“Oh, no, not June,” I interrupted. “God, no. She was very insistent on March. She said the only people who get married in June are… how did she put it?” I tapped my lip thoughtfully. “‘Blue hairs and the nouveau riche,’ I think?”
Carlotta gasped.
Quinn’s eyes went from narrowed to comically wide. His mouth opened as if to say something, but nothing came out.
Marissa looked back and forth between Quinn and me. “Wait! Quinn! Are you planning Brailey Driscoll’s wedding?” Her voice became excitedly high-pitched. “Mama, you know she’s marrying the heir to that pharmaceutical company—”
“Danny Neil,” Trey and Tommy said in unison, which was kind of comical. At least they were paying some attention.
Quinn’s jaw tightened the slightest bit before he turned his thousand-watt smile at her. “Oh dear. Champ spoke out of turn. I make it my policy to never discuss my clients with one another. My Meatball hasn’t learned discretion. That’s why he’s supposed to be my silent partner. Remember?”
The look he aimed at me should have lit me on fire. Fortunately, I’d been born with asbestos skin.
“Oh, my gracious! You’re so right. I…” I clapped a hand over my own mouth dramatically. “Please forget I said anything.”
“Already forgotten,” Quinn said in a hard voice. “Now, as I was saying, Marissa, if we book the ballroom at River Mead—”
Carlotta forced a tinkling laugh and touched the ends of her perfectly styled blond bob. “Quinn, Quinn. Let’s not be hasty! Perfection doesn’t happen on a timeline!”
Quinn smiled harder. “Actually, Mrs. Drakes, I’m afraid it does. At least when you’re talking about booking a wedding venue for less than six months from now! So…”
“But maybe… maybe we don’t want a wedding venue.” Marissa bit her lip and turned her shining, hopeful eyes on Quinn. “We have a farm. We could totally have a farm wedding. And Drakes Farm… it’s one of my favorite places in the whole world, especially in the spring when there are wildflowers everywhere. I practically grew up out there—”
“I wouldn’t go that far, darling,” Carlotta chuckled pointedly. “Especially not where anyone can hear you. But you’re right—unlike some people, we do have a farm of our own.” She tried and failed to contain a gloating smile. “It seems silly not to use it, doesn’t it, Tommy?”
Tommy looked up from his phone. “What? Oh… really? The farm? I don’t think…”
Quinn didn’t need to hear the rest to join the fray. “He’s right. Don’t forget the realities of a farm wedding. There are bugs and allergies. Also, it’s just so far from your friends and family, which makes overnight accommodations—”
“I want to get married at the farm,” Marissa said firmly, deciding in the moment. “The happiest moments of my life have happened there.”
Quinn’s face remained fixed in a polite smile, though his hand tightened around his pen until his knuckles turned white. I expected him to shoot me an annoyed look, as he usually did. To roll his eyes and say something cutting, to call me his Frankfurter and force me to say the word relationship again for his own amusement, to remind me I was his silent partner.
But instead, he avoided so much as a glance in my direction, and the energy coming off him wasn’t inconvenienced or annoyed. It was angry.
Why?
Sure, it meant a little extra work for him to switch gears, but I’d heard him handle actual emergency calls from his brides over the past month, and I knew this wouldn’t be the first time he’d scrapped a whole plan and started over. Was it a money thing? Did he stand to lose cash if his bride had a farm wedding instead of a big-ass city do? For all I knew, he got kickbacks from the venues or caterers or some shit.
Well, that sucked, but I’d make it up to him. Maybe I could help bump the price of the farm wedding. I hadn’t been kidding about making sure none of this blew back on him.
“You know, I think the key to making a farm wedding really elegant,” I began, like I knew what the fuck I was talking about, “is making sure you’ve got all the lavish touches. You know? Make it a, um… a juxtaposition? Of… old and new, rustic and refined? So, like, farm-to-table fine dining. And horse-drawn carriages or even… Oh! Sleigh rides.”
Everyone stared at me, and I wondered if I’d bitten off more than I could chew.
But then Marissa whispered, “Brilliant,” in a stunned voice, and Carlotta said, “Percy, your mother must be so proud.”
I glanced at Quinn to see if he would share the joke, but he was still holding himself very still, and when he spoke, he spoke slowly like he thought I might need special help to understand. “This isn’t Canada, Champion, it’s Tennessee. We don’t get snow on the ground in June.”