Completely & Stupidly: Forever and Ever

Chapter 11. Charity

 Wednesday turned out to be a rare time where both Charity and Vanessa had a day off together, midweek. On such days, they would normally take full advantage of having the house to themselves, but with a million and one things to do before the wedding, which was now only three days away, they had no time for canoodling, or so Vanessa said. "Stuff for my hen party will be here at eleven, yours is being delivered to the pub straight after, our flowers are being dropped off here early afternoon-" Vanessa spoke up from behind her wedding planning journal, and was cut off by an already bored Charity from across the room. "What time is early afternoon?" She interrupted. "I've no idea, one or two maybe? Anyway, the hairdresser is coming to do me in an hour or so, so I need to find a way to get rid of you-" Vanessa rambled, causing Charity to interrupt once more. "Please tell me you heard what you just said" she scoffed. "I heard it the second it left my mouth" Vanessa smiled, but tried not to get side tracked as she attempted to set their busy schedule for the day, while pacing back and forth across the room. Charity shook her head and gulped down her last mouthful of cereal. With all the hectic planning, they'd forgotten to do their big food shop and had run out of pretty much everything besides coco pops and cartoon shaped tinned spaghetti, so Vanessa was stressed out to the max worrying about anything else they may have forgotten to do. "I need to call the food people with the final number of RSVPs, go over the seating chart one last time and after that I need to double check that we signed the marriage license properly. Oh and, I need to call the printers to see if we can finally pick up the name cards for the tables today, if so, will you go and get them because I have to-" Once again, Charity interrupted Vanessa, but this time not with words. She took the journal from her hands and dropped it onto the sofa, and wrapped her arms around her little bundle of stress. Vanessa buried her face into Charity's chest and hugged her back, catching her breath and trying to relax while listening to the sound of Charity's heart beating through her shirt. She felt her warmth connect them as she took her hand and entwined their fingers together, then began to sway on the spot. "What are you doing?" Vanessa asked, her words accompanied by a quiet giggle as Charity twirled her around. "Dancing with you" Charity replied, "Thought I'd sneak in some practice before the big day" she added, her voice soft and her arms offering the warmth and security Vanessa so loved. Vanessa's smile grew and her eyes glistened as she looked up at her. "Feel better now?" Charity asked, sensing that the building agitation in Vanessa's demeanour seemed to vanish before her eyes as she held her in her arms. "Much better, thank you" Vanessa grinned, placing her lips upon Charity's. "Good, now, go upstairs, have a shower, put on something comfy and leave me to call all these people for you" she insisted, leading Vanessa to the foot of the stairs. "Are you sure?" Vanessa asked, with puppy dog eyes. "Yeah, how hard can it be with the gob I've got? I dare anybody to say no to that" Charity joked, pointing at her own face before picking up the journal from the sofa. "Go on" She added, waving Vanessa off up the stairs. Vanessa planted another soft kiss on Charity's lips and took off, leaving her to chase up all those loose ends.

"Call me Mrs Organised, I reckon I did alright there" Charity called out from the kitchen table when Vanessa came back downstairs. "I'd prefer to call you Mrs Dingle" Vanessa stated, raising an eyebrow playfully. "How'd you do?" She added when she received an approving nod back from Charity. "Well, the name cards weren't going to be ready today, so I threatened the guy on the receiving end, made out I thought the company were being homophobic, so now not only can we pick them up at the end of the day; we are also getting a ten percent discount as a personal apology for any offence they may have caused" Charity told, proud of herself. Vanessa snorted. "Ha, serves them right, they've had weeks to get those cards printed. What else has my Mrs Organised gotten done?", "Umm, Harriet has already double and triple checked the marriage license so we will be officially and legally wed on Saturday, and the rsvp's have been finalised, I'm just waiting on a call back from the flower company with a more realistic drop off time, and I'm halfway through checking the seating arrangements" Charity grinned, impressed with herself. "Wow, if I'd have known you'd be this good at chasing things up I'd have lumbered all this on you weeks ago" Vanessa joked, joining her at the table. Charity reached her hand out across the table top and took a firm hold on Vanessa's. "Anything for you, Mrs Dingle to be" Charity winked. Vanessa felt a warm fluttering course through her body. "Mrs Dingle" Vanessa repeated, her entire face glowing with a pink blush as she imagined her married name in writing. "What are you thinking about?" Charity asked as Vanessa seemed to gaze ahead, not really looking at anything in particular. "I was thinking that, it's going to take a lot of self-control not to run down that aisle to you on Saturday" she confessed. "Take your time babe, I'll be waiting for you with open arms" Charity smiled, one side creeping higher up her face than the other as she leaned in for a kiss, but before they could lock lips, the doorbell rang. "That'll be your dirty, naughty hen stuff" Charity announced. Vanessa tutted, embarrassed. "It's not dirty or naughty. It's just a couple of games and bits and bobs" she chirped, leaving the table to answer the door. Charity poked her tongue against her cheek and smiled wickedly, but Vanessa bit hers and opened the door. "Hi, thanks very much" she greeted the delivery man. "Blimey, how much did you get?" Charity scoffed rushing to Vanessa's aid as she turned around holding five brown boxes, desperately trying to peak over the top of them as they piled up over her head. "It's not that much, is it?" Vanessa asked, already afraid that she'd overspent. "Depends what it is, and I have an inkling it's not a bunch of willy whistles and plastic straws", "Erg, no. It's just, some things", "Naughty things" Charity teased. "Stop it" Vanessa laughed, placing two of the boxes that she'd been left with on the table. Charity sighed audibly, "Well then, I think I'll go chase after that guy and rummage through my own naughty boxes" She added, doing an excited shimmy that surprised her, as well as Vanessa. Then she grabbed her coat off the hook and skipped out of the door, blowing a kiss as she pulled it shut behind her.