All Your Perfects

You should rethink the buffet, Quinn. Evelyn Bradbury hired a private chef for her wedding and it was so much classier.

I roll my eyes and flip my phone over so I won’t be subjected to more of her texts.

I hear the front door to my apartment close, so I grab my brush. I pretend I’m just brushing my hair rather than moping in the bathroom when Graham walks in. The sight of him alone instantly calms me. My frustration is now long gone and replaced with a smile. Graham wraps his arms around me from behind and kisses me on the neck. “Hey, beautiful.” He smiles at me in the mirror.

“Hey, handsome.”

He spins me around and gives me an even better kiss. “How was your day?”

“Fine. How was yours?”

“Fine.”

I push against his chest because he’s staring at me too hard and I might accidentally let my true emotions out and then he’ll ask me what’s wrong and I’ll have to tell him how much this wedding is stressing me out.

I turn around and face the mirror, hoping he’ll go to the living room or the kitchen or anywhere that isn’t somewhere he can stare at me like he’s staring at me right now.

“What’s bothering you?”

Sometimes I hate how well he knows me.

Except during sex. It comes in handy during sex.

“Why can’t you be oblivious to a woman’s emotional state like most men?”

He smiles and pulls me to him. “If I was oblivious to your emotional state, I would merely be a man in love with you. But I’m more than that. I’m your soul mate and I can feel everything you’re feeling.” He presses his lips to my forehead. “Why are you sad, Quinn?”

I sigh, exasperated. “My mother.” He releases me and I walk to the bedroom and sit on my bed. I fall backward and stare up at the ceiling. “She’s trying to turn our wedding into the wedding she had planned for me and Ethan. She’s not even asking me what we want, Graham. She’s just making decisions and telling me after the fact.”

Graham crawls onto the bed and lays beside me, propping his head up on his hand. He rests his other hand on my stomach.

“Yesterday she told me she put down a deposit at the Douglas Whimberly Plaza for the date of our wedding. She’s not even asking what we want, but because she’s paying for everything, she thinks it earns her the right to make all the decisions. Today she texted and said she ordered the invitations.”

Graham makes a face. “You think that means our wedding invitations will have the word prestigious in them?”

I laugh. “I’d be more shocked if they didn’t.” My head flops to the side and I give him the most pathetic look, short of pouting. “I don’t want a huge wedding in a fancy plaza with all my mother’s friends there.”

“What do you want?”

“At this point I don’t even know that I want a wedding.” Graham tilts his head, a little concerned by my comment. I quickly rectify it. “I don’t mean I don’t want to marry you. I just don’t want to marry you in my mother’s dream wedding.”

Graham gives me a reassuring smile. “We’ve only been engaged for three months. We still have five months before the wedding date. There’s plenty of time to put your foot down and make sure you get what you want. If it’ll make things easier for you, just blame everything on me. Tell her I said no and she can hate me for ruining her dream wedding while keeping the peace between the two of you.”

Why is he so perfect? “You really don’t care if I blame you?”

He laughs. “Quinn, your mother already hates me. This will give her a little more justification for her hatred and then everyone wins.” He stands up and slips off his shoes. “We going out tonight?”

“Whatever you want to do. Ava and Reid are ordering some kind of fight on Pay-Per-View and invited us over.”

Graham undoes his tie. “That sounds fun. I have some emails I need to send but I can be ready in an hour.”

I watch as he leaves the room. I fall back onto the bed and smile because it feels like he just might have come up with a solution to some of my issues in less than two minutes. But even though the solution sounds like a good one—just blame Graham for everything—my mother will never go for it. She’ll just point out that Graham isn’t paying for the wedding, so Graham doesn’t get a say.

But still. He tried to solve my issues. That’s what counts, right? He’s willing to take the blame for something just to keep the peace between my mother and me.

I can’t believe I get to marry that man in five months. I can’t believe I get to spend the rest of my life with him. Even if that life together will start in the Douglas Whimberly Plaza, surrounded by people I barely know and food that’s so expensive, it guarantees ample trays full of raw meat and ceviche that no one actually likes to eat, but pretends to because it’s fancy.

Oh, well. The wedding may not be ideal, but it will only be a few painful hours, followed by a lifetime of perfection.

I drag myself off the bed, committed to somehow remaining sane for the next five months. I spend the next half hour getting ready for our night out. Graham and I have a handful of friends we sometimes spend time with on the weekends, but we mostly spend our time with Ava and Reid. They got married just before I met Graham. Ava was smart. She married Reid on a whim in Vegas. My mother wasn’t able to order her invitations or book her venue or even choose which cake tasted best to her. I was the only one who knew they were jetting off to Vegas to get married and I’ve secretly been envious of their decision.

I’m buttoning my jeans when Graham walks into the bathroom. “Are you ready?”

“Almost. Let me grab some shoes.” I walk to my closet and Graham follows me in there. He leans against the doorway and watches me while I look for a pair of shoes. I have to dress up for work every day, so a lazy night at Ava and Reid’s is a nice respite from the heels and business attire I wear daily. I’m looking through all the shoes on my shelf, trying to find my favorite comfy pair. Graham is watching me the whole time. I glance at him a couple of times and I can’t help but think he’s up to something. There’s a smirk on his face. It’s barely there, but it’s there.

“What is it?”

He unfolds his arms and slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “What if I told you I just spent the last half hour reworking the plans for our wedding?”

I stand up straight. He definitely has all my attention now. “What do you mean?”

He inhales a breath, like he’s trying to calm his nerves. Knowing he’s nervous about whatever he’s about to say makes me nervous for what he’s about to say.

“I don’t care about the details of our wedding, Quinn. We can have whatever kind of wedding you want as long as the final result is that you’ll be my wife. But . . .” He walks into my closet and pauses a foot away from me. “If the only thing you want from this wedding is me, then why are we waiting? Let’s just go ahead and get married. This weekend.” Before I can speak, he grabs my hands and squeezes them. “I just booked the beach house through next Monday. I spoke to a minister who is willing to come marry us there. He’ll even bring a witness so we don’t have to tell anyone. It’ll just be you and me. We’ll get married by the ocean tomorrow afternoon and then tomorrow night we can sit by the fire where I proposed to you. We’ll spend the whole night eating s’mores and asking each other questions, and then we’ll make love and fall asleep and wake up married on Sunday.”

I’m almost as speechless as I was the moment he proposed to me. And just like three months ago when I was too excited and shocked to say yes, I nod. Profusely. And I laugh and I hug him and I kiss him.

“It’s perfect, it’s perfect, I love you, it’s perfect.”

We grab a suitcase out of my closet and start packing. We decide we aren’t telling anyone. Not even his mother.

“We can call them tomorrow, after we’re married,” Graham says.