Page 79 of Redemption

“Love you, guys, too,” Pete replies.

We all yell goodbye, and then Pete hangs up.

“Do you want me to message the parents?” Trick asks.

Elijah nods. “Yes, please. Could you let Alaric, Mr. R, D, and Ryan know about the change as well, please?”

“Of course,” Trick replies. “I’ll do it after dinner. There’s not much else we can do now anyway.”

“I already sent emails to some of the people who were involved with the wedding before,” Pete admits. “If they can’t change the date, then they needed to be informed so that we could cancel them anyway.”

“Okay,” I say. “You have done everything you can tonight. Trick’s right. Take a breath, enjoy dinner and dessert. We can text Jynx, Zemi and Lyric after.”

Pete nods, “Yes, you’re right. Deep breath, no panicking.”

“Exactly,” I grin.

After dinner, we do just that, and they all immediately call, so we end up doing a group chat. They’re just as excited as me. Lyric says she’ll help in any way that she can, but she’s a little limited, Zemi said she can do whatever we need and that her men are happy to help as well, and Jynx says that she will definitely be here for the ‘night before’ party, as we’ve taken to calling the guys' bachelor party, but it’s really unlikely that she will be able to get here any sooner. She also warned us that she will have to head back the day after the wedding. That’s the day that Elijah and the others will be leaving for who knows how long, and she wants to say goodbye to them.

She also made a point of trying to ease Pete’s mind and saying that she and D have contacts all over the country, and all Elijah will have to do if they get into serious trouble is send her the safe word and location, and she can guarantee that there will be someone there within twenty minutes maximum.

Pete seemed less tense after that, although it of course doesn’t take all of his worry away.

∞∞∞

The next few days are an absolute whirlwind.

Lyric ends up coming up with her men, and they all help to plan stuff for the wedding, throwing ideas around and offering solutions when something goes wrong. Marty and the rest of Elijah’s team are up too as soon as they’ve caught up on sleep, and honestly, I absolutely love that everyone is getting involved, and I love having such a busy house.

The good news is that the venue could accommodate the new date because they had a cancellation. The bad news is that the caterer can’t do the new date.

Pete and Elijah asked Rafe if he would consider doing it. He would have a team, the venue can help with that, a sous chef, and whatever else comes along with it, I suppose. But Rafe would have to plan it and source all of the food and all of that sort of thing.

Rafe literally jumped at the chance.

He was beyond honored that they would consider him, and even more so when Pete and Elijah explained that the only reason why they didn’t ask him to do it in the first place was that they didn’t want him to be in the kitchen all day on their wedding day.

A few of the other guys who are also pretty good in the kitchen are also helping Rafe, so that’s taken care of.

The week goes by in a flurry of planning and organizing, not just for the wedding but for the Hunt case too, and the contrast between the two things is actually pretty amusing.

We all just want to get the Hunt thing over and fucking done with now. There have been a couple of adjustments that we’ve needed to make to make the plan work, but we’re all so ready for this case to finally be over.

It’s in the way of the wedding.

That’s the most important thing.

Making sure that Pete and Elijah tie the knot and become husband and husband before Elijah leaves indefinitely is what matters the most.

It’s a shitty situation that they’re trying to make the best of, and I get it. I would be doing exactly the same thing if I were in their position, and actually they’re both handling it a hell of a lot better than I would have. Lyric agreed with me, and we both told Pete that.

Having Lyric up at the house as much as we did also meant that we all got lots of baby Ophelia cuddles. We kept checking that Lyric was ready to be up and about and all of that, but in the end she got so fed up with us asking that she threatened no more Ophelia cuddles if we didn’t quit it.

We haven’t said a word since.

Now we’re at the safe house, the others are still at home taking care of the last-minute planning bits that need to get done, and we’re waiting for Liam and Alaric to show up before we head out to get into position.

I have to admit that having to plan a wedding over the last few days has meant that it’s gone extremely quickly.