Page 15 of Wish For Me

“She does, but Everly loves this photographer. We went through dozens of portfolios until we found the style she liked.” She’s going to be heartbroken that Lana won’t be there to shoot our day. And I won’t be able to hide this one. But I refuse to tell her until we have a solution.

“Well, the obvious answer is to ask Mom,” Nix says, turning to Alex. “I’m sure she’d step in.”

Alex and Nix’s mom, Karen, is a big shot photographer. She’s always jetting around the world taking pictures and she does amazing work.

“I thought about that,” Alex says. “But Everly won’t like it. She’ll want Mom to be there as a guest, not to work.”

“Agreed,” I say. Alex is Everly’s best friend, and they spent more time together growing up than even the other cousins. Plus, their moms are best friends, so Everly has always had a special connection with Karen. There’s no way she’s going to want her behind a camera lens all day.

“Okay,” Nix says, thinking. “Well how about we get Mom to go through some portfolios? She can screen out the crappy ones and recommend people she thinks will match the style Everly is going for.”

“That would be great,” I say. “Can you work with her on that, Nix?”

“Got it, man.”

I take a deep breath. Having a shit ton of cousins comes in handy during disasters. And there’s another disaster still to tackle.

“One more thing, and I’m going to need most of you for this. Our candles got lost in the mail.”

“Uh, can’t we just go buy more?”

Vega snorts. “Are you serious, Cade? This is Everly. They aren’t just any candles.”

“She’s right. These are the candles that are supposed to go in the party favor boxes.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Will mutters. “I spent hours folding those boxes.”

“The party favors are really important to Everly,” I explain. “She feels very strongly about thanking everyone for being part of the day.” I feel a little rush of affection for my girl, followed by fear. How in the hell am I going to fix all this without her knowing?

“These are the boxes with the wine?” Fox asks.

“Wine from the vineyard where they’re getting married,” Alex ticks off. “Cookies from that bakery near our store where Bodhi would always stop to get her baked goods when he was still pretending he wasn’t pathetically in love with her—”

“Thank you for that,” I mutter.

“Designer sunglasses from our line,” Alex continues. “And the candles. Which are scented with something else romantic that I can’t remember right now.”

“They’re made by a candle artisan in Lake Tahoe,” I explain. “Because that’s where we met. The scent is some special blend that’s supposed to smell like the Tahoe National Forest.”

“Aww,” Eva coos. “You two are the sweetest.”

“Yeah, well, it won’t be very sweet if Everly doesn’t have these candles.” My girl isverydetail orientated. Her high standards are one of my favorite things about her. Those standards just happen to be causing me a fair amount of heartburn right now.

“You can’t just order more?”

“The artisan won’t be able to get them produced and sent in time,” I say. “We have a complaint in with the shipping company, and there’s a chance they’ll find them in time, but we need a backup. So I managed to convince her—”

“What he means to say is that he cried over the phone,” Leo cuts in. “Profusely. And begged.”

Yeah, well, there’s not a lot I wouldn’t do to make this day everything Everly wants it to be. And when I thought about her missing these candles, I barely had to try to turn on the waterworks.

“Regardless of how I made it happen,” I say. “She sent me the ingredient list and instructions so we can replicate the candles.”

“So you want us all to spend the next week making candles,” Fox asks.

“Pretty much.” I swallow. “We need, uh, three hundred.”

“Three hundred and twenty,” Alex says into a fake cough.