Make It to the Altar

by Fiona Cole

She shot out of bed, almost knocking me off the edge, and glared at me with incredulous eyes.

  “No. Big. Deal?” she asked slowly.

  Nervous about the change, I decided to stick with my plan. Usually, Ana appreciated when I took things off her plate. Sure, it was little things like what to wear and what’s for dinner, but I could do this too.

  “I’ll take care of it. I’ll find another bakery and tell them what you picked out with the other baker. Strawberry and vanilla, right? Buttercream frosting and the white flowers?” I listed off as many details I remembered, letting her know I’d listened and knew what to do.

  “Seriously, Kevin?” Her eyes narrowed, and her low, angry tone froze my body. I let it freeze my mouth too. There was no good answer to that one.

  “I spent a month picking out that cake. It’s not a simple strawberry cake. It’s not just white flowers. Each cake is different. I spent a month alone vetting reviews and credentials. Another month tasting different cakes. It’s not as simple as you swooping in and just saying strawberry.”

  “I didn’t mean it was.” I tried to backtrack and diffuse the anger I’d sparked. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s so-so much more than that. So mu-much more time and e-energy.” Her shoulders collapsed, and her hands cradled her face as she broke down again. “I had it picked out a month ago and that was cutting it close. God, Kevin, what if we don’t have a cake? What if our two-hundred and fifty guests show up and there’s no cake?”

  My eyes bugged out. Two-hundred and fifty? When the hell did that number get so high? I opened my mouth to ask but thought better of it. Instead, I pulled her close.

  She pressed her forehead to my chest, her tears soaking my white shirt, and her slim hands clinging to the lapels of my jacket. I may not have been able to pick out a cake for her, but I could at least be there when she broke down. I could be there when she needed me to hold her together.

  “Shh, shh.” I pressed kisses to the crown of her head and whispered softly that it was okay and that I was there for her however she needed me.

  My mind flicked to the bottle of wine and the candles I’d planned on dripping all over her body.

  And I ignored them.

  Gently, I laid her down, loving the way she held on tight, afraid I was going to leave her.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Anabelle. I’m going to take my jacket off and curl up next to you.”

  She nodded, and I stripped my jacket, shirt, and shoes before lying beside her. Knowing we wouldn’t be going out tonight, I grabbed my phone and searched for the number to the closest Italian restaurant, knowing she’d want comfort food.

  “I’m going to call Angelo’s and have them deliver. What do you want?”

  “You decide, please.”

  I smiled, pride filling my body. Even if she didn’t’ trust me to pick out a cake, she still needed me to take care of her.

  It had taken us two weeks to have sex after that. Each night I came home hopeful, but Ana collapsed into a stressful ball. She spent most nights buried in a wedding magazine with a laptop on her crossed legs, a pad of paper next to her and a pen in her mouth as she scrunched her eyebrows at all the options.

  My cock ached as I thought about throwing that pen aside and putting her mouth to better use. But many nights, she’d start falling asleep before she’d even cleared the mess surrounding her.

  I did whatever I could to help. While I took her cues about sex, I was still able to assert my dominance. Each morning I laid out clothes for her. Some days without panties just because I could. I’d order her dinner when we went out, and while she rambled endlessly about options for the wedding, I would wash her back and her hair in the shower.

  It might not have been sex, but at least it was an intimacy unique to our relationship.

  At least until a couple of nights ago, when she came out of our home office after scheduling a photographer and pounced on me. I’d been so shocked, that she’d managed to get my pants undone before I realized what was happening. I’d tossed her to the floor and tortured her with my mouth as I licked and sucked for almost an hour before I let her come.

  Fuck, she’d tasted extra sweet that night.

  And we'd been doing fine since. We didn't talk about her pulling back because I knew she was stressed and handling it the best she could. And to help out, I'd followed her lead and let her decide our intimacy.

  While Ana was on the phone with Shayla, her dad’s wife, talking about the seating chart for the wedding, I hopped into the shower and thought about the possibilities for the night. The weather was warm and clear, and I couldn’t wait to spend time with my fiancée.

  I walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around my waist, when Ana came storming in, flinging the door open so hard, it slammed against the stopper.

  “You will not fucking believe my father.”

  “What happened?”

  She began pacing. “I had just finished the seating chart after another phone call with Shayla. God love that woman for helping me, but that many phone calls with someone who loves Jesus that much is exhausting. I’m pretty sure God doesn’t care where I seat our guests.”

  “Valid point,” I said, chuckling, but she didn’t even hear me. She kept pacing, her hands waving as she talked.

  "So, we're done. Finally. And not ten minutes later my dad messages me, asking me to move him because of Diane, my mom's best friend, is still mad at him over their divorce and it would make him uncomfortable,” Ana said, using air quotes, “to be seated next to someone who hated him so much. And that he wouldn’t want to be uncomfortable,” more air quotes, “at his daughter’s wedding.”

  “Then don’t change it.” It seemed almost too easy a fix to be upset about.

  “Then he says it would probably make Shayla uncomfortable too, and he would hate that after all the help she has given me.”

  “Ana.” I raised my voice to get her attention. “You don’t have to change it.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to make two-hundred and fifty people happy? Huh?” she shouted, her arms thrown wide.

  Stressed and angry, she was off on another tangent. I knew how to calm her down and get rid of her anger. I’d smother it with pleasure.

  “Ana, come here.”

  She walked toward me. “I just can’t believe he had the gall to ask me that. Like he’s the most important person.”

  I gripped her arms and pulled her into me, grinding my growing erection to her core as I leaned down to bite her neck.

  “God, he makes me so damn mad,” she continued even though I was doing my best.

  Obviously, I was being too subtle. I leaned down further and bit her nipple through her thin top.

  “Ow!” she jerked back and stared at me with furrowed brows. “Kevin, that hurt, and I’m not in the mood for you to bite on me.”

  She turned before she could see my eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. I didn’t think Ana had ever pulled away from me quite as harshly as she just had. I took a deep breath, pushing back the pinch of hurt, and did what I had done with the cake debacle; followed her lead.

  Her shoulders lifted and fell with a heavy sigh and her hands dug into her hair. "Can we. . . can we just veg out on the couch and watch some TV? I just need a night to decompress."

  Follow her lead. Follow her lead.

  “Yeah, babe. Whatever you want.”

  3

  Ana

  “What do you mean there was an issue with the greenhouse?” I asked, my voice high and edged in panic.

  “Ma’am, I’m so sorry. One of the assistants didn’t properly schedule the watering, and we didn’t catch on until too late. The flowers can’t be as wet as they have gotten and because it took so long to notice, a fungal disease formed,” the lady on the other end of the line explained calmly.

  “Isn’t there a way to fix it? Can’t you get rid of the fungal growth? I mean, there’s still time.”

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am.”

  I sw
ear to god if she kept calling me ma’am and saying she was sorry, I was going to lose it. I didn’t need this shit. It was like this month was filled with disasters determined to ruin our wedding.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I asked, a sob catching in my throat.

  “I can recommend some other suppliers, but with only three months’ notice, I’m not sure they would have the amount we’d initially agreed upon. You could always come in and take a look, or check our albums online. I’ve heard carnations are really big this year.”

  I pulled a slow deep breath in through my nose, letting it expand my chest as I dug deep for patience. The edge of the kitchen counter bit into my hand, and my nail beds were turning white from how hard I squeezed.

  Slowly, I ground out through a clenched jaw, “I don’t want carnations. I didn’t ask for carnations. I wanted calla lilies. White freaking calla lilies.”

  “Accidents happen, ma’am. We are losing our whole product. Everyone is affected.”

  I knew everyone was affected, but in that moment, all I could focus on was how this affected me, selfish as it may have been. “This is my wedding.”

  “Again, I’m so sorry. I know how important this day is to any bride, and to have such a traumatic issue occur must be hard.” I swallowed down a scream. “Like I said, please come in and we can discuss an alternative. We would love to help you find another perfect floral arrangement.”

  My chest rose and fell, faster and faster as darkness crept around the edge of my vision. I dropped my chin to my chest and let my hair fall around me, hiding from the world. “I’m going to have to call you back.”

  I didn't even wait for an answer. I just swiped my thumb across the end button and turned to slide down the cabinets. My bottom hit the floor and I pulled my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.

  The apartment was empty, only the sounds of my heavy breathing and the afternoon news playing on the television from across the other side of the island I was hiding behind. Kevin was at work, if not on his way home already.

  Fuck. Kevin.

  A tear slid down my cheek as I thought of my fiancé. He’d been so patient with me over the past month as things slowly started going wrong. The closer we got to the wedding, the higher my stress levels reached. When school let out a few weeks ago, I turned all my attention to the details of the wedding and ached over every decision. To see so many of those decisions falling through and weighing on my shoulders was starting to crush me.

  It showed in my relationship with Kevin. He’d try to help control the chaos and take on some of the burden, but I became snappish; angry at him for thinking it would be so easy to just give a command and the decision was made. This was our wedding. There would be two-hundred and fifty people there all looking at the wedding I chose to have. Would they find it lacking? Good enough?

  Hell, it’d been a week since we’d had sex. A week.

  Saying Kevin and I had a healthy sex life would have been an understatement. After it took us so long to finally find each other and accept the parts of ourselves that most wouldn’t, the parts of us that snapped into place perfectly, we hadn’t held back.

  We'd had sex every opportunity we could, wherever we could. We experimented in ways we never could have imagined in high school. We were each other's playland, and I loved every single moment of it. He owned me, body and soul, and I gave it to him freely. Allowing him to take that weight off my shoulders. I could come home and shut off for the day, knowing he would love me and care for me in a way I didn’t even have to think about.

  He’d find new ways to pleasure me, make me watch what he’d found on the internet before actually doing it. Sometimes he’d wait after showing me, letting the anticipation of what it would feel like fill me to almost bursting. Then, when I was sure I’d come from a single touch alone, he would begin enacting his plan. God, I loved him. Loved the way he loved me.

  Roughly. Painfully. Sweetly.

  I was his Ana, and I didn’t want to be anyone else.

  But why would he want to be with a woman who was turning into a snapping shrew, too consumed with this wedding and all the decisions to focus on sex? To relax enough to let my body feel it. I’d pulled away from him too many times, and I felt horrible. But my brain was in overdrive, and I found it hard to focus.

  Colors, dresses, food, drinks, location, invitations, flowers, cakes, parties, and then add ten more things that I would never have imagined. It never stopped.

  And every person I knew had their own opinion to toss in or an issue they needed addressed. Last week, Kevin had to deal with the aftermath after my father had messaged me asking me to move his seat, right when I'd finally finished the damn seating chart. Of course, I lost it.

  And maybe it wouldn’t have been too hard to move one seat, but it had irritated the shit out of me that my father was only concerned for himself. Kevin had to deal with my anger over it for the rest of the night. He’d held me and commiserated with me. And never once had he told me I was overreacting or ruining his night. He just sat with me and rubbed my feet until I passed out on the couch. Carrying me to bed, to, once again, go another night without sex.

  He was going to leave me before we even made it to the altar.

  Hell, it had been two weeks before we had sex after finding out that the bakery we ordered our cake from had closed up shop without notice or refunding our money. I’d cried every night when I thought about all that money and how I had to find another baker.

  I was sick and tired of shit going wrong and adding to all the stress of having to make these decisions.

  I just wanted to marry Kevin. I just wanted to call him my husband and spend my life with him. I was tired of waiting.

  Thudding my head back on the wood cabinet, I tried to calm down. I needed to take deep breaths, find my center. If I had to buy flowers from Walmart, then so be it.

  The news report coming from the television floated across the cabinets, seeming louder in the depressed silence that hung in our apartment.

  “I can’t believe a church that had such an important history in Cincinnati is now gone,” the newscaster said. “Gianna is on the scene of the disastrous fire that claimed St. Mary’s.”

  “Thank you, Andy. The fire marshal believes that the fire was most likely caused by faulty wiring, which is typical in such an old building. Thankfully, none of the nearby buildings suffered significant damage.”

  No. No, no, no, no.

  I scrambled to my feet to watch the news. A woman stood there in her black suit and white pressed shirt, holding a microphone and looking distraught as smoke and flames licked at the church behind her, which was unrecognizable other than the sign that stood about ten feet in front of it.

  St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

  St. Mary’s. The church we had waited for and somehow scored a date with due to a cancellation. The church where I was supposed to become Mrs. Kevin Harding.

  Where the hell was I supposed to do that now?

  I gripped the counter tightly and let loose a frustrated scream. I didn’t care who heard me.

  4

  Kevin

  I had an extra pep in my step when I exited the elevator. My shoulders back, determination etched all over my face, I approached our apartment. I was going to walk into that apartment and take control of my fiancée.

  She’d been so stressed since she turned her full attention to the wedding. Add in the issue with the cake, and everyone offering their opinion, and I knew she was crumbling. My Ana. I’d been handling her with kid gloves, being her support as she shared her worries with me. I’d taken care of her the best I could and didn’t push when she turned away from sex.

  But holding her hand until she fell asleep after a long cry wasn’t what she needed. She needed me to take control and give her a moment in the week where she could let go and not even think about the wedding.

  So, with a bottle of wine in my hand and a plan to seduce my fiancée, I stuck my key in the door, ready to
claim my prize, until I heard the feral, agonized scream on the other side of the door. My fingers fumbled, and I almost dropped the keys. Frantically, I shoved the key into the lock and slammed the door open, running down the hallway, wine bottle overhead, ready to use it as a weapon. I slid into the great area and looked to the right to see the living room empty.

  I looked to the left to find a distraught Ana, her chest heaving over quick breaths as she glared at the TV.

  "Fuck, Ana. Are you okay?" I barely got the words out, my heart pounding a thousand miles a minute, trying to come down from the adrenaline coursing through my body. I took a deep breath and walked toward the island to set the wine down. "Ana." I said her name again when her eyes glazed over with tears.

  “Our church.” That was all she said, barely croaking it out as she lifted her hand, gesturing toward the TV.

  “What?” I rounded the island, approaching her like I would a wild animal.

  “Our church, it’s gone.” The first tear fell when I reached her, and I pulled her into my arms. Rocking her, I looked to see what was on TV, and sure enough, there was a newscast covering how the church we were supposed to get married in had burnt down. Fuck me. Ana loved that church.

  “Shh. Shh.” I ran my hands down her long hair. “We’ll find a new one.”

  “Find a new one?” She jerked her head back, brows lowered, mouth pinched. “That church was a miracle, and now it's fucking gone. Where are we going to find another church, Kevin?" She pulled out of my arms with a humorless laugh. "We'll add it to the list, right after a new bakery." Running her hands through her hair, she walked to the edge of the island and tossed her arms wide. "Oh, yeah. We need to find another florist because we won't be able to get our flowers after some twelve-year-old fucked it all up."

  “What?” I was trying to follow what she was saying, but the way she rambled and was choking back sobs made it difficult. My mind was spinning with ways to keep up. "The flowers?"