. “See you over there.”
“Can I stay and watch?” Brent asks. “I promise not to get in the way.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.” I grab his hand and we walk up the aisle toward the altar. The ring bearer, Lincoln’s three-year-old second cousin, is jumping down the stairs, while the two flower girls, who are a year or two older than him, are trying to corral him into sitting down.
When everyone is finally gathered, they place us in different configurations for photos. The photographer yells instructions to us about straightening our backs or adjusting a hand or lifting a chin. The pictures that include the children take the longest. It seems impossible to get all three children to look at the camera at the same time.
Brent sits in the front row, patiently waiting. His calm demeanor is one of the things I appreciate the most about him. It’s hard to rile him up. Because of that, when I start to stress, his even temper defuses my nerves. I take advantage of that whenever I want to yell at the photographer to just get on with it, by making eye contact with him and absorbing some of his infinite patience. Then I make a face to make him chuckle, because my absolute favorite thing about him is his smile.
The photographer yells at me when she snaps a picture at the same time I cross my eyes and stick out my tongue at Brent.
“Oh, sorry,” I cry.
Ines laughs. “Please keep that photo!” she calls out to the photographer.
There are so many photos. Full wedding party, girls with bride, guys with groom, her parents with couple, his parents with couple, individual families with couple. The list goes on and on. When I think we are finally finished, I plop into a chair next to Brent to rest my feet.
“Oh, wait!” Ines straightens and holds up a finger. “Let’s get a picture of Sam and Brent, too.”
Brent shakes his head. “Nah. We don’t have to do that. This is your wedding.”
Ines looks between us, a knowing smile on her face. “Yeah, we need to capture this.”
I grab Brent’s hand and pull him from the chair. “Come on. There’s no arguing with the bride.”
The photographer stages the photo and walks away to get into a better position.
