Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
My attention flitted to Luke.
Yeah, on that, there was a half-smile.
I returned to Tod. “Yes.”
Tod waved a hand in front of his face. “Four days for these guys is like four years for others.”
I was getting that impression.
I tried a different tack.
“Um…I don’t know you,” I pointed out.
“Right, this is Tod and Stevie,” Luke finally waded in. “They’re Rock Chicks. I know they’re not chicks, but they are Rock Chicks.”
“Burgundy is more fully a Rock Chick, with her hot guy,” Tod declared and then gave Stevie a wink.
I didn’t know who Burgundy was, but I didn’t ask, even if it made the mention more confusing, because it was then I noticed their matching wedding bands.
Aw.
Sweet.
“Willow and Alexis,” Luke jerked his chin to both of us. “And Tod planned all the Rock Chick weddings,” he went on.
Tod’s eyes lit when Alexis’s identity was confirmed, but before he could say anything…
“Yo! Willow! You down to…?” Raye shouted out her door and then squealed, “Tod and Stevie!”
She came out of her house and started racing down the walkway.
Raye, Luna, Harlow and Jessie went up to Denver for New Year’s, so they were fully folded into the Rock Chick/Hot Bunch world.
I’d only met a few of them here and there when they came to Phoenix.
And now I was meeting more.
Raye arrived and gave both Tod and Stevie big hugs.
She then turned to the table and threw up her hands in excitement.
“Is this my wedding scrapbook?” she asked breathlessly.
“We’re filling it out, girlie,” Tod told her, flipping it open. “But we got work to do while we’re down here.”
“Oh my God! You have one too!” Raye cried, then opened my scrapbook, which started at a bunch of fabric swatches. “You’re a genius!” she yelled, slamming a pointed finger down on a pastel purple-blue and deep-purple combo and turning to Tod. “I wouldn’t have picked blue and purple for Willow, but in the wedding party photos, those colors will so complement her hair.”
“That’s periwinkle and grape, darling,” Tod drawled.
“It’s perfect!” Raye said.
It kind of was.
She turned the page to expose a picture of a wedding bouquet that had huge periwinkle roses, smaller, slightly darker purple roses, some purple anemones and some other purple, blush and white flowers in an extravagantly feminine bouquet.
I gasped.
Alexis jumped to her feet, asking rabidly, “Which one is mine?”
“Let me see…” Tod was spreading the scrapbooks and slapping them open and closed. “Here.” He shoved one toward her.
She eagerly opened it, made a small noise that sounded like a sob and collapsed into her chair.
“They told me you were all sunshine and goodness,” Tod said. “But now that I see you, I’m wondering if we should—”
“No.” She was poking her finger repeatedly on a picture of big balls of buttercream roses and hydrangeas with minimal greenery in tall, thin, shining glass vases, all this on a table festooned with more elegant glass décor and candles. “I want that,” Alexis decreed. “Precisely that.”
“You’re blonde, girlie, it might be too much pale,” Tod advised.
Alexis put the tip of her finger between her teeth and bit down on it, gazing contemplatively (also longingly) at the scrapbook.
“What’s going on?”
Uh-oh.
Zach was here.
He made it to us, looked down at the scrapbook, then looked to Alexis. “Wait, are you planning something other than cakes without me?”
“I—” Alexis started.
“Who are you?” Tod asked.
But Zach was seeing Raye’s and my scrapbooks also opened on the table.
“Wait!” he snapped. “Are you all planning weddings? Willow,”—he homed in on me with his et tu, Brute? tone—“you just hooked up with Gabe a few days ago.”
No matter how insane what was happening was, I’d already decided on periwinkle and grape for my wedding, so I couldn’t quite tamp down my guilty look.
“I’m the officially unofficial wedding planner of all the Rock Chicks,” Tod grandly proclaimed.
No matter how grand the proclamation, Zach was unimpressed.
“Well, these aren’t Rock Chicks,” he shot back. “These are Oasis Babes, and as such, they’re under me and my partner Bill’s domain.”
“We can all work together,” Tod decreed.
“Since when do four wedding planners work together successfully?” Zach demanded.
“Don’t count me in,” Stevie piped up. “I only carry swatches. I’m out for the rest of it.”
“Except for the big day,” Tod contradicted. “You’re my assistant for the big day.”
“Yes, except that, but I have no creative or decision-making input,” Stevie made himself clear.
Zach turned to Alexis. “Lovely, we have diagrams. We have Pinterest ideas.”
“Pinterest,” Tod scoffed under his breath like he’d say amateur.
“Alexis has a lot of ideas,” Zach said hotly.
“Well then,”—Tod fluttered a hand over the scrapbooks—“let’s cull them then get them down in The Book.”
“You should see the diagrams, Tod,” Raye said. “They’re on big posterboards and they’re rad.”
Considering this seemed like a burgeoning situation, Tod fortunately appeared intrigued by the concept of diagrams.
“What’s going on?”
Fabulous, now Martha was there.