Once and for All(52)

“Okay,” the photographer said, squatting down and lifting the camera. “Now, let’s have the groom open the book and hold it in his lap. Louna, lean into him and point to something on the page.”

“Should we talk motivation?” Ambrose said to me. “Want to develop our backstory? How long we’ve been together, all that?”

“No,” I said flatly, jabbing a finger at a picture of a cake, flowers trailing off it.

“I think,” he continued, ignoring me, “that we met cute. Like, you dropped a kitten, and I picked it up for you.”

“Why would I drop a kitten?”

“Well, clearly, it was an accident,” he replied, sliding his other arm around me. I told myself not to stiffen, then glared at William, who had the nerve to laugh out loud. “Your hair smells good, by the way. Is that vanilla?”

I didn’t respond to this. The photographer, now shooting, said, “Louna, can you relax your mouth? You look kind of angry.”

“Imagine that,” I said under my breath.

From the albums, we moved on to posing with the cake William had bought just for the shoot, a grocery store variety he’d carefully decorated with fresh flowers. The photographer put us beside it, then arranged our hands—Ambrose’s above, mine below—on a silver cake cutter.

“Now, just put it on the edge,” she called out, checking her light meter. “And, Ambrose, shift your hand so we can see the ring on Louna’s finger a bit better. It’s just so pretty!”

“Three months’ salary,” he told her, insisting, still, on being in character. “But my baby deserved a rock!”

My mom, who was the actual owner of this ring, snorted. William said, “You guys actually look really cute together, if you don’t mind me saying.”

I was about to tell him that, in fact, I did, when Ambrose moved in closer behind me, his mouth right at my ear. “FYI, your tag is sticking out. Let me get it. It’s what a fiancé would do.”

A second later, I felt his fingers on the small of my back, smoothing down the fabric of my dress there. And the weirdest, craziest thing happened: I felt something. That unmistakable, sudden rush of feeling when your body responds to a touch in that certain, specific way. As I blinked, trying to process this, I realized that despite my reluctance, I hadn’t stiffened even once in all the times he’d touched me so far. So weird.

“Great,” the photographer called out, clicking away. “Now, Louna, turn your head and look up at Ambrose. Again, I’ll blur your features. But I love this staging.”

I swallowed—calm down, Barrett—then did as I was told, turning toward him. With one of his hands over mine, the other beside me against the table, it was almost like easing into an embrace, and I was surprised, again, by how natural it felt. No elbows or awkwardness; I just fit there.

“What?” Ambrose said, looking down at me.

“Nothing,” I replied, as the photographer moved in closer, getting even more of us together. It seemed like she shot forever, us frozen in that spot. Even so, when we broke apart, the space between us felt huge, much bigger than it was. As if somehow it was the odd thing now.




“Okay,” Jilly said, extracting a lock of her hair from Bean’s sticky grip. “Tell me again exactly what you said to the Lumberjack.”

“His name is Leo.”

“Whatever. Just read.”

I looked down at my phone, between us on the bed. At my desk, Crawford was now reading my dictionary the way anyone else might a newspaper, flipping through for the big stories. “‘Hey, it’s Louna. Going to a party tonight, want to come?’”

She considered this, wrinkling her nose. “It’s a bit conversational for my taste.”

“It’s eleven words,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but it’s how they sound.” Bean let out a wail, and Jilly put her on the floor, where she promptly made a beeline for my closet, her hands slapping the hardwood. “I would have been like, ‘Party Tuesday you in’. No punctuation, because you’re a busy girl, and let him ask who it is, don’t tell him.”

“Why not?”

“Because it adds mystery!” she said. “And mystery is everything, especially at the beginning.”

“Well, it’s done now,” I told her. “He already responded.”

“And said what?”

I hit the screen, scrolling down. “‘Sure. Off at 7.’”

From her serious face, studying the screen, you could have thought this was an ancient scroll that needed to be translated. “Yeah. He’s got the upper hand now. It’s obvious.”

“How?” I asked.

“He responded with ‘Sure.’ It’s like you’re twisting his arm, begging him. He’s agreeing, not accepting.”

“You get all that from ‘sure’?”

“It’s syntax. Context. You have to read between the lines.”

“There aren’t lines, it’s, like, one sentence.”

“Two,” Crawford corrected me from the desk. “That was two sentences.”

“Are you supposed to be listening?” Jilly asked him. “Read your book.”

“It’s the dictionary.”