Supernova Souls - Ryan Upchurch

-59-

one year later

                                         —
Wedding planning has been a mess throughout recent months, especially with a baby around and the holidays coming up quicker than ever.

Delilah and Ryan both have been hot messes, rushing everything to hurry and get the work done on the ranch and get everything fixed up and ready for the upcoming wedding.

Which is tomorrow.

They've come to a conclusion that instead of having it inside of one of the many nearby churches to clean up the backyard barn and decorate it since it had the perfect amount of separate rooms, windows and wide open spaces.

By the time the place had been finished—with the help of Delilah's and Ryan's friends— they both were too tired to even cook dinner, and instead just picked up their daughter from Sam's and then went to Sonic, too lazy for anything involving more work.

The slow drip drip dripping of the rain and the lively sounds of the Ashland City wildlife was a soft symphony flowing through the windowpanes above the bed. Big block Chevys and wild roars from too-expensively built engines was a distant noise from the television at the foot of the bed atop the dresser. People yelled and gunshots sounded, but hey, that's just normal TV nowadays.

Waylon curled up at Ryan's feet beside a now fully grown Ranger, both half asleep and barely holding their little brown eyes open. Both dogs spent the day playing together outside in the late November air with an old tennis ball Waylon chewed up two months prior. Mary Jane was laying in between Ryan and Delilah, belly up and head on Delilah's chest. She spent her day laying in a cool corner of the barn beside Zach eating whatever Elain dropped for her, being her usual lazy, cute self.

Elain laid half on her mama and half on MJ, her head on the dog's chest while she soundly slept and the rest of her snuggled up against her mother.

She hadn't cried since she got home from her pawpaw's house.

She wailed for hours when left with Zach, only a little with Sam, and was only quiet and well behaved for Vinnie. Once she saw her mama and daddy, she quieted down completely and snuggled up to her daddy on the way home.

Delilah, of course, drove them all back home in the turquoise Squarebody.

"If they don't get that Roy guy I swear, I will go an' kill him my dang self." Delilah said, focused completely on the tv and the overly dramatic show playing. Ryan laughed to himself, shaking his head ever so slightly while looking down at his two baby girls, Mary Jane and Elain.

They looked adorable. MJ always was a loving dog who would lie with you for hours no matter what. Flames could begin devouring Ghost Ranch whole and she'd still lie in bed. She was a great mama when she give birth to her first litter of puppies and she's always loved human children too.

After so long she had at last been blessed with her own little human. A gentle girl to be that little girl's best friend for years to come.

Ryan propped his head up on his arms and closed his eyes, going over lyrics in his mind while overly aware of the golden ring adorning his left hand.

He'd commissioned a matching set made specifically for them. Delilah's was a thin golden band designed to look like vines that had individual flowers made of sapphires to imitate Forget-me-nots—her favorite flowers— with emerald leaves. Barbed wire intertwinted with the vines on her ring, creating a mixture of black and gold. The imprint of her flowery ring was imprinted around his entire ring, the color a rich gold with black flakes throughout. Inside of his ring's band it read, Fall.