A/N: A short one, but a good one I think. I promise the next chapter will be a monster to make up for it. I actually really enjoyed writing this chapter though. I wanted it to be longer but didn't want to drag it out, and I just think the ending is too funny to not end it there.
Please ignore any typos :D chapter slightly R near the end. Thank you for reading! xx
Paul.
"What do you think, Paul? Burgundy and grey, or brown and cream?"
I blink a few times from my slumped position at the kitchen table and sit up to look at Emily's color palettes. I thought with Indie and Leah being here that my opinion wouldn't matter.
"Um," I clear my throat. "They're both good."
Leah scoffs and shoves two photos printed on computer paper at me. The first is of a bride surrounded by bridesmaids in a light brown dress color, and the second is the same picture but the bridesmaids are in a dark red color. "Pick one!"
Sighing, I study the pictures. Indie would look good in that red… I glance at her out of the corner of my eye to find her looking back at me with those sparkling green eyes.
"Hurry up, Paul. We don't have all day! We have to go buy the dresses and get Emily fitted literally today," Leah snaps, flicking the papers in my hand to draw my attention back to them.
I roll my eyes. "Red and grey," I hand the pictures back and stretch my arms above my head.
"Burgundy!" Leah, Em, and Indie all say at the same time.
Women.
I sink back into my chair and pull out my phone to play games on while they continue wedding planning. The wedding is in two and a half weeks and every time I think it can't get any more planned than it already is, Emily keeps going and finds something else to add.
She did finally ask Indie to be a bridesmaid, along with Josie, Sarah, and Kim. She broke into my house to do it, but I decided to let that one slide because Indie was so excited when she found the gift box sitting on the end table in the living room. It was a simple white shoebox with a lace bow on top, and inside there was a fancy card asking if she would be one of Em's bridesmaids. There was other stuff in there too, like a little bottle of perfume, a gift card for a French manicure, a little bracelet which Sam let slip costed $100, and a little flower hair pin to wear in her hair on the big day.
Emily really likes Pinterest, and Sam really hates it.
There are a total of four bridesmaids and Leah as the maid of honor, which was $500 in bracelets alone. I guess it's a good thing Emily has been saving for her wedding since she was fifteen years old.
Leah flips over one of the stock photos and furiously starts sketching something with a pencil. "You should have a hot chocolate bar," she says. "Marshmallows, peppermint sticks—"
"Peppermint schnapps," I mumble under my breath.
"Actually, that's a good idea…"
"You can decorate the cocoa bar with dried leaves and log platters," Indie adds.
Emily has changed the theme three or four times over the last month and a half. First she wanted a fairytale wedding, then she wanted to push it to December for a Christmas wedding, then she wanted a pink and gold princess wedding, and now she wants a fall-themed wedding.
I've been suffering in silence through it just to be able to spend more time with Indie. She changed her work shift to help out with my old man during the day and then work the coffee shop until close. It sucks because that only leaves us with a few hours before I have patrol, so I have to take advantage of any extra time I can get.
It took a month and a half, but I'm finally at the point where I don't feel like I need to wait right outside Pa's house anymore when she's there. I think it was putting more stress on us having me sulk around like that anyways.
"I can bake, too," Indie offers. "I've been wanting to try my hand at gourmet cupcakes."
I keep quiet about the fact that she has been trying her hand at gourmet cupcakes. At all hours of the night. Jared lets me pop in throughout patrol to check on her, and lately she's been up baking and cooking and not sleeping, which is starting to worry me. But she just brushes me off when I ask.
"Ooo, it's not fall without pumpkin spice!" Emily claps her hands excitedly.
"Or salted caramel!" Leah adds.
This is where I draw the line.
"Alright, I'm out," I say jokingly, standing up and kissing the top of Indie's head. "Where are those babies?"
Emily waves me off down the hallway. "Taking a nap upstairs with Sam."
Damn, my one get-out-free card. "Okay, where's Jesse?" I ask Leah.
"Work."
Fuck. Can't catch a break. I sigh and purse my lips thoughtfully. There's one thing I can think of that'll make all of this girly wedding planning shit worth it, and that's if I get to tag along and watch Indie try on dresses.
"Do you guys want a ride to the dress shop?"
The three of them stare at me blankly. Leah cracks first and narrows her eyes at me. "Why, what are you planning?"
"Just trying to be a gentleman."
She snorts. "Okay, sure."
"I am," I say defensively.
Emily smacks Leah's arm and then smiles at me. "That would be great, Paul. Thank you."
Indie smiles at me too and stands up. "Meet you guys in the car?"
Leah's still suspicious, but she drops it and nods along with Emily. Emily heads into the kitchen to make sure there are bottles in the fridge for the babies and Indie and I go outside to start the car.
Fall came with a vengeance this morning.
I could smell the rain on the air last night, and it touched down this morning and wiped out all evidence of summer. There's never really a transition period. One day it's hot as hell and the next it's pouring rain and the temperature drops thirty degrees.
I'm okay with the rain, though. It's always been my favorite kind of weather.
"I guess I should buy some warmer clothes while we're in town," Indie says as she buckles herself into the passenger seat.
I nod and twist the key in the ignition. Even though Leah and I will be toasty warm without it, I turn on the heater to make sure it's warm enough for Indie and Em. "Yeah, it's only going to get colder the next couple months."
Gone are the days of Indie's bikinis, little shorts, and strappy tank tops. I mourn their loss the whole way into town.
The part that I thought would take the longest – Emily's fitting – ends up being the quickest. Apparently she has also had the exact style of dress she wants picked out since she was fifteen, so all they had to do was grab her measurements and order the dress to fit.
Finding the maid of honor's dress ends up being the challenge. You'd think it was Leah getting married with how damn picky she's being.
"I think this one is too long," she mumbles, coming out of the dressing room and stepping in front of the mirrors.
The first one was too short, the second one was too tight, the third one was too flowy, and now this one is too long. Well my patience is too limited for this. I know it's rubbing off on Indie and she can tell. She keeps smirking at me even though I've been sitting in perfect silence.
"Well, why don't you try on the ones you have left and Paul and I will go to the other shop and start looking there?" Indie suggests. Immediately relief flows through my body.
Leah nods. "Good idea. I'll text you if any of these end up being the one."
I want to roll my eyes at her and tell her it's just a fucking glorified bridesmaid dress and not a wedding dress, but I bite my tongue.
Indie takes my hand and tugs me along out of the shop. The rain has paused for the time being, so we walk at a leisurely pace down the sidewalk to the other shop. It dawns on me, watching her drag her fingers along the front of the shops and tap her toes in the small puddles, that this is the first fall she's experienced in years.
It hits my gut and she looks up at me immediately, so intuitively and with a softness in her eyes. It's one of those moments where neither of us need words. She just smiles a little bit and I stop walking and pull her closer, leaning down to kiss her gently. The smell of the wet pavement and her scent mingling together is incredible.
I take a deep breath through my nose and deepen the kiss.
Someone howls at us from across the street and she pulls away, cheeks tinted pink and lips slightly swollen. "Come on," she says with a smile, pulling on my hand.
Once we're in the shop, Indie starts grabbing any and every burgundy dress she can find. There are a couple other girls shopping around, but they don't stay long, and soon enough it's just us and the uninterested cashier popping her gum and scrolling through Facebook on her laptop.
I help carry the dresses to the fitting rooms in the back of the shop and hang them all on an empty rack.
"Which one should I try first?" Indie asks.
Looking through the rack, I pick out the shortest of them and hand it over with a smirk.
She rolls her eyes at me. "I did not pick this one," she says.
"I know. I added it on the way." I wink at her and sit down on the bench across from her room.
"I'll humor you, but I'm not buying this one." She laughs and shuts the fitting room door.
I never understood why fitting rooms leave a huge gap at the bottom of the door. Even I could crawl under there. I see her jeans drop and then her shirt a moment later. Knowing she's practically naked behind that door right now is really testing my self-control.
The door opens up a minute later and Indie stands there, glaring at me through pretty eyelashes. "Very wedding appropriate, Paul."
It's a strapless dress that barely covers her ass and I almost want to buy it just so I can rip it off of her later. "I think it's perfect."
"Ha ha," she laughs dryly. "Give me a real one this time."
I stand up and look through the rack again, pulling out a much more modest dress and handing it over. I smack her ass when she turns around and she shoots a playful glare over her shoulder.
She tries on a couple more dresses – some she likes and some she doesn't. We haven't heard anything from Leah and Emily yet, and this trip that I thought would maybe take an hour or two is turning into an all-day event.
The fitting room door unlocks and Indie pulls it open halfway, growling and mumbling with her arm twisted behind her back. "Can you help me? The zipper is stuck," she whines.
I take the last dress on the rack and hang it inside the fitting room, twirling my finger and motioning for her to turn around. Some of the material is bunched into the track of the zipper, but it comes loose with a quick tug. I pull the zipper down her back slowly, watching the sides of the dress part and reveal her smooth skin until it pools at her feet.
She's wearing a pale cream bra and a pair of thin, seamless underwear to match. I bite my lip and reach behind me for the other dress. It ties high at the neck and has an exposed back. Just the right amount of modest in the front and skin in the back.
Goosebumps prickle on her arms as I slide the dress over her head, moving her hair to the side so I can tie the thin strings behind her neck. It's flowy and fits her loosely, dipping down her back to just above her waist. I scrape more hair to the side and kiss the back of her neck, trailing my lips down her spine and moving my hands down the sides of her body as I do.
When I reach the end of the dress, I kneel down and turn her with my hands on her hips. The soft material reaches mid-thigh, a few inches above her knees, and looks beautiful on her. I kiss the inside of her knee and start moving up the inside of her leg.
"Paul," she whispers. She's trying to protest, but I can tell she doesn't want to. Her legs are nearly shaking already.
"I think this is the one," I say huskily, my breath hot against her skin.
The dress allows me room to move my head under it, kissing along until I reach the sweet center between her thighs. I pull her underwear down just enough to kiss the soft skin and dip my tongue between her folds.
Her breath hitches.
I pull out from under the dress and stand up, pressing her into the wall and sliding my fingers between her legs. She's slick with excitement and holds onto my shoulders as I part her lips with my tongue, pushing my fingers inside of her.
She whimpers softly and lifts one leg around my waist. I hook my forearm under it to hold her steady and move my fingers slowly inside of her. I want her so fucking bad, but I know she won't let me get away with that here, so I settle on this and breathing in the intoxicating scent of her arousal.
Pulling away from the kiss, her head tilts back and I move to her neck, sucking the skin in the hollow dip of her jaw. I hear the front door of the shop open but ignore it and work my fingers faster, feeling her body starting to tighten around them.
"Come on, baby," I groan into her skin.
She makes the cutest, strangled moan as her orgasm hits and her legs almost give out. I keep hold of the one around my waist to make sure she doesn't fall and sloppily kiss along the underside of her jaw.
"Indie? Paul?"
Both of our heads snap to the fitting room door which I just realized I never shut. I slam it shut and slide the lock through just as Leah and Emily come around the corner into the back.
"Seriously?" Leah asks. It's a little weird that she can smell my girl's arousal, but at least Emily is oblivious.
I smile at Indie and give her one more soft kiss before unlocking and opening the door. "She needed help with the zipper," I reply, shrugging as I take my seat on the bench again.
Indie does a small twirl and Leah scoffs.
"It doesn't even have a zipper!"