Page 125 of Fanged Embrace
She waved a dismissive hand. “Please, I barely did anything. Just convinced you to stop doubting yourself and hit send on the damn application.”
I laughed quietly, scanning through familiar faces in the crowd. “Well, it meant a lot. I don’t know if I’d have gone through with it otherwise.”
Ursula’s eyes softened, her smile turning gentle. “You deserve it. You’ve earned a fresh start, Laurie. Embrace it.”
I nodded, genuinely grateful for her support. Ursula had become a surprisingly comforting presence in my life over the past few months. We’d grown close after I started helping her babysit the twins and a fast friendship had bloomed from there, built on the grounds of a mutual adoration of the two tornadoes and equal volumes of snark and sarcasm.Speaking of which…
“How’s the freedom?” I teased, nudging her with my elbow. “Must be nice not to be chasing Hazel and Hilda around for once.”
“Oh, don’t jinx it,” Ursula groaned. “Every time I think I’m free, Jordan shows up begging for assistance. I swear to God, if she brings those two trouble makers here tonight?—”
As if summoned by her very words, I spotted Jordan and Sky stepping through the flowery archway, each holding the hand of one energetic, grinning twin. I muffled a giggle and Ursula followed my gaze. When she noticed the party of four—and Jordan zeroed in on her—she let out a small noise of despair.
“Oh, for the love of—” she muttered, shaking her head. “I’ll catch up with you later. I gotta go hide.”
I stifled a laugh as Ursula quickly ducked away, disappearing into the growing crowd to find refuge from the chaos that would inevitably follow her. As she left I spotted another familiar figure in the crowd. Amara caught my eye and waved, before tugging Dylan over with her.
“Laurie! Hey!” Despite the fact that she was right in front of me she shouted the words, probably to be heard over what she assumed was loud, lively chatter.
Dylan winced at the volume and proceeded to cover her mouth, and from what little I’d learned of sign language recently I could vaguely decipher what her moving fingers said:Shouting again, love. People can probably hear you a mile away.
Amara shrugged, unbothered, and turned bright eyes back to me with a smile. “Have you seen Maxine? Hunter asked us to keep her far away from the dressing rooms.”
“Uh…” I looked over her shoulder, at the pink, poofy cloud of chiffon that was Maxine quietly slipping into the very dressing rooms they were meant to be guarding, armed with a hairbrush and what looked like an entire suitcase worth of makeup. “Nope. haven’t seen her.”
Neither of them seemed too committed to their job, considering Dylan planted herself on the stool beside me and Amara leaned over the bar to order a drink. I watched them both with a smile, still a little surprised at how quickly I’d come to care for each of them.
Dylan remained a stoic, silent mystery—unless the topic we were discussing involved Amara, in which case she could babble on for hours singing praises about her wife—and Amara had long since forgiven me for how rude I’d been to her at our first meeting. Now she went out of her way to include me wherever she could, inviting me to art classes and offering to help me clear out some space in our incredibly cluttered household to build a study room for future architecture endeavors.
River was slowly helping me learn sign language so the two of us could speak more fluently, but for now the only thing I’d learned to say with my hands was “How’s your wife?” to which Amara would take off on a long tirade about Dylan and the flower garden the two of them had growing on their rooftop.
It was adorable, and a little cheesy, and it often left me wondering if that was how River and I sounded whenever oneof us rambled on about the other to anyone who would listen. Maybe it was just a consequence of being in love.
My inner musings were interrupted when River returned, cackling with glee as she whipped out her cellphone. “I was right, Hunter is a wreck. Look at these pictures—” she titled the screen to show me and I couldn’t help the laugh that burst from my lips when I saw the sequence of photos she swiped through.
The first had Hunter looking distressed and a little flustered, with Maxine hovering in the background brandishing a makeup brush. The rest were increasingly blurry images of Hunter presumably trying her damnedest to get the camera out of her face.
“And you’re supposed to be the mature one of the group…” I shook my head, huffing out a laugh while River tucked her phone in her pocket. “She’ll break your phone with her bare hands if she sees those.”
“She’ll have to catch me first.” River waved down the bartender and ordered a top-up for her crimson drink. I pursed my lips when she handed me my own glass of sparkling something, but River offered me a sly wink. “It’s sparkling water. Now no one can accuse you of not being fancy.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s good enough. Thank you kindly.” I accepted the glass with overly performative grace and clinked it against hers.
River chuckled, and her gaze dipped to the ring on my finger. “God help us when Hunter notices that. Proposing right before her wedding? She’ll kick my ass for stealing her thunder.”
“I am honored that you would risk an ass-kicking for my hand.” I slid closer to her, standing on my toes to brush my lips on her cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you from bridezilla, you can count on it.”
“My hero.” River sighed, and set her glass down to rest herhands on my hips. “What did I do to deserve someone as special as you?”
Everything.That was the truth of it. She did everything she could for me and more. She sheltered me when I needed safe haven and she held me when I thought I would break. She was patient and kind and caring, loving when I didn’t believe I deserved it. She was my guardian angel and my best friend. She was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with—a life I wanted to hold onto with both hands.
I set my own glass down and cupped River’s face in my hands. I kissed her gently, brushing fingers down the soft slope of her cheek. Lights twinkled overhead, and the city spread out in every direction, infinite possibilities. An entire lifetime and more, waiting for both of us to explore.
Hunter
“Explain to me, right now, what is so wrong with me seeing my wife before she walks down the aisle?” I yanked on my tie for the hundredth time in the past few minutes, wrestling with the strip of fabric that just wouldn’t lie straight no matter how many times I fiddled with it. “Seriously, Maxine. This is stupid. I just want to talk to her for two seconds?—”
“Not happening.” Maxine wagged a finger in front of my nose while Caden hovered beside me looking very out of place in the cluttered dressing room—but very dapper in his crisp black suit. I would have told him so had I not been losing my mind at Maxine’s stubborn refusal to let me see my soon-to-be wife.
