Pre-Arranged

Chapter-31

Her creased forehead turned smooth the moment Kelly overtook her vision and she grabbed her friend in a tight hug with one arm, once again avoiding the calamity of waking up her own son. "Kel! I almost thought you would not show up!"

"Hard for it to be a wedding if the bride isn't there, is it?"

"Look who's talking!"

"Well, to be a 'runaway bride', you have to be a bride first!"

"Damn it! I need to find another thing to tease you with now! What on earth could be as solid as a 'runaway bride'?" Allison stuck out her lower lip in a frown and Kelly laughed.

"Better give up on that quest unless you want me to wake your little bundle of joy."

The colour quite literally drained from Allison's face and she shook her head fervently. She quickly slapped on a sweet smile and stroked Kelly's arm gently. "Did I ever tell you how much I love you?"

"I thought so," Kelly replied with a smirk. "Come on now, help me get ready. Katie can take over."

Katie saluted at them with her forefinger and turned on the staff busy arranging the chairs. A combined sigh of relief had escaped their lips the moment Kelly reassigned the person in charge, which soon turned into grimace when Katie began to hurl orders with no words minced and they realized they would rather have Allison as the commander!

"Ready with your vows?" Allison asked once it was just the two of them in the bedroom assigned for Kelly to get ready in. Duke was happily snoring away in a makeshift pram of pillows on the bed. Kelly had changed out of her jeans and t-shirt into a bathrobe and was busy untangling her slightly wet hair.

"Mm-hmm."

"The one you googled?"

"No! It was just a backup!"

"Wait, you actually wrote one after all the drama you did about writing it?"

Kelly chuckled, remembering her over-exaggerated exhaustion when she had first been asked to work on it fifteen days back. Allison had been pacing her bedroom, suggesting ideas of what she could and could not say, and Kelly had responded by sliding off her bed and slumping on the floor, accepting the cold tiles as a comfort. Allison had blasted her ears with a gong, which she had brought in anticipation of this exact situation apparently, and Kelly had jumped up and out of the room, her heart going crazy in her ribcage. "Bloody hell, Al!" she exclaimed, holding her chest for dear life and staring in disbelief at her best friend from the doorway.

Allison had smirked, as she always was inclined to, and replied calmly, "Now, let's continue."

"I wrote it this morning," Kelly clarified before Al could launch into a vivid description of her "drama". "My parents' story helped, as did the words of one Jeff Gibbs."

"One who now?" Allison immediately asked and a moment later, she whistled. "That guy! What did he have to say?"

"Well, my alledgedly googled vows had me talking about how interesting I find him, how enchanted I was with him, which is such a fake thing to say. But I did not realize that until Jeff told me."

Allison made her sit down in front of the wall length mirror and brushed out the tangled mess, making her squeal now and again. "Interesting. More so that I was never intimated on what happened on that 'date' of yours."

"Did I not call you?" Kelly asked innocently and winced a second later when Allison roughly brushed through her locks.

"Oh, did that hurt?"

Kelly massaged her scalp, tears at the edge of her eyes. "You're so mean, Al."

*****

"So, what are you saying, Jeff?"