Danny smiles a soft smile. "My mom said you were out there the other day. She said she always prayed for a daughter, now, with you and Lori, she has two. They adore you."
Lori's face pops back onto the screen. "Jade, I'm so sorry. I didn't know that's why you've been dragging your feet. I've been pushing you on planning and stuff, and I never even thought about how hard it must be. I'm such a bad friend."
Danny pulls her onto his lap.
"Oh...uh...hang on," she says. She quickly runs off the screen.
"Where's she going?" I ask as I take a bite of my cereal.
Danny grins at me. "To puke."
I drop the spoon back in my bowl. "Nice. I think on that note, I'll say goodbye."
My phone buzzes with a text.
Phillipbaby<3 I love you. We're gonna have an amazing wedding. Have fun looking for ideas today.
And that motivates me. I pop on a popular wedding planning website. I look at all the pictures of things to choose for your wedding and click on the one choice that I'm sure will be easy.
Cake.
I love cake, specifically white wedding cake.
And what's the deal with brides lately? They get all creative on this part. The last two weddings I went to had all these flavors of cake, and not one of them was white!! Another wedding we went to had white cake, but they ruined it by adding a gross lemon filling.
Don't brides know that white wedding cake and an open bar are the only two reasons people go to weddings?
I know that's one tradition I'm not going to mess with.
My cake will be white. Plain white cake with chocolate frosting. That's the cake my mom made me every year for my birthday.
I also want fluffy frosting, not the stuff that looks like cardboard.
I start clicking through photos of cakes. There are over two thousand cakes to choose from. They're all really beautiful. I've saved photos of some that are really pretty. I'm not sure if I've found the dream one yet, but I know this.
I want some cake. Badly.
I run to the store, buy a cake mix, bake some cupcakes, and make my mom's chocolate buttercream frosting.
Phillip comes home for lunch while I'm frosting. As he walks in the front door, he says, "Yum. What smells so good?"
I hold up a freshly frosted cupcake. "Cupcakes."
"I thought you were supposed to be planning our wedding?"
"I was looking at cakes."
He laughs. "Let me guess, made you crave cake?" He grabs a cupcake and puts half of it in his mouth.
"Yes, I've decided one thing. I'd like to have white cake with chocolate frosting. Sound good?"
He shoves the last half of his second cupcake into his mouth. "You can have anything you want. Especially if I can have what I want."
"What do you want?"
He sticks his finger into the bowl of frosting, smears chocolate down the side of my neck, and then licks it off.
"Phillip!" I scream playfully.
While he's licking my neck, I shove my whole hand into the frosting bowl. I attempt to smoosh it onto his face. He's too strong though. He grabs my arm, so I only manage to get a little bit on his cheek.
"Want me to lick it off?" I ask with a laugh.
He grabs more frosting and smears it down my arm.
I still have frosting all over my hand, so I try again to get his face.
He grabs me, spins me around so my back is to him, and then grabs my hand and rubs it across my face. "Ha! You're putting it on yourself!"
Pretty soon, we're in the midst of a full-fledged frosting war.
I throw a chunk of frosting at him. It hits his shirt. "Oh, you're in trouble now. You got it on my shirt!"
He pulls his shirt off, grins sexily, takes a step closer to me, and pulls mine off too. He smears frosting down the front of me then slowly licks it off. He says, "This is an awfully pretty bra. It'd be a shame to ruin it with chocolate."
"Well, it wasn't your mother's kitchen island, but it wasn't too bad."
He laughs at me.
"What?"
"You should see yourself. You have chocolate all, like everywhere. You need a shower."
"Shut up. You have chocolate all over you too. You need a shower," I say back.
"Exactly my thought. I'm also thinking I don't really need to go back to work today."
Lori calls me and asks how the wedding planning is going.
"I feel like I'm drowning in options. I don't think you understand. You just got on the phone, said I want to get married on the beach at sunset, and you did."
"I still had to make choices when we got to the resort. They showed us three cakes, and we picked one."
"I looked at thousands of cakes online. Then I got hungry for cake, so I made white cupcakes with chocolate frosting."
"Oh, that sounds really good."
"It was good, especially when Phillip came home for lunch. We got in a frosting fight and ended up doing it on the kitchen counter."
Lori screams, "Jade! You and Phillip are naughty. Then what happened?"
"He told me I was dirty, needed a shower. We did it again in the shower. Then he decided he didn't really need to go back to work, so we spent the rest of the afternoon in bed. I didn't get much planning done."
"That still sounds fun. You and Phillip seem like you have a lot of fun together. I'm so happy for you. Hey, why aren't you at work?"
"I'm really happy too. If I tell you something, will you promise me you won't tell a soul? Not even Danny? Like we're going to tell everyone soonish, but just not yet."
"Are you pregnant? Is that possible? It's only been a few weeks, I guess it's possib...."
"Lori, I'm not pregnant."
"Oh, what is it then?"
I can't hold it in any longer. "Phillip got a promotion. He's going to be running the new Kansas City branch of their business. Which means that we're going to MOVE to Kansas City!!! We can see each other all the time!"
"OH MY GOSH! That's the best news ever!! I know we talk a lot, but it's not the same. I miss you. I have no one to shop with. When are you going to move? What about your job?"
"I miss you too. A lot. I quit my job on Monday. I'm going to work for Phillip, if you can believe that. I'm going to help him find temporary offices, design them, and then design and oversee the building of their headquarters."
"Oh, Jade! I'm so excited for you. That's what you want to do."
"I know, and there's more."
"More? Wait. I have to pee. Hang on, I'm taking you in the bathroom with me."
"I really didn't need to know that. Just mute it. I don't wanna hear you pee. So this is the even bigger news. We're going to get married really soon. Like sometime this winter. Hopefully December or January."
I hear peeing, and her scream, "JADE!!! That's the BEST news EVER!! I'm so happy for you. But oh my gosh, you must be freaking out. Trying to plan a wedding so quickly. Wait, you don't seem like you're freaking out. Why are you so calm?"
"I have no idea. Phillip said the same thing when he told me about everything. It just all feels so right, Lori. I can't wait to marry Phillip. I've never been so sure of anything in my life."
"Awww, that's so sweet. Okay, so do you need help? Maybe you should hire a wedding planner."
"Maybe, I don't know. I do feel like I'm drowning in options. So will you help me a little?"