Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“But, while I’m not the boss, Nicky, I am telling you right now, you’re not going to get made. So my advice is to take whatever job makes you comfortable, then spend some time figuring out what you want to do with your life. Go to school. Open a business. But, first, help me with the goddamn ring, would you?” I asked, waving toward the jewelry cabinets.
Six months was maybe soon for some people. But Cammie and I had been living together almost since the beginning. We both knew it was a forever kind of thing. There was no reason to wait.
And Cammie had let it slip to Valley that she saw herself as an autumn bride, so I needed to get a ring on her finger, so she could start planning for the following fall with Josie.
She’d settled into the family just like I told her she would, just like I knew she would.
She went out with Valley to get her nails done, and showed up at my mom’s place to take cooking lessons. She fussed over the kids and got confident enough to give some of the guys a little shit.
She’d become family.
And, like I thought, she’d blossomed with all that love and affection.
I’d known I was going to marry her since the first week she was in my house.
But I wanted to make sure she felt like she belonged because of who she was as a person, not because she thought my family had to like her because I planned to marry her.
It was time.
I just had no damn idea what ring to get her, since she almost never wore any kind of jewelry, so I hadn’t gotten a chance to learn her style preference.
“You should have brought your sister,” Nicky said, looking as lost as I felt as he looked over the seemingly endless number of rings. “Oh, maybe this one,” he said, waiting for me to walk over.
And there it was.
The ring.
It was a pointed clear stone with a sort of smoky green swirling inside.
“Ah, yes, that is a great choice,” the lady helping us declared. “Geometric moss agate with diamond accents. It is one of a kind. And it has a matching wedding band that accommodates its unique shape.”
So I had the ring.
Now I just needed to ask her the question.
Cammie - 1.5 years
Whatever you think an Italian mafia family wedding might be like, you could go right ahead and multiply the number by five and the volume by about two-thousand.
I loved every second of it.
It was more like a party than a wedding, after the whole vow part was over with.
Technically, we had hired Matteo’s party planning business to do the event. But that was really just a way for us to rent tables and have access to the best bands, because all the decor was planned by Josie and Sofia.
And the food?
You guessed it.
The women.
I mean… we’d hired caterers. The best in the area. We’d gone over menus and made sure we picked the best there was to offer.
Then the phone call started to come in from said professional caterer that he’d been getting nonstop calls from Massimo’s mom and aunts until, eventually, he threw up his hands and quit on us.
“It’s better this way anyway,” Giulia had declared when Massimo had gone over to tell her to apologize to the caterer, so we had a chance to get him back.
“At least we know everyone will like the food,” Adrian, Sophia’s mom, had chimed in.
“As much as we love your food, Ma, this is too big a job for you two,” Massimo had reasoned.
Which was, yeah, the wrong thing to say.
Because these woman not only took it as an insult, but as a challenge.
In the end, though, we’d reached a compromise that allowed them to cook some meals, and another caterer—because the first one appeared scarred for life from the interactions—to do some as well.
The end product was better than you can imagine.
There were traditional Grassi family favorites—lasagne, penne vodka, chicken parm, and more—as well as more traditional wedding food.
The only thing the Grassi women didn’t have a hand in was the cake.
“This was ridiculous,” Traveler said, dropping down beside me in her purple and black dress. “Like in the best way, but ridiculous. I met twenty-seven guys whose first name ended in an O. Yes, I counted,” she said, shaking her head. “The food, though, was banging.”
“I will tell Massimo’s mom. That was mostly her masterpiece,” I told her. “You look so pretty.”
And I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. It didn’t escape me that August—despite bringing a date—couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of her.
“Says the literal fairytale princess,” Traveler said, shaking her head.
“So how are things? I feel like we haven’t talked in ages. I’ve been a bad friend with all this wedding planning.”