“I’m more than happy to tell you no.” I offer. “Like right now. Sophie, we’re making progress. Save all those ideas for later.”
She still wiggles against Roman until he grabs her hips. “Easy. I’m trying to be worried.”
“Not allowed.” She wraps her free arm around the back of his neck. “No worry zone.”
“My family isn’t going to understand what’s going on. I’ll have to explain it to them. I may need to take some time before the wedding to talk to them.”
“Massimo is going to lose his mind.” Gunner chuckles.
That starts a whole round of conversation that’s steadily getting more heated. Sophie gets off of Roman and glares at him.
“If your grandmother calls methat, I’m not going to talk to her at all.”
I need to get better at Italian. Roman shrugs. “I don’t know how she’s going to take it. I want you to prepare for the worst.”
“Then she’s a maybe.”
“Sophie, I want my grandmother there.”
“And I don’t want to be called a whore at my own wedding!” She yells. “If that’s how she’s going to behave, she’s not welcome. I’m serious.”
Roman doesn’t say anything to that but then exhales slowly. Sophie goes to the balcony and I pat his shoulder. “I got this.”
As if I know what I’m going to say or do to fix this. I walk behind Sophie and rub her sides. “Talk to me.”
“I didn’t think about that. This is so … outside of what most people are comfortable with. What if they whisper just like Roman’s grandma might? What if they say things or make comments. Maybe it should only be family.”
“We want to let the people we care about know that we’re in love,” I whisper in her ear. “And if anyone says a bad word about you … Gunner’s not the only one known to fight.”
“Great. Fighting at a wedding.” She huffs as her shoulders slump.
“If you focus on the worst, that’s what we’re going to get. The important part is us, sweetheart. We love you and we want you to be happy, to enjoy every moment of our wedding, just like we will.”
She doesn’t say anything. She exhales slowly and squirms in my arms. I tighten my arms around her, hugging her tightly. “I’ve already started on my vows. I love you so much, Soph. If you don’t want to go through with this, we’re not too far along. You can say this is too soon, that we haven’t prepared enough, but …”
“But I don’t want to cave to what other people want just because they don’t understand what we’re doing or who we are. It’s not their fucking business. I just … I don’t want any fighting and I don’t want to be worried that people are going to say things to me because I’m marrying all four of you.”
And that’s something I won’t even touch. Before we had the sit-down conversation, I had resigned myself to accepting that Sophie would probably marry Gunner or Roman. Only because I’ve been comfortable with what we have and I know Holden has too. Neither of us had marriage on our bingo card for life.
But now that I get to give my vows, get to marry her, even in spirit, it’s worth more than I thought it could be. I don’t want to just stand to the side like a groomsman when I’m equal to Roman.
“I love you all. You know that. There’s just so much. I’m already so stressed and next to nothing bad has come up. How am I going to handle all this planning in just six weeks? Things always come up and we don’t have enough time to allow that to happen.”
“And if you keep focusing on the bad things thatmighthappen, you’re going to get overwhelmed. So we’re going to make sure you stay focused on what is. Let’s limit the wedding stuff to only an hour and a half a day, okay? Except for weekends.”
“Oh good, weekends.” She rubs my hands. “Those things I used to like.”
I chuckle. “And you think we’re going to be able to keep our hands off you with all this romance in the air? We’ll happily reward you for every step forward, Sophie.”
She slumps against me, then turns and hugs me. “It’s been one week and I feel like I’m already …”
“Finish the thought.”
“Like I already need counseling to keep my stress down.” She rubs my chest. “Maybe that’s another option? An hour a week of stress management. I think it might be helpful.”
“Maybe.”
Something buzzes and Sophie pulls out her phone. She groans. “Okay. I have to do the planning that you guys aren’t allowed to see. Valerie will be coming up this weekend and dress shopping is a thing that’s going to happen.”