Page 2 of Mine to Promise

“He had one job,” her father, Reed, says from the other side of the forest. I look at the sisters, who all shake their heads.

“She charged him,” Viktor, Matthew’s father, says coming out of their hiding place. “Was he supposed to let her fall?” Matty quickly reaches out and grabs the box. “He found it, you see,” Viktor proclaims loudly.

“This was supposed to be just the two of us,” Matty tells Sofia, and she just grabs his face and kisses his lips, saying something else to him.

“I really wish she would speak up,” Clarabella says from beside me.

“We should have snuck mics into their clothes,” Shelby hisses.

“Can you imagine if we did that, and they had sex before?” Presley looks over at us.

“Can you imagine if we did that and gave everyone headsets to listen to it? Or better yet, broadcasted it to everyone waiting at the barn?” Shelby shakes her head.

“Why would your mind even go there?” Clarabella chides. “It’s always the worst-case scenario.”

“No, it’s not true. Remember when Travis was going to get married, and our event space almost burned down, and then the ‘bride’”—Shelby uses her hands to do quotations—“ended up in the emergency room? I never once said we shouldn’t do this.”

“Yes, you did.” Presley laughs. “You said if Mom wasn’t going to kill me, I’d tell him to perhaps rethink things.”

I can’t help but roll my lips when I see Shelby tilt her head to the side as she remembers it. “I mean, if that wasn’t worst case, I don’t know what is.”

“I’m not saying no!” Sofia yells over her shoulder, making all of us look at her again. “I will never, ever say no.”

“Is that a fact?” Matty asks her, and I just smirk. “So, if I said, let’s get married today?”

“He did not,” Reed groans. “Did he just—”

“Here we go,” Shelby states, “do or die.”

“Why is it die?” I hiss. “Never die. Always live.”

“Matthew,” she says, and I hold up my hand.

“What if I said I took care of everything, and all you have to do is choose the dress?” She isn’t the only one who hisses at that. All the men do as well. You see, to pull this off, we had to sneak around and pretend it was going to be just an engagement celebration. But what they didn’t see was all the details we snuck in. They were so busy worrying about the proposal space, no one picked up on the fact we had wedding dresses delivered. We had to bring in Zara, who owns Zara’s Closet and is the most sought-after personal stylist in the world, to ensure all dresses were available. We swore her to secrecy, and it was hard since Matty’s mom is her twin. Do I think she kept her word? No. Do I think Zoe hid it well? Yes.

“How—how did you do all this?” Sofia asks, and I hear laughing.

“It’s go time,” I say, and the three sisters nod at me as we walk out of our hiding space.

“How do you think he did?” Shelby asks, and Sofia’s head whips around to stare at us. The sisters all look at her with a smile, and I wave awkwardly beside them.

“So, what do you say,” Matty asks her again, “want to get married?”

“You didn’t think we would miss this, did you?” Clarabella asks, shaking her head.

“We would have killed him if he did this without us,” Presley declares, smiling.

“So.” Shelby smirks at Sofia. “Are we doing this? Are we getting married?” She tilts her head to the side. “Today?”

All I can do is wait with bated breath. This is it. To tell you the truth, there was only one answer we were going with. No one ever thought about what we would do if she said no, not even me. “Yes.”

I can’t help but let out the biggest cheer, along with the girls. “Okay, people.” Shelby claps her hands. “We have things to do.”

“I thought we did everything we had to do?” Casey, Sofia’s grandfather, looks over at me, putting his hands on his hips.

I stare back at him, and if this was any other time, I think I would apologize to him, but I feel like I’m going to throw up, so instead, I just shake my head. “You thought wrong.”

“You.” Clarabella goes to Sofia. “Congratulations, but this is no time to celebrate.” She puts her hand around her arm. “It’s time to get you dressed and drunk.”

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