Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Saturday came and it was full bride mode, thing were going to get done today damn it, Chase and I had an early appointment with the bakery that had done Riley and Monica's cake and then it was time for a dress fitting with my girls and Chase's cousin Trista flew in for the week so we could get hers fitted, she was the closest thing he had to a sister but she lived two thousand miles away.

Chase and I sat down and they brought out a bunch of different cakes and frostings that we could try it with and the combinations were endless, there were just so many choices thankfully she also brought out samples of popular flavors together to try.

We weren't going to have a huge wedding but it wasn't going to be particularly small and I wanted something a little different with my cake and Chase, well he didn't care. As long as it tasted good it could be shaped like a zombie.

"How are you two today?" Mimi asked, she was a sweet older lady and had helped with my mom and dad's cake.

"We're good." I gave her a hug.

"I always knew this day would come for you two, he looks at you now like he did when you were a young girl." Mimi said and I smiled affectionately at him, I don't know how I missed it all those years. I still don't see it sometimes but to everyone else it was always obvious, I guess he didn't care to hide his feelings for me from anyone else.

"Told you." he said as he hugged her as well, I didn't believe him at first and he had to make that comment every time someone said something like that.

"Now do you have a vision for your cake?" Mimi sat down and I talked about it while she drew it and in the end I was very pleased.

We were going with a square cake that had a quilt looking texture with little balls and the tiers were off centered and the corners were all pointing in different directions.

"And how about you Chase, what do you think?" Mimi asked

"I just want to eat the cake." He had been eyeing the samples that had been teasingly placed in front of us and he looked ready to devour the entire table. Mimi laughed as did her granddaughter who now ran the place.

"I hear Brylee's a fan of chocolate so we're going to start out with a chocolate cake with chocolate in the middle with strawberries as well." The combinations were cupcakes that they made, which was smart so they didn't have to make an entire cake for one little thing.

I was in heaven as I ate it though, the strawberries really made the whole thing just that much better and I think Chase agreed as he took a second bite.

"What do you think?" Sammie asked

"I think you guys are geniuses." I loved cake, I loved all things sweet and chocolaty and bad for you but when you threw fruit in with it I was in love.

"Now a pink champagne cake." Mimi said and my eyes watered and she placed a hand on mine. Every time I thought that I could do this something like this happened. No little girl ever dreams of planning her wedding without her mother.

My parents had a pink champagne wedding cake and every year on their anniversary they would come to Mimi who would make them a personal cake that looked like their wedding topper, I would always see the way they looked at each other as they shared it late at night.

Riley and I would sit on the stairs and watch them laugh as they fed the cake to each other, my parents loved each other so much, my father tried to sacrifice himself to save her but it just didn't work out that way. He would have taken a bullet or a speeding car for her, for us.

We would watch them all night and I always thought how lucky they were when I was a child and being around them showed me how it should look and feel. I knew that the right guy would look at me the way my father looked at my mother.

And Riley told me that he knew Chase loved me because he looked at me the way dad had always looked at mom. I looked down at the ring on my finger and I felt a hole in my chest, one that could never be filled.

I just wished I could call her, I wanted to hear her voice and her advice, I missed how she could calm me and how she held me after a break up, when the kids teased me at school.

I missed the way she smelt and the way my dad's arms felt around me.

I couldn't help the tears that spilled from my eyes and Chase wiped them away.

"Oh baby." He pulled me against his chest and neither Sammie nor Mimi judged

"I know this must be hard for you sweetie but they're always with you." it was hard not to be childish and bitter towards Riley because it wasn't his fault they were here for this for him but not me, I thought I was past it but I just wasn't. It's been seven years and it still hurts every day.

Everyday there's something in my life I wish I could tell them about and every day I mention it Chase holds me and tells me that they already know. It's even harder now that we're getting married and starting a family and all these new experiences that I knew seven years ago they wouldn't be here for but now that it's happening it's harder than I thought it would be.

"We'll do one tier in that." Chase said and Mimi nodded

"And one in the chocolate and strawberries." I whispered trying to be happy. I mean I was alive, Chase was alive, we're here and a marriage is a happy time, I don't want to be sad, sometimes I can't help it but I don't want this whole experience to be months of my crying for my dead parents, I want it to be a bonding with my family I still have and love. I want it to be a happy time where Chase and I plan our day together.

We tasted the other flavors and we needed to come up with one other that would go well and we ended up with a vanilla cake that had raspberry filling and fresh raspberries.

We wanted a little for everyone and then she was going to make pink champagne cupcakes since we wouldn't be having that tier, we would save it for our anniversary.

We told her the colors and she said she would call us with any questions and then Chase and I went off to the sweets shop. We were going to be doing a chocolate fountain and a sweets counter for the kids and after we arranged that it was off to the bar that's part of the company who was catering our wedding.

We were picking the beer, wine, and signature drinks for the wedding and we would be having a somewhat open bar, they were told to cut off anyone that they knew to have more than a few and our guest knew that they better know their limits, I wasn't going to deal with drunk assholes on my wedding night. I would personally throw them out of my reception and life if they cause a scene.

We chose to do cotton candy martinis because they were sweet, delicious and really freaking cool and the plus side to this day was we got fantastic cake and a nice buzz from tasting the alcohol, I was feeling pretty great right about now as was Chase.

This made me look forward to picking a menu.

After the drinks Rochelle came to pick me up and she had the other two girls in the car, we were driving to the city for the night to get fittings done and Chase would hang with Riley and then come up in the morning to meet us.

"Alright my beautiful fiancé, I'm off to meet the guys." He said and I went on my toes a little bit to give him a kiss goodbye before getting in the car with my girls.

I haven't seen Trista in a couple years but no one told her that as she pulled me into her arms and gave me a huge weird car hug and went on and on about how perfect we were and how happy she was to see him getting married and asking her to be in the wedding.

She was quite hyper and excited to be here and I admit it was nice to have her here for the next week; we could really use some of that level of cheer in our lives.

We all caught up on the drive up, it was only a couple hours and we got there right in time for our appointment, Trista had sent over her measurements and hadn't actually been measured and that made me a little nervous.

"So what's the plan, what are we wearing?" she asked and I had Trista go try hers on, the girls were ordered in a much smaller size since they wouldn't be pregnant anymore for my wedding and Trista told me her measurements and I was glad to see it fit really well, it was a tiny bit big but that wasn't a problem to fix, that's why we had fittings. She didn't mind she wasn't here to pick it out and had told me it was my wedding and she didn't care what we picked, she would wear anything.

"Oh they're pretty." Trista said as she looked at the dresses on the hanger and hers on her.

"So three wedding colors, what kind of shoes and jewelry are we wearing?" Trista asked getting to the next point.

Each girls dress was the same but a different color. I wanted all one but then I thought how I have a matron of honor, a brides maid and a maid of honor and that would mean one of them would be singled out and look different so I decided that they would all wear the same everything but different colors.

Monica would be in purple since the green made her feel like Christmas and the yellow contrasted too much with her bright red hair and Rochelle wanted to wear green and Trista looked great in yellow, actually Trista looked great in anything.

She had left to be a model and she was doing a pretty good job at it, she was beautiful and thankfully she hadn't got caught up in all the stress and she took care of herself.

She told me drugs and eating disorders could be such a big thing because of pressure but I was proud of her for having the will not to go down that path.

Tomorrow we were going shopping for shoes and jewelry and Chase was more than happy to not be here for that, we would see them around noon and the girls were with Monica's parents.

"Bride's next." I was told and I smiled, I couldn't wait to get into this dress, I haven't actually got to try it on and that was a risk I was hoping paid off.

It was huge and a lot of lace and tulle. They put me into the base part first and they were the only ones that knew about it part of it. I looked in the mirrors and I smiled, it was tight in all the right places and I had put some weight back on so it was only a little big.

The flow of it was perfect and it was heavy, don't get me wrong but it wasn't unbearable, I could be in this all night and I could move decently.

"So what do you think?" I asked them as soon as they opened the curtain dividing us.

"You look amazing Bry." Monica said softly

"Chase isn't going to be able to take his eyes off you." Trista told me

"Or his hands." I rolled my eyes, of course he wasn't and we knew that but he would have to behave. We had talked about the possibility of not sleeping together after a certain time and waiting for our wedding night but I don't know if either of us could do it.

"Shut up." I went back over to the lady and she attacked the big ball gown bottom to it, it clipped and tied into a nice bow and I loved it even more.

"I'll be doing pictures with the dress both ways and then we'll do the ceremony and our first dance with the bottom on and then all bets are off and this thing is off." I told them, it was quite a heavy attachment.

"And we're not telling anyone about this." Monica said looking to Trista who nodded and playfully saluted her.

"Got it." she nodded she pinned it to take it in in some places but I told her not too much since we were still a few months out and I was still gaining weight.

We went back to the hotel and talked about plans for the next day, we were going to wait on shoes since the girls feet were swollen still but we would get accessories and then when the boys came up tomorrow we were going to go out.

Trista asked if it was okay for her to hang back in the city for a couple days, she had a meeting with a photographer and I wasn't going to tell her no, she would be back on Monday and I would have her for a few days to help with some things and after she left we focused our attention on finding what we needed for Rochelle's wedding before we were bothered by the boys tomorrow.