An (Almost) Perfect Love Story (Love Story Book Three) Page 9

  “That guy is totally straight,” Ryan said, shaking his head at me. “Can’t you tell? He totally checked out your chest when he was talking to us before.”

  I snorted. “He was probably just amazed to see someone sweat as much as me.”

  “All right, everyone, your heart rate should be nice and active now,” Tate called from the front of the room. “Let’s get started.”

  “Get started?” I whimpered in disbelief. My legs already felt rubbery. Next to me, Ryan laughed. “Damn it,” I muttered.

  Half an hour later the boot camp, mercifully, was finished. I could barely feel my legs as Ryan and I made our way to the locker rooms. “That was terrible,” I moaned, rubbing my arms. “I had no idea it would be so hard.”

  “That was nothing,” Ryan scoffed. “He was obviously starting us out easy.”

  “Easy?” I cried, stopping dead in my tracks. “You call that easy?”

  “How you guys feeling?”

  I spun around to see Tate walking behind us. I had probably been panting too hard to hear him approach.

  “That was great,” Ryan said earnestly. “I really felt it.”

  Tate grinned at him, showing off his straight white teeth. “How about you? It’s Ashley, right?”

  I tried to smile back—crap, even my face hurt. “Yeah, uh, thank you for class, it was, uh, really good.”

  Ryan snorted next to me, and I turned on him with my best death glare.

  “Was tonight your first time working out?”

  “It was that obvious, huh?”

  “Not at all,” Tate said. “You did very nicely. I was impressed you kept up.”

  I managed a genuine smile after that. “Thanks. It was tough.”

  “Make sure you refuel with some protein tonight,” Tate said seriously. “And use ice on those sore muscles, it will help.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  Tate reached over and rested his hand lightly on my shoulder, smiling down at me. “Don’t give up, okay? I expect to see you here Thursday night.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said, laughing a little. Tate patted my shoulder before smiling at Ryan. He said goodnight and was gone, leaving us both looking after him as he retreated down the hall.

  “Wow,” I whispered. “He’s gorgeous. And really, really nice, too.”

  Ryan looked less impressed. “You better be careful with that one,” he said darkly. I gaped at him.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know. The way he looks at you, I just…just be careful, okay?”

  “You’re paranoid,” I said, linking my arm through his. “I’m madly in love with your best friend, remember? I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for Chris. I’m only doing this so I can look hot in my wedding dress.”

  Ryan shook his head slightly, but then smiled at me. “Come on, let’s shower so we can get out of here. Hey, do you think ice cream counts as protein?”

  “It better,” I said, laughing.

  * * *

  “Ashley, I want you to prepare yourself.”

  Sitting at the kitchen table, I looked up from my magazine to see Ryan standing in the doorway. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s Emily. She’s gone off the deep end.”

  “Oh, you are so one to talk,” Emily shouted from somewhere in the apartment.

  I raised my eyebrows at Ryan. “What in the hell is going on?”

  Ryan came to join me at the table. “Emily is in the living room right now looking at…” he paused and looked around the kitchen, as if he thought someone might be listening, before lowering his voice to a whisper. “Bridal magazines.”

  I burst out laughing as Emily appeared in the doorway, her arms crossed. “I bought two magazines for today,” she said, glaring at Ryan. “Two. You showed up here with at least a dozen.”

  “Yes, but that’s to be expected,” he said, with a tone of superiority. “I’m Ashley’s fashion guru, I think she would be more shocked if I didn’t.”

  “He has a point,” I told her. “It’s much weirder for you to buy two bridal magazines than for him to buy a dozen.”

  “I’m excited, okay?” she said, sounding defensive. “It’s not every day you get to go wedding dress shopping with one of your best friends.”

  “I just hope you’ll think twice the next time you want to tease us for being into silly, romantic stuff,” Ryan said, giving her a smug little smile that made me laugh.

  “Okay, we should get to it,” Ryan continued, looking up at the clock. “Our appointment is in two hours, and we have research to do first.”

  The three of us moved into the living room where I found they had not been exaggerating. Emily had brought home a few magazines while Ryan, apparently, had bought out the entire magazine aisle. We settled onto the couch and started flicking through the glossy pages. Ryan insisted that we pull out all the dresses we liked so we could ask about them at the bridal salon. In no time at all, we had scattered clippings covering the entire coffee table in front of us.

  After half an hour or so, we heard keys in the lock. A second later, Chris stuck his head around the front door. “Anybody home?”

  “Hey, babe,” I called out, happy to see him. Chris was supposed to be holed up in the lab all weekend, working on some experiment. “What are you doing here?”

  “Lab’s closed,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “We all had to clear out. There was apparently a melt down in one of the—” he stopped suddenly, as if seeing us for the first time. “What the hell are you guys doing?”

  We probably did look pretty weird, sitting there with a pile of nearly twenty magazines, a stack of ripped out pages scattered around the floor and table in front of us.

  “We’re getting ready to go wedding dress shopping,” I said, smiling kind of sheepishly. To my surprise, Chris smiled and came over to sit with us. I was sure he was going to tease us for being silly.

  “Let me see one of these,” he said eagerly, grabbing a magazine from the stack.

  I stared at him. “Really? You’re not going to tell me I’m getting carried away? You’re not even going to roll your eyes?”

  “Nope,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder and pulling me closer so he could kiss the top of my head. “To be honest,” he said softly, so only I could hear him, “I’m just really happy to see you enjoying our engagement.”

  I looked up at him to see that he was smiling, but his eyes were serious. “I’ve enjoyed all of our engagement,” I protested, but he shook his head.

  “I just mean that you haven’t been able to do all the wedding stuff I thought you would like. Dress shopping, obsessing over magazines. I’m glad to see you’re doing it now, that’s all.”

  I snuggled closer to him. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Okay, enough with the sappy love crap,” Ryan said firmly. “We have to find a damn dress.”

  An hour later, our stack of possible dress pages was getting out of control. Chris, surprisingly, was very enthusiastic about looking at dresses. He seemed to have some pretty strong opinions about what I should wear. Unfortunately, most of his ideas were God-awful, but I made sure not to mention that to him. But seriously, empire waists? On my frame? I’d look like an oompa-loompa.

  “We need to narrow this down,” Emily said finally. “There’s no way they’ll have half of these dresses.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ryan said. “The point is we can show them the styles that we like. Here, let me organize this…”

  A minute later, he had most of our choices stacked neatly in various piles. “Okay, so it looks like most of our picks fell into a few basic categories.” He pointed at each pile as he listed them off. “Emily likes sweetheart necklines and ball gowns. I like the mermaid style, and Ashley chose mostly A-lines.”

  “What about that pile?” Emily asked, pointing.

  “Oh, that’s the Chris-Has-No-Taste pile,” Ryan said easily. “Don�
��t worry about that one.”

  Emily and I laughed while Chris looked outraged. “Hey!”

  I patted his leg. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. I think you did great.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess it doesn’t really matter what I like anyhow, I’m just the groom,” he said sarcastically.

  “Exactly,” Ryan said, nodding.

  I laughed again and leaned forward to kiss my fiancé’s cheek. “I promise I’ll pick something you like.”

  “You’ll look great in anything,” he said, though he still sounded a little put out.

  “We should get going,” Ryan said, looking at his watch. “Your appointment’s in twenty minutes.”

  Ryan adamantly demanded that Chris not see me in a wedding dress before the big day. I noticed that Chris didn’t put up much of a fight, deciding instead to wait for us at the apartment. As we left, he was settling down on the couch with a bag of chips to watch a hockey game. I had a feeling he was relieved to not have to enter the estrogen heaven awaiting us at the bridal salon. The rest of us bundled up in our winter things and headed out to Ryan’s car.

  Ryan had made all the arrangements for the appointment. I hoped he hadn’t picked a really fancy bridal salon. We hadn’t really had a chance to discuss budget, and Ryan tended to ignore little matters like credit card limits when it came to fashion. I was relieved when we pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall. Becky’s Bridal Boutique beckoned. The place looked clean and comfortable, if maybe a little kitschy.

  “I know it looks kind of cheap,” Ryan said, unbuckling his seat belt. “But my friend Heather, you know, from work? Her mom runs this place. Heather said they have a great selection and they’re budget friendly. I figured it’d be a good place to start.”

  I felt a rush of affection for my friend. I knew, if he had his choice, we’d be at one of the high-end boutiques up in ritzy Birmingham. He had clearly taken the time to think about what I would be most comfortable with.

  We were greeted by a smiling, middle-aged woman when we entered the store. She introduced herself as Janet and crossed my name off on her appointment book before leading us back to a dressing room. We sat in plush chairs as she pulled out a clipboard and began asking me questions.

  “When’s the big day?”

  “Uh,” I said, feeling uncomfortable for some reason. I looked over at Ryan, who smiled at me, before I went on. “We’re not exactly sure yet. My mom is pushing for summer, but I think it will most likely be autumn.”

  Janet made a note on her clipboard. “So you haven’t booked a venue yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  She frowned slightly. “Well, that makes it a little difficult to know what kind of dress we should look for. We don’t want to put you in a ball gown if you end up having a backyard barbeque wedding.”

  Ryan snorted, and Janet turned to look at him, her eyebrow raised. “Sorry,” he said. “Just trying to imagine her mother,” he pointed at me, “allowing her daughter to get married in someone’s backyard.”

  Janet smiled slightly and Ryan went on. “It’s going to be a classy wedding, definitely. Probably at a country club or yacht club. I think we’d be safe looking at formal styles. Here, this is what we were thinking.” He held out his stack of magazine clippings. I saw Janet’s eyes widen at the size of the pile, but she took it in stride.

  “Quite a bit of variety here,” she murmured. “Let’s see…we carry this style…this one…not that…this one.” She looked up. “We should be able to give you a nice sample to get started with, how’s that?”

  I smiled uncertainly at her as she stood. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Ashley, you can head into the dressing room and get undressed. There’s a robe there for you to use.”

  Once Janet was out of sight, I turned to Ryan. “Should we be doing this? That lady’s right, I have no idea yet what kind of wedding I want to have. Hell, I don’t even know who’s paying for the wedding yet.” Once again, my stomach clenched at the thought of the currently messed up state of my family. This stressed-out, stomach-churning feeling was becoming way too familiar for me.

  “Ashley, relax.” Ryan patted my leg. “Looking for a dress is a great way to start thinking about the style of your wedding. There’s no reason we can’t do this before you have all the other details worked out.”

  “Besides,” Emily said. “You need to do something fun. I heard what Chris said back at home, and he was right. You haven’t let yourself get excited about this wedding since you found out about your parents.”

  I squirmed in my seat. “Everything’s just been crazy.” I didn’t say the words I was thinking, that I had never imagined I’d be planning a wedding without my mother at my side. Clearly, she wanted to be involved, but how could I have fun letting her help when the mere sound of her voice made me want to get violent? It had been far easier to just ignore the whole wedding thing all together.

  “Ash,” Ryan said, his voice serious. “Think about how many times we imagined this. How many times have you and I sat and mooned over your dream wedding?”

  I managed a smile. Ryan was right. He and I had spent an inordinate amount of time watching wedding-based reality shows and talking about my future fairytale big day.

  “I just want you to forget about all the family crap for an afternoon, you know? Just enjoy yourself.”

  “I can do that,” I said firmly. I was letting my parents’ problems get in the way of enjoying something I had dreamed about for years. It was silly. I stood and headed into the changing room, determined to have fun with my friends and live out my wedding dress fantasy.

  Janet started me off with an assortment of styles based on the pictures we had given her. First up was one of Ryan’s picks, a snug-fitting mermaid style by Maggie Sottero. The dress was made of the softest organza I had ever felt, form-fitting throughout the bodice and down to the knees. The organza pulled asymmetrically across my hips until it cascaded down into a full skirt around the knees. A scattering of crystals decorated the bust line.

  “Wow,” I whispered, staring at myself in the mirror. “Wow.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Janet said, smiling warmly at me in the mirror as she worked on the corset ties in the back. “Sottero dresses give every girl a nice figure. Not that you needed any help with that, dear.”

  She had a point. The dress somehow made me look longer, taller, and added curves around my hips and bust line that I wasn’t used to seeing. Suddenly, all thoughts of my parents and their drama seemed to wash away from my mind. I got to pick out a wedding dress! Feeling giddy, I followed Janet from the dressing room to the oohs and ahs of Emily and Ryan.

  “I love it,” Ryan said, standing up so he could inspect the dress more closely. “This is one of my picks, isn’t it? Maggie Sottero?”

  Janet gave him an impressed look. “It is indeed. This style is great on most figures, adds a lot of height, I think. And the crystals there on the bodice are genuine Swarovski.”

  “Wow,” I murmured again. Outside the dressing room was the traditional elevated platform surrounded by floor-to-ceiling mirrors. As I stood there, I couldn’t take my eyes off the dress.

  “I’m not sure,” Emily said quietly, wrinkling her nose at me. “I mean, you look great, Ash, seriously. But I’m not sure if I’m really crazy about the style. Is it supposed to be all poofy just around your knees?”

  Ryan glared at her but Janet seemed unconcerned. “The mermaid style tends to be somewhat polarizing. People either love it or they hate it.”

  “I love it,” Ryan said staunchly, still glaring at Emily for throwing cold water over his choice.

  “Well, it’s just the first dress,” Janet pointed out. “I have a few more mermaids in the room with a more natural flow of the skirt. We have some A-lines to try on as well.”

  Soon I was lost in a sea of tulle and silk. I tried on more mermaid dresses, a ball gown or two, and half a dozen A-line dresses. Janet put me in dresses with sweetheart necklines and halter neck
lines, strapless and sleeveless. I even tried on a dress with quarter length sleeves. Ryan laughed and told me I looked like a nun. As the appointment neared its close, I felt overwhelmed and confused—but completely exhilarated. Trying on wedding dresses was one of the most fun things I had ever done in my life. Even Emily didn’t seem to get bored, and shopping was generally one of her least favorite chores.

  “We have two more today,” Janet said, helping me to slip out of a flowing Alfred Angelo A-line. “They’re very different, but I think they encompass a lot of what you said you liked today.”

  At first glance, I thought the dress Janet was holding out would be way too simple. I didn’t detect any sparkle or mass of volume in the skirt. Once she had slipped it over my head and I could see myself in the mirror, my doubts disappeared.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. “I think this is it.”

  The dress was simple, but it was beautiful. The bodice was covered in delicate lace with a subtle scalloped neckline. The lace gave way to soft tulle just past my hips, the skirt gently flaring out into a soft A-line. A silk bow at the waist made me look much more slender than I really was. I loved it.

  Janet was nodding at me approvingly. “Let’s go show them.”

  I figured it was a good sign when Emily started to cry. “You look so pretty,” she sniffed, wiping at her eyes. “Oh, Ash! I love it!”

  Ryan was standing with his arms crossed, his face the picture of concentration as he peered at my dress. “Was that one of the pictures?”

  Janet shook her head. “I chose this one. I thought it would suit her.” When Ryan still didn’t respond, she went on. “It’s from the Bliss collection from Monique Lhuillier, and very affordably priced for such a big name designer.” She didn’t need to say any more. I could see Ryan’s face light up at the name. He’d always been a sucker for labels.

  “It is a little plain,” he said, not ready to give in just yet. Prior to this dress, the top contender had been one of his choices, a soft fit and flare that we’d all liked. I could see that he wasn’t willing to give up his bridal couture crown without a fight.