Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 121054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
I leaned up and whispered, so no one could hear, “I want you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. We should have made a bet as to who would cave to sex in the bathroom first; I would have totally won that, judging from the way his fingers flexed over mine.
“Remember,” he warned me as we both lifted our neatly cut wedges of cake, “we swore we wouldn’t do it.”
“Right,” I said, nodding seriously. “No cake smashing.”
He fed me a delicate bite while I absolutely creamed him with a palm full of cake. I took a step back, out of retaliation range, and he lunged at me, sweeping an arm around my back and pulling me up to kiss my neck with his frosting-smeared face. I squealed and half-heartedly fought him off while, from the corner of my eye, I caught my mom throwing up her hands in frustration. She’d lectured me over and over about how immature that particular tradition was.
The bite I’d gotten from Neil and the bits I’d teasingly kissed from his face was all the cake I got. Brides apparently don’t get to eat at their own weddings, no matter how much the meal cost per plate.
Between songs, Shelby alerted us to our next married couple duty, the one I’d been dreading the most. Our first dance. Dancing in public wasn’t what bothered me. It was fun to go out to a club and grind up on other people to loud music and disconcerting lights. It was not fun, however, to be on display in an environment where one is expected to be graceful. Unlike some couples, who I now regretted mocking in the past, Neil and I hadn’t worked on some elaborate choreography to pull off during our first dance as man and wife. But I wasn’t totally unprepared. We had practiced.
Beneath the high, open ceiling in the den, Neil had pushed back the coffee table and rolled up the rug so that he could impart his wisdom about wedding dances.
“The first thing to remember,” he’d advised me sagely, “is that everyone thinks you got fully drunk in the limo on the way to the reception.”
Of course, there had been no limo on the way to the reception, just a short walk. But I hadn’t pointed it out then, and it made me giggle now as we walked onto dance floor. Neil’s hand curved around my waist, and I imagined we were back at our house, John Legend’s “All Of Me” playing on my phone, rather than the instrumental arrangement for piano and strings performed live now. We started our steps, and I thought of the way it had felt when we’d been gliding around in our socks on the polished wood floor. In our practice, I’d crashed into Neil, and he’d held me on my feet. We’d laughed and fallen down then forgotten about dancing altogether. It was the same feeling now, as I gave in and let him lead me effortlessly around the floor. Even though I was in a beautiful, if not entirely comfortable, evening gown instead of rolled up sweatpants and a faded hoodie, even though Neil didn’t have to curse and snap, “Stop trying to lead, Sophie!” when I stepped on his foot for the millionth time, it felt normal. It all clicked into place; whether we were dressed up all fancy or wearing comfy sweats, whether we were married or not, Neil and I were still just Neil and I. We were the same two people gliding around the famed floor of the Plaza Hotel’s Grand Ballroom as the ones laughing and colliding and not taking anything seriously.
The song was over way too soon.
Once the dance floor filled up and everything started to feel more like a party than a wedding, I loosened up. While Neil danced with Emma, I used Holli to defend my way to the bathroom, where she fished a candy bar from her purse. Eating a Snickers on the toilet wouldn’t be one of my top-ten romantic wedding memories, but after starving all day and needing to pee worse than ever in my entire life, it was definitely in my top-ten urination experiences.
I checked for chocolate smudges on my mouth then went back to the dance floor. The band was playing, “Just The Way You Look Tonight,” and Neil held Olivia in the crook of his arm, her tiny pink fist in his hand as he swayed with her. Her huge eyes were fixed on the silvery light patterns shifting on the ceiling. Neil, on the other hand, saw nothing but her, so I managed to sneak up and tap him on the shoulder.
“May I cut in?” I took Olivia and sniffed her head. “I know it’s weird, because she apparently smells like Emma’s breast milk, but Olivia’s head always smells so good.”