Complicated | Calum Hood (Sequel to Unexpected)

15.

Jes

"Today's the day, little P." I whisper as I pull her from the pack and play she'd slept in last night. "Momma is so nervous. What if daddy doesn't like what mommy picked out? You think he'll like it P?"

"Yeah!" She cries. I don't know that she really understands what I'm asking but it's nice to have some positive energy even if it's just from my 19-month old.

"I really hope so P. You ready to go see Auntie Mali and Auntie Lena?"

She flashes me her biggest smile and I hold her close and kiss her forehead. I grab the bags I had packed last night and head out the door to my car. Cal had stayed in a hotel last night. There were already enough non-traditional pieces of our wedding day, the groom not seeing the bride until we said 'I do' was one thing I planned to do the old fashioned way.

I wrangle PK into her car seat before I slide behind the wheel of my Range Rover and make the short drive over to the event space on my dad's vineyard. When it had come time to select the 'where' for our wedding we'd been unable to think of anywhere better to serve as the backdrop for our wedding. The weather was perfect, the perks of living in California,  I guess. Even in December, the temperature was in the high fifties and low sixties Fahrenheit, keeping our guests comfortable with the help of a few space heaters.

"Jes!" Mali screams running at me with arms open. I drop my bags and extend my free arm to her allowing her to envelop Pais and myself into a hug.

"You're getting married today! You're gonna be my sister!"

I feel a bubble of excitement in my chest at her words and I just tighten my arms around her.

"Dang it, Mal! You can't make me cry already! I've got to at least try to hold it together today."

"Yeah, ok, Jes." She says rolling her eyes. "I know you, so I brought a giant pack of tissues."

I laugh and bend down to let Paisley walk on her own. She grips my hand tightly as we walk hand in hand to the prep area.

"Is anyone else here yet?" I ask turning my head to the side to look at Mali.

"Yep! The gang's all here!"

I feel myself smile then, the butterflies in my stomach out of control as the nervousness settles in.

I'm marrying Calum today.

•

"Wait, so you guys did what?" I ask laughing in disbelief as Mali tells stories of she and Cal's childhood. In this particular moment she's recounting a time when she and her girlfriends had convinced Calum to be their beauty parlor client and after making him look like a clown with makeup accidentally cutting his hair for real.

"He cried like a baby. I think it's why he's still so touchy about his hair. He had to shave it all off so it could regrow evenly after that, I think it was traumatizing."

"And yet it didn't cause him to shy away from makeup."

"He just wants to a be a pretty boy." Mali says with a laugh and I join her.

"I love it. Something about him and glitter, it gets me  all hot and bothered." I say gazing off as I think about when Cal let's me do it for him.

"Okay, okay, stop." She says plugging her ears with her fingers, "Some things a sister just doesn't need to know about her brother and his sex life is one of them."

I shrug my shoulders unembarrassed.

"You're done!" The makeup artists says to Lena who's been sitting quietly in the chair being pampered. Lena, my maid of honor, is the last of the girls to get her makeup done, making me next. It's getting real. I move from the comfortable couch I've been relaxing on drinking mimosa, and take my place in the chair. We've been over how I want to look today so I try to relax.