20

Saturday finally dawned. It was wedding prep day now that we had our location and date set, which meant getting invitations out and planning for all the ceremony stuff. I was so excited to do this, I could barely get to sleep last night.

I’d dreamed of wedding ideas, and fantasy, and costumes. I’d woken up with ideas.

Which should scare everyone. Kekekekeke.

We ate breakfast, played some with the cats. They were complaining they were being neglected, which was their usual song. I could pet them all day and they would tell me they were neglected, so…

By that time, our mothers had arrived. With things. Many things. In boxes I helped carry in, and from the weight of the boxes, this was either gold bricks or paper. Likely paper considering we were doing invitations. Mom was the first one through the door, Donovan following behind.

Mom had a definite bounce in her step as she put things down on the bar.

“Donovan, the box in your hands has all the mailing labels.”

I gestured toward the box I’d just set down. “What’s in here?”

“The invitations.”

My eyes about bugged out of my head. “Mom! You’ve only had three days to get them printed!”

She just laughed. “I found a local place that does overnight turnaround. You already approved the design, after all.”

Well, I had, but…seriously? I didn’t know you could get things printed so fast!

Curiosity compelled me to open the box and take a look for myself. We hadn’t wanted the invitations to look serious, considering the theme of the party, so Donovan had suggested using our two cats as models. I’d instantly loved the idea. So those two were on the front of the invitation, which was made to look like a postcard, with our return address on the back right so people could check a box and RSVP without much trouble, and a link to RSVP online if they prefered.

On the back side, it read:

Our humans have decided to tie the knot!

We invite you to eat pizza, play games, and celebrate the wedding of

Jonathan Bane

And

Donovan Havili

On September 25, 21.

The rest was time, location, and a request to RSVP by either website or returning the postcard.

I blinked. Blinked again.

“Uh…we have a website?”

“Skylar’s contribution,” Mom explained while plonking herself onto the barstool. “So we can have people upload any pictures they take and such.”

“Ohhh.” Trust my niece to think of that. “Cool. I’m all for it.”

Donovan doubled back outside to help his mother and then returned not a minute later.

Alani came in with Donovan closely on her heels, in a summer dress with her hair up in a bun. She held a huge three-ring binder, the front reading Fairy Tale Pending . I seriously loved this woman.

She stood on the kitchen side of the bar, set the binder down, and beamed.

“Jon, I think this idea is brilliant. I’m glad you agreed with my son.”

“It sounds like a fun party, and really, that’s what a wedding should be, right?”

“Absolutely. I do need you two to make some official wedding decisions, though.”

I mean, I kind of figured on that one. “Sure. Oh, we told you the officiant’s going to be Grandpa, right?”

Alani blinked like this was news to her. Oops.

“Your…wait, which grandfather?”

“Neil’s dad,” I clarified. “He used to be a minister, actually, so he’s properly licensed to marry people. When we told him we were engaged, he almost pleaded to let him be the officiant, and I’m happy for him to do it.”

“Oh, Jon! How sweet of him. Okay, an officiant was one of my main questions. I’ll write that down.” Flop went the front of the binder, and she grabbed a pen from some inner pocket divider and jotted that down. “All right, we’ve got our ring bearer—as Mack insisted on prancing down the aisle—and flower girl set. What music do you want for your entry?”

Here I paused and looked at Donovan. We’d been debating on music.

“Well”—Donovan looked right back at me—“we’ve got it narrowed down to either ‘Happy’ or ‘Sugar’ by Maroon 5. Honestly, I’ve been leaning toward ‘Sugar.’”

He was? I could tell from his lines he meant it. “I have too.”

Alani busted out laughing. “That is somehow so appropriate for you two. I love it. Okay, we’ll use ‘Sugar.’ Do you want music playing during the reception time?”

“Sure. But, like, mix it up. Use a bunch of movie theme songs and stuff. Nothing sappy.” I was terrible with sappy anyway, but every time I tried to do something like that, it usually blew up in my face. Let’s not taunt the wedding gods. “Oh, and uh, I guess kid friendly? Since we’ll have a few there.”

“We’ll manage it,” Mom promised. “Actually, we can set Skylar to putting a playlist together for us.”

“Perfect.” God bless nieces. What would I do without Skylar? “Okay. Uh…what else?”

“Honeymoon?”

“We’re going camping at Fall Creek Falls,” Donovan said.

I personally loved camping, which everyone knew, but in late September? The fall leaves would be stunning. It would be the perfect honeymoon in my opinion.

“So where are you sleeping the night of the wedding?”

I stared at her and felt duh brain hit out of nowhere. I hadn’t even thought about it. Um. “No idea?”

Alani just shook her head, exasperated. “Young couples never think about this when planning a wedding. You’re so busy trying to get to the day, you don’t think about after.”

“Guilty,” I admitted.

Donovan had his thinking face on and hummed. “What if we pack all our camping gear into the Humvee? Then we can leave for Fall Creek Falls directly from the wedding.”

It was a three-hour drive, but our wedding was supposed to end around three in the afternoon, so we’d have plenty of time to get down there and set up before night fell. I perked up. “That’s a great idea. Let’s do it.”

“It will mean needing a designated cleanup crew,” Donovan mused.

Alani waved this off. “I’ve already got cleanup organized.”

Yup, she’d been in the army, all right. Woman knew how to deploy the troops. I was so so grateful she had everything under control.

Mom pointed to the invitations. “Talk and work.”

“Yes’m.”

We made an assembly line. I put stamp on card, passed it to Mom. Mom stuffed invitation in envelope. Donovan put mailing label and stamp on envelope. Done ones went into box. With three adults working on the task, it went by pretty quickly.

While we worked, Alani asked questions about what we wanted to wear, what we wanted the decorations to be like, dessert table, etcetera. She suggested getting plain white cakes from a good bakery and then using fresh flowers to decorate. It’d turn out pretty and wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. I’d seen this before at a friend’s wedding and agreed right away.

The more we spoke about ideas, the more excited I got. I never thought I’d get married, honestly. Still kind of felt like I was dreaming some days. Especially since I’d get to be married to him . Who wouldn’t want to be husband to Donovan Havili?

“Now we get to the tricky question.”

I paused in my stamping to look up at Alani, who seemed very hesitant. Almost nervous? I couldn’t imagine why, but it was somehow connected to me.

Whatever it was, I didn’t do it. I had no idea where the body was buried, either.

“Name change?” Alani asked slowly, her eyes weighing every nuance of my expression. “Donovan said he doesn’t want to change his.”

I knew his preference. We had discussed names before.

Before I could get my mouth open, Mom quickly said, “Don’t feel like you need to stay a Bane. Your father actually regrets not taking on Neil’s name.”

What I was about to say got completely sidetracked, and I snapped around to look at her. “Wait, what?”

She grimaced. “I called him last night to talk about this. I didn’t want any pressure put on you to do something to please him. He told me up front the only reason why he didn’t change his name was because he felt obligated not to. But he regrets it now, especially since he has such little connection with the Bane family.”

Well, shit. I hadn’t known that. Seemed like I needed to call my father later today.

“So I don’t want you to think you have to keep yours.”

I held up a hand to stall her. “Mom. I know.”

She blew out a relieved breath, hand over her heart. “Oh good. Then what do you want to do?”

“I want to change it to Havili.”

Donovan still wore that proud smile, like he had when I’d first told him my decision. To me, it had been a no-brainer.

Mom looked relieved as well, and Alani wore the same proud smile as her son, so I knew they were fine with it.

Not wanting Mom to leap to any conclusions, I filled her in. “I’m like Dad. I don’t have any connection with the Banes. Why should I continue to carry their name? Besides, who doesn’t want to be a Havili?”

“People in straitjackets,” Mom agreed bluntly.

Alani and Donovan laughed outright, tickled at our opinions. Well, it was the truth. I refused to be apologetic about it. I wasn’t even inviting anyone from the Bane family to my wedding, aside from Dad, because I hadn’t seen them in decades. I didn’t even know how to get in touch with most of them.

Alani reached over the counter, grabbing me by the shoulder so she could haul me in and kiss my forehead. Which really made me happy.

“Welcome to the family, then. I’ll make sure you have the paperwork to do that.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I grinned back. I knew I was loved, but it was still nice to hear.

“Jonathan Havili,” my actual birth mother murmured aloud, like she was trying it out. “It does have a nice sound to it. It will mean changing everything. Social security card, driver’s license, all of that.”

I smiled at Donovan because the paperwork was his job.

He just shook his head, already resigned. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”

See? This marriage thing was working out in my favor already.