A Wall Between

Chapter 44

After Ellie had finished with all the hair and makeup, they went and found Bianca and Logan where everything was being set up in the back garden to show them. Sasha had just had Ellie neaten his hair up a little, but she'd put a tiny bit of makeup on Cooper. Just enough to brighten his features a little without making it obvious he had anything on.

Cooper had seemed so deflated after the conversation with his mother, but he'd bounced back now and he was happy to twirl around and show off his outfit.

"You guys look fantastic," Bianca told them. "I'm sorry your mum made you feel bad, Cooper. I don't care about everything being perfect. The memories I want to keep aren't the perfectly polished ones."

"Thanks," Cooper said. "I know it's just her, but she gets in my head sometimes. Are your parents coming?"

"No, not for the wedding," Bianca said. "They moved to Ireland a few years ago, so it's a bit of a trip for them. We're not really big event people and they both work, so we decided that it would be much better for them to come over once the baby is born. That matters far more."

"It might be for the best, honestly," Cooper said. "Our family can be... a lot."

"Oh, I've noticed," Bianca said. "I did invite some friends from work, so I'll have a bit of backup, at least. It feels so strange to be the centre of attention in all of this."

"Well, according to my mother, I'm trying to be the centre of attention instead, so... you're welcome."

"Oh, I wish you would," Bianca said. "I'm sure you'd do a much better job of it."

"I'd put on the dress for you, but I don't think we're the same size and then also I'd have to marry my brother, which would not be ideal."

"That's true. I guess I'll just have to brave it out and marry him myself."

Logan pressed a kiss against her cheek. "You'd better."

Before too long, guests started arriving, and Sasha was given the task of being introduced to people. He said it's nice to meet you a lot and not much else. Whenever anyone asked him any questions, his roommates were there to deflect. It was great when he didn't have to explain what he did 'for a living' because Abra was there to quickly launch into an explanation about his food business since Sasha was helping with that. Abra could talk about that endlessly and even did a convincing job of looking like he was deeply interested whenever people would make suggestions that really weren't useful in their particular situation.

Sasha wasn't putting names, faces, or how any of these people were related to Cooper to memory, but Cooper fully knew that, so Sasha didn't let it worry him too much. At least everyone was being nice. Some of them were even a little too nice, to the point that it felt like they were going overboard to make sure that nobody would think that they had a problem with Cooper dating a guy. People did that sometimes. It was fine. Sasha got anxious about all sorts of things and acted strangely sometimes, so he wasn't about to judge them for it.

The ceremony was going to be held out in the garden, and they had front row seats. Sasha would have preferred to have sat in the back, but dating the brother of the groom came with certain burdens and this was one of them.

Mason unslung his kitten sling from around his neck as he approached them and held the bundle out to Sasha, the kitten making its objections to being disrupted known as loudly as it could muster. "Can you hold him during the ceremony? I want to get some pictures."

Sasha nodded as he accepted the kitten.

"Thanks," Mason said as he helped Sasha put the sling on. "They hired a professional wedding photographer, of course, but they're only going to take pictures of the nice moments. Make everything look all rosy and perfect. Me, I document things how they are. Sometimes that involves nice pictures, but not always."