22

Reece 

Shelbie ended up staying away another three days. Her and Jayden are on speaking terms, but she's been staying in another room with Kester by her side. I don't blame her; I'd be doing the same thing if Asher did that to me.

Jayden had come up to me an hour after she returned and asked when the best time was to ask her the big question. At that time, she had come down and was watching tv with Kester, not paying attention to us.

"Well..." I stared at her a bit longer before looking back to Jayden. "She still needs time to think. She may be talking with you, but she hasn't forgiven you. When she does forgive you, I'd wait about another day or so, then ask her gently when the two of you are alone."

He nodded slowly. "I was planning on taking her to the park, or something."

"That would work." I nodded approvingly. "Now, don't get bent out of shape if she doesn't answer right away."

"Understood." He gave one final glance at Shelbie before calling out that he will be up in the room. All she did was nod. He let out a small sigh, then went up.

I sat beside Shelbie on the couch as she lightly bounced Kester on her lap. "Hey, everything alright?"

She nodded. "Just... thinking, I guess."

"About?" I prompted.

"About when I should forgive him." She responded. "I want to, but my mind is blank and won't give me an answer. I don't know what to do."

"You'll know when the time is right." I assured her as I draped an arm over her shoulder. "I promise. Your heart and mind will let you know."

"Thanks, Reece." She said with a small smile.

I returned it. "Anything for a friend." We fell silent after that and proceeded to watch what ever happened to be on the channel for babies.

My eye twitched as one of the shows did something weird. "I prefer Blues Clues and all those other shows we grew up with."

"Oh my gosh, me too!" Shelbie exclaimed. "We totally have to buy all the good things for our kids! To Amazon!"

I laughed at her. "Oh, Shelbie..."

"But I'm only getting the first few seasons of Blues Clues." She suddenly piped up with. "The ones with Joe are horrible!"

"I hear ya, sister." We laughed at that and began talking about all the old, amazing shows we watched as kids and how we have to find them for our kids; every single last one of them.

At some point during our talk, Asher came down and handed Emma to me. "Nyl needs me for patrol."

"That's fine." I cooed at Emma as I brought her into my lap, making her giggle. Asher pecked my lips before he left, saying he would be gone a for few hours.

Shelbie and I picked right back up with our conversation as if it had never been interrupted.

"Hey, I have an idea!" Shelbie stood and balanced Kester on her hip. "We can go on Amazon right now and see if we can find the shows we grew up with!"

"Great idea!" I stood up and followed her to the computer room, Emma's head resting on my shoulder. Shelbie pulled up Amazon and we began our search for all the shows we loved growing up. We found and ordered Blues Clues, Bear in the Big Blue House, Rolie Polie Olie, Little Bear, Franklin, PB&J Otter, PowerPuff Girls, Dragon Tales, everything we could think of! We had a pretty hefty list, as well as a lot of money spent. But it's for a good cause! Our kids would be growing up with the best shows ever, just like we did. Plus, they won't have to wait a week for the new show to air on tv.

This is going to be glorious. Reliving the glory days of tv while giving our children an amazing experience.

"Reece?" Shelbie and I looked up from purchasing all the seasons of Teen Titans to see my mom walking into the room. "Hey, sweetheart. What're you two up to?"

"Getting amazing shows for our kids." Shelbie replied. "We don't want them watching the crud on tv right now and want them to grow up with the good stuff."

Mom chuckled at us. "Well, Shelbie. If you don't mind, I need to borrow Reece for a while."

"What for?" We turned completely from the computer screen.

"Her and I are going to look for wedding venues."

I blinked slowly. "We... what? Mom, I don't even know when we're going to have the wedding! Aren't we supposed to set an approximate date before finding the venue? Plus, Asher and I are supposed to pick the venue together!"

"Well, where is he?" She placed her hands on her hips.

"On patrol." I replied. "He won't be done for a few hours."

"Oh no." Mom started shaking her head. "No, no, no, no, no. I am not waiting another day to do this. Do you realize how many people actually get married? All of the good places will be taken and we'll be stuck with the shi-"

"Mom!" I quickly cut her off and pressed one of Emma's ears to my chest and covered the other.

She cleared her throat. "Crumby. We'll be stuck with the crumby venues that no one wants. It won't fit everyone and people will be miserable. Speaking of people, how many do you plan on inviting? That will also help decide the size and location of the venue."

"Uh..." Crap, I never even thought about that. "W-well, we need to invite the entire pack... the alpha's and their mates of the neighboring packs... friends and their families... family..." Damn, that's at least two to three hundred people...

"Exactly." Mom crossed her arms. "As I said, the good ones will be gone before we can even start searching for a place! We're going today and booking a reservation."

I took in a deep breath and let it out in a gusty sigh. "Fine... Let me go find Lana so she can tell Asher what we're doing..." I shifted Emma a bit to get her a little more comfortable before leaving the room to go find Lana.

I found her in her room with Gaven on her lap. She was lightly bouncing him and making small squeak noises, and he was loving it. He has a grin from ear to ear and is giggling like crazy.

I knocked on her door frame and she looked up. "Oh, hey Reece. I didn't see you there. What do you need?"

I took a deep breath and stepped into her room, then sat in front of her on the bed. "I need you to contact Asher for me."

"What for?" She asked. "Can't you connect through him via the Connection?"

"I'm not a Wolf, Lana. I can only let him feel my emotions. I can't speak directly to him like you can. This needs to be told to him." I said. "I'm going to be leaving."

She blinked slowly. "Where...?"

I looked back to Emma, then to Lana. "My mom wants me to come with her to look at venues. She won't wait for Asher, who is on patrol right now. She wants to go today so we don't miss out on the good places."

She nodded in understanding. "Alright, I'll be sure to tell him. You have fun, okay?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, whatever... Thanks, Lana."

"No problem." With that, I stood to leave the room then head back to mine. I grabbed everything Emma would need and put it in her diaper bag, then went to go meet my mom downstairs. I convinced her to take Asher's car, since Emma's car seat is already strapped in there, and I didn't feel like moving it.

Eventually, I got mom into the drivers seat so we could leave. I made sure Emma was strapped in tight before I got in the passenger's side and buckled. Finally, we pulled away from the pack house and went on our long hunt for a venue...

~~~~

"No more searching..." I collapsed face first onto my bed. "I'm done... don't ever make me do this again..."

Mom chuckled from Emma's crib. "Oh, Reece. It wasn't that bad! At least you didn't have to deal with someone who changed your venue each month because the decorations didn't match."

"Grandma did that?" I asked as I slowly sat up.

Mom ran a finger lightly down Emma's cheek and shook her head. "No, your grandpa did." She said as she laid Emma down to sleep. "He wanted everything to be perfect for his little girl. Everything had to match perfectly. He was actually one of the reasons I had to keep pushing the wedding off. I couldn't handle the sudden changes he made, and I was thinking your father hated it as well. Turns out, he had no clue what your grandpa was doing."

I snorted softly. "Sounds like he kinda didn't want you to marry dad."

She was silent as she stared into space for a few moments. "You know, I never thought about that... Well, now it makes sense. If he never told your dad, he would have shown up at the place he and I chose, and no one would be there, and would be considered a no-show at the time of the actual wedding."

"Then you would have hated dad and I wouldn't be here." I concluded.

"I never thought of it that way!" Mom exclaimed, then quickly checked to make sure Emma was still sleeping.

"I'm glad it didn't happen that way," Our heads snapped up to see Asher leaning against the door way. He didn't seem too happy, and I could tell he wanted to speak to me alone.

Mom got the silent hint, gave me a quick hug, then left the room, shutting it behind her. Asher stood in the middle of the room with his arms crossed, staring at me with a stoic expression. I had no idea how he was feeling; his emotions were too blank.

I bit my lip and slowly made my way over to Emma's crib to look over her as she slept, also silently reminding Asher that she's here and that he can't fly off the deep end and lose his temper.

"Where have you been?" He asked too calmly.

"My mom and I went looking for a venue." I responded as equally cool.

"Without me?" He sounded a bit hurt.

"Mom didn't want to wait another day." I met his gaze. "She insisted we go, even without you because she didn't want to wait for you to get off patrol. We didn't know how long you were going to be."

"But venue shopping is supposed to be done with the both of us." He walked over to me and lightly grabbed my hips, towering over me. "I was planning on taking you tomorrow. I was going to tell you this after I got back from patrol." 

"I'm sorry..." I had to look away. "I know this means a lot to you, since this is our wedding. Would you like to see the place tomorrow?"

He was silent. "I promise it's a lovely place. We can have the ceremony outside, and then we can have the guests all move inside to the space provided. I promise it's a lovely place, Asher. You'll love it. It's big enough to accommodate everyone we'll want to invite."

Still, there was silence. "And we can pick out everything else together, besides my dress. I swear I won't leave without you to look at decorations, cake, or anything else without you by my side. We're to do this together and I'm sorry for caving to my mother."

He brought me into a light embrace and sighed softly. "When Lana told me what you were doing, I was hurt. I couldn't focus on my task and had to have Jayden take my place so I could think. I couldn't believe that you actually did that without me."

"I know, and I'm sorry..." I sniffed and held him tightly, allowing the sparks between us to try and calm him; to soothe his mind. "It will just be you and me next time we have to go choose something. I promise."

He thought this over a minute before sitting us down on the bed. "Since we can't look at venues tomorrow, how about we go around and find things to use for decorations after we check the place out?"

I smiled softly. "That sounds good. Just you, me, and Emma."

He gave a light chuckle and draped an arm around my shoulders. "I like the sound of that. Just the three of us."

"Only us." We sealed the promise with a light kiss.