Two Weeks Later
“I had a great time with Megan and Caleb tonight, babe. Thank you for suggesting they come over for dinner.”
Rose let Daisy back inside the house, the reflectors on her new pink collar catching the light. Rose knelt and went into the new training routine to clean and dry off Daisy’s paws. She told Daisy, “Sit, paw,” and held out her hand. Daisy followed each command, the thump of her tail the only sign of her excitement and impatience.
“You’re such a good girl,” Rose cooed as she worked on each paw and underbelly. It had snowed again two days ago, and Daisy had spent as much time in it as she could. “Good girl. Okay!” Rose gave the release command and Daisy bounded into the kitchen to give Jake a quick wiggle hello and then ran off into the rest of the house.
“She’s such a silly dog.” Jake laughed. “Tonight was fun. Caleb seems like a good guy, and Megan looks happy.” Jake hadn’t spent too much time with Megan when they were all teenagers, but Rose knew Jake wanted her family to be as happy as possible.
He’d finished cleaning up the kitchen and leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest.
“She is. I’m glad those two figured things out.” Rose hung Daisy’s towel and joined Jake in the kitchen. He pulled her into an embrace, and Rose snuggled into his chest – the safest place in the world, in his arms.
“They seem excited about their wedding plans.”
“Mm,” she replied. Rose had enthusiastically agreed to be a bridesmaid for Megan. It was going to be a smallish wedding, with just family members in the bridal party and no extended bonding trips.
Rose looked up at Jake, her neck craned back to see his face. “Is that what you want for our wedding?”
Jake brushed a few strands of hair away from her face. “The actual wedding is less important to me than the marriage. But I do have one thing I’d like to include in whatever we do.”
“Oh?” Rose couldn’t imagine what it was.
“We’ll have whatever size and kind of wedding you want, but I’d like us to find somewhere that we can bring Daisy with us and have her be part of the ceremony.”
“Really? I love that idea!”
Jake kissed her, long and deep, and for a moment there was nothing else in the world except his arms around her and their hearts beating in time. He pulled away and pressed his forehead against hers. “I know you don’t want a big wedding and have said ‘the smaller, the better,’ and I want to honor that. How do you feel about eloping?”
“Really? You’d be okay with that?”
“We’ve already had to deal with a bunch of opinions from everyone in our lives. And no matter how well-intentioned they might be, I know that it’s stressing you out. That’s unacceptable to me.”
Jake wasn’t wrong. Rose had skillfully avoided calls from her mother the last three days because she hadn’t wanted to deal with the suggestions her mother wanted to make and then demand Rose implement in a wedding that didn’t even have a date or location. Not to mention the carefully worded congratulations from Jake’s mother and the raised eyebrows and whispers of everyone else in their lives. She knew he’d spoken to everyone he could and told them to back off with the judgment because it was none of their business.
Still, Rose didn’t want to be a sour sport about things. She pulled away and stepped out of his arms to grab a drink from the fridge. She passed a bottle to Jake and kept one for herself. “Planning a wedding can be stressful. There’s a lot of pieces to the puzzle.”
“What if it didn’t need to be stressful? What if there were only a handful of pieces to it? You, me, Daisy, an officiant, and a photographer.”
It sounded ideal to Rose. “You’d be okay with something that small?”
“Hell yeah. You’d be less stressed out, and at the end of the day I get to call you ‘my wife’ and make love to you. I’m happy.”
“That sounds like the perfect day. Do you have a destination in mind?” Rose opened the bottle from one of the local breweries, Starfire Brews. It was the longest running brewery in the area, and apparently the next generation was in the process of taking it over.
“Not yet, but I have a date in mind.” Jake drank from his beer and then grinned at her. “Let’s go search for a place.” He led the way out of the kitchen to the bedroom where his laptop was currently charging next to the bed.
Rose followed him, confused. “What do you mean you have a date in mind?” She sat on the bed next to him, her legs crisscrossed, beer still in hand. “When is it?”
Jake booted up his laptop. “Do you want to stay on the Island, head upstate, or go out of state?”
Rose persisted, undeterred from his deflection. “Jake. What’s the date?”
“This weekend.” Jake pulled up some options for bed and breakfasts in the tri-state area and started clicking on links to open the pages.
Rose counted out the dates until the weekend. Saturday was the twenty-first. “Why this weekend?”
“Ah, found one. What do you think of this place?” He turned the laptop so she could better see the screen, and Rose immediately fell in love with the location. The Wild Oak B&B, an ‘updated farmhouse with historic charm,’ with easy access to antique stores and highly-rated restaurants in the small town of Oakridge, New York.
“It’s perfect.”
Jake made the call to see if there was a room available, which didn’t seem likely the weekend before Christmas. Rose made a list of everything else they needed to do so she didn’t go crazy wondering if they’d have a place to get married this weekend.
“You’ll never believe it. They had a cancellation this morning and their honeymoon suite was available. It’s now ours.”
It felt like a sign. “What!? Really? That’s – that’s amazing.”
A handful of hours and phone calls had an officiant and a local photographer reserved for that weekend. Jake had disappeared to organize some things with his job, so Rose pulled out her green hard-shell suitcase. She organized her clothes and lingerie for the weekend, a few newer items she hadn’t worn yet tucked neatly into a makeup bag.
It was only when she’d packed everything and put the suitcase by the bedroom door that the realization hit her.
She didn’t have a dress.
There weren’t many options in her closet because she was still unpacking, and the middle of December wasn’t prime ‘pretty dress’ time. Still, she needed something special.
Jake had offered up space in his garage for anything she wanted to take her time to unpack, and that’s where she shoved her dress rack. Her previous apartment didn’t have much closet space, being a studio above a garage, so the portable dress rack had been a lifesaver.
She picked her way through the smaller stacks of boxes that housed her books and mementos until she found the dresses – all hung in garment bags, per her mother’s instruction.
Rose opened the first bag on the rack and found a long flowy summer dress with a bright floral design. No go. The next bag had a blue dress from a coworker’s wedding the year before last. It would make a good last resort option.
Panic grew and her chest felt tight as she checked more bags and didn’t see anything that felt remotely like it’d be a suitable choice.
She’d started to think that she’d have to go do last minute shopping and settle for something that maybe didn’t quite fit or wasn’t her style.
Rose tugged another zipper down and checked inside the next bag. A dark blue dress from a wedding a few years ago. But there was something green behind it on the hanger.
She tried to pull the green fabric out of the bag but almost pulled the whole rack down. Rose freed the specific hanger from the mess of them and brought the whole thing to the bedroom. Jake was still out so she didn’t have to worry about him finding her choosing a dress, not that they’d be able to avoid the whole superstition about seeing the bride before the ceremony if they were sharing a room the night before.
Rose hung the bag on the closet door and pulled both dresses out and off the hanger. She tossed the blue dress onto the bed, focused instead on the dark green dress she’d completely forgotten existed. She’d worn it to a holiday charity event with her parents a few years ago. The long-sleeve casual dress had a wrap V-neck that showed off her chest in a tasteful way. It fell just above her knees and had pockets.
She stripped out of her leggings and oversized t-shirt and stepped into the dress. It pulled over her hips easily and she was able to get her arms into the sleeves without issue. But the zipper wouldn’t cooperate no matter how she contorted herself to reach it.
“I’ve always thought you look amazing in green.”
Rose whirled to find Jake leaning against the doorframe to the bedroom. Daisy hadn’t made a peep when he got home, but she waited in the hallway behind Jake. “I didn’t know you were home.”
“Only just got here, but I didn’t mean to startle you. Sorry.”
Rose waved it off. “No big deal. I was just, um…”
“Trying on dresses?”
She nodded. “I wanted to see if this one still fits. For Saturday.”
Jake stepped into the room until he was in front of Rose, close enough for her to breathe him in. “May I?”
“Please.” Rose turned to face away from him and pulled her hair over her shoulder so it wouldn’t be in his way. She lifted her gaze and stared at the reflection of them in the full-length mirror hung on the closet door, and their eyes locked. Her breaths came faster as she watched Jake trail his eyes over her reflection.
Jake smirked as he stepped even closer; she could feel his breath on her bare neck. Tingles erupted where Jake’s fingers brushed against her waist and then further up her back. He pulled the zipper up without trouble and hooked the small clasp at the top.
The dress fit just as well as the first time she wore it. “What do you think?” She did a small spin before Jake grabbed her by her waist and pulled her in close.
“You look beautiful.” Jake placed a small kiss on the bare skin of her neck. “I look forward to marrying you and then taking it off.”
The promise in his words made her shiver. She could hardly wait to marry him and knew without a doubt she’d made the right decision.
Still, the stress of moving for the second time in less than a year combined with the judgmental rants Rose got from her mother about the engagement while also shoving opinions about the wedding at her, all right before the holidays, was a little much. She hadn’t been sleeping all that well the last few days.
“You know,” she looked up at Jake through her lashes. “Eloping really is the perfect idea. I’m so glad you suggested it.” She ran her fingers down his back and hooked her thumbs into the waist of his jeans.
Jake kissed her, the back of her head cradled in one of his hands.
“I’ve always wanted to run away with you, Rose.”
She grinned at him. “Then help me get out of this dress so we can do exactly that.”
“As you wish,” he whispered.