Amy snuggled up in bed with a big bowl of cornflakes. She was starving, and Dan had generously served breakfast in bed, carrying in a tray laden with two big glasses of orange juice, cereal and toast and two mugs of coffee. Lovemaking at 11 a.m. followed by a feed! If this is what marriage is going to be like, she thought . . . bring it on. Dan clambered in beside her as she frantically tried to balance everything. Mm . . . mm, yummy. Dan was playing with her toes as she ate.
‘Dan!’ she teased. ‘If you keep this up we’ll have food all over the place!’
‘Eat up!’ he cajoled, the weight of his foot and leg on hers making quite clear his intentions as he finished his coffee.
‘Dan, we should be getting up, look at the time.’
Dan turned their alarm clock over with a flick of his fingers.
‘We’ve all the time in the world,’ he said, pulling the quilt up around them, his lips brushing her bare shoulders.
‘No, Dan! We don’t. We’ve so much to do. We’ve got to look at invitations and our wedding rings and musicians and . . .’
‘Ssshh.’
‘It’s Saturday!’ she continued. ‘It’s our only chance to go and see things together.’
‘I do love Saturdays,’ he said huskily, his hand against her stomach, rubbing in a circular motion. It was impossible to resist him. She bent over the side of the bed to put her empty bowl and cup on the floor. Then she moved across, letting her fingers caress him, her finger playfully touching his belly button.
Dan. She loved him more than she had ever thought it was possible to love another human being. She loved his body and his mind and his heart and his soul. It was as if he was the missing piece of her that she had been lacking until she’d met him. Laughing, she slid on top of him and kissed and tickled him till he was begging for mercy. The two of them reached for each other at the same time, as need overwhelmed them.
Hours later she woke curled up against him, rain spattering against the window and balcony. She reached for her phone. Shit! It was two o’clock already. She couldn’t believe it. They had slept for ages.
‘Dan!’ she shook him awake.
He moaned against her, his arm snaking lazily around her waist.
‘Dan! Wake up!’ She raised her voice, trying to get his attention. ‘Get up! We’ve so much to do. If we’re lucky we’ll make it to the stationers to look at the invitations, and I want to show you the wedding rings I saw in Weirs on Grafton Street.’
‘Can’t we leave it today?’ he protested. ‘I’m fed up looking at wedding stuff!’
‘No, we’ve got to get going!’ she insisted, trying to push and shove him out of bed. ‘This wedding is about what we both want.’
‘Look, Amy, you just go and choose what you want. I’m sure it’ll be fine with me,’ he said, trying to appease her.
‘Dan, this is our wedding. You have to be involved!’
‘I am, I promise.’ He laughed. ‘We’ve got a date booked, a church booked and a venue booked! What more do you want?’
‘Dan, there is more, a lot more!’ she countered, thinking of all the things that had to be done to get them up that aisle and married. ‘A whole lot more.’
‘Why can’t we just keep things simple? It’s all getting to be such a fecking hassle!’
‘Daniel Quinn! Don’t you dare call our wedding a hassle! I’ve been dreaming of my wedding since I was a little girl.’
Dan closed his eyes, wishing that somehow he could make it all go away. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ He tried to explain, realizing that no matter what he said he was on a losing streak. Disgruntled, he gave in and sat up and swung his long legs out from his side of the bed.
‘Hurry up,’ shouted Amy, racing for the bathroom. ‘I want you to see the cream linen invitation. Then there is the classic white, and some lovely embossed ones, and a really unusual stencilled design. We have to work out the wording and how many we need to order so we must confirm our numbers.’
Dan groaned. The guest list was proving to be an absolute nightmare as they both tried to decide what friends to invite or not and how many relations they were having along.
‘If we rush we should make it to the jewellers, too, just to get an idea about our rings,’ bossed Amy. ‘And tonight there is a great band playing in that bar down in the IFSC. They played at Tara’s cousin’s wedding and she said that they were brilliant. We should really go and watch them.’
‘I’ve arranged for us to meet up with Liam and the lads for a few drinks later,’ Dan protested.
‘We’ll do that later, but we’ll go and have a drink or two on our own and listen to the band first.’ She smiled, closing the bathroom door behind her.
Daniel stared at the floor. He normally loved Saturdays and Sundays, but ever since they had got engaged his favourite days had been swallowed up with organizing things for the wedding. Was it any wonder so many people were happy to stay the way they were, and refused to make it official?
As Amy let the hot water flow over her skin and face, and rubbed shampoo into her hair and scalp, she mentally ran through her to-do list. It would be great if Dan and she got a few more things done this weekend. She would get some sample invitations to show her family. They had made a rough guest list. They tried not to add names to it, but the list was literally growing by the day! God only knows how many people they’d end up with. Carmel Quinn had been in a bit of a huff when they’d told her last week that she could only bring sixty people to the wedding at most. It was up to her to choose who she and Eddie wanted to invite!
She had seen some photos of bridesmaid dresses in one of the Irish bridal magazines and was itching to go shopping with Ciara and Jess. Then she had all the bouquets to sort out and of course she had to order the cake.
She had intended cooking a nice dinner for Dan later this evening, but instead they could grab a pizza in town before they went to listen to the band.
The water coursed over her, and Amy let the bubbles run down her shoulders and back. She shrugged, trying to ease the knot of tension in her neck, and wished that her thoughts weren’t quite so crowded with things to do and lists and plans for the wedding.