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I headed for the choir loft since it looked like a nice place to sit down that was out of the way. I crawled around to the back row and sat down leaning my head against the wall. I was caught in a whirlwind of activity and emotions that I knew had been coming for months, yet I still felt unprepared and uncomfortable. I was someone who liked the predictable, the controllable, even though I seemed to live a life at the opposite end of that spectrum.

I closed my eyes and tried to commune with my little black cloud.

Please, please, please.There will be more than enough chaos here this week. Will you just take a short vacay and leave us to enjoy the day without any major crisis?

As always, I never heard anything back, but I somehow felt a reassurance that we were going to have an amazing wedding. The only problem was in the interpretation. Did that feeling of reassurance mean the cloud would leave us alone, or did it mean that no matter what happened, the wedding would be awesome? I hoped it would be the former.

Contemplating that thought, I relaxed a little and didn’t remember a thing until Basia suddenly poked me.

“Wake up sleepy head, it’s showtime.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, everyone’s here, and we’re ready to start the rehearsal. We could have had the rehearsal on our own, but we didn’t want you to miss out on the fun.”

Sitting up more, I could see everyone already gathered at the front of the church, including Slash and his brothers. I flushed. “Jeez. When did everyone arrive?”

“About fifteen minutes ago,” Slash said. “We were going to let you sleep a little longer, but Amanda reminded us that people, including the first lady, will soon be gathering for the rehearsal dinner, and we don’t want to be late.”

“Absolutely true,” Amanda said. “So, if I could have everyone head back out to the front of the church, we’ll get started.”

I spotted Gio and Vittoria as I exited the choir loft and hurried over to let Gio wrap me in a bear hug and swing me around like I was ten years old. “Lexi, it’s finally going to be official,” he said. “You’re going to make my brother an honest man.”

“He’s already honest,” I protested.

Gio laughed and set me down. “Oh,bella, it’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you and Vittoria, too. Apparently, marriage suits both of you. You look remarkably well.”

“Oh, how sweet.” Vittoria gave me a hug and a light kiss on both cheeks. “We missed you.”

“Well, you both look amazingly not sleep deprived,” I said. “How’s the baby?”

“Oh, Elio is our little treasure,” Vittoria said. “But we decided to leave him at home with my parents. It was going to be too much with the schedule and security, let alone the jet lag. I pumped enough milk to last a week. I hope, anyway.” She suddenly looked worried, and I was sorry I’d brought it up. I didn’t know anything about pumping milk, but I wondered how to accurately calculate how often and how much she had to pump to provide a week’s worth of bottles. “Won’t you miss him?”

“Of course, we will, but it will be a good break for Gio and me. My parents love our little bambino, and we intend to sleep as much as we can when we aren’t celebrating with you and Slash.”

“Seems reasonable to me,” I said, and together we filed out of the church.

In short order, Amanda directed everyone to the proper spot and began providing instructions. As we would be the last to enter, I found myself outside the front door of the church alone with my dad. He was munching a sandwich.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Eating. What does it look like?”

“I know you’re eating, but where did you get the sandwich?”

“I bought it this morning. I’ve lived with your mom long enough to know that on days like these, she forgets to eat. And when she doesn’t eat, I don’t, either. So, today I came prepared.” He took another big bite and chewed.

I leaned closer to look and got a whiff of tuna. His thick sandwich did look good, but just thinking about food brought back memories of today’s lunch and subsequent barf fest, and suddenly I wasn’t hungry. I turned away to let him eat his sandwich in peace. I noticed several of the gulls were hovering overhead were eyeing his sandwich, too.

“You’d better keep a firm grip on that sandwich or you’ll have to share it,” I warned.

I suddenly felt a strong grip on my shoulder followed by a familiar voice. “Keys!”

I turned around and saw my former SEAL commander and good friend, Hands, standing there. Hands wasn’t his real name, but I hadn’t ever called him anything else. Grayson stood beside him, grinning widely.

“Hands! Gray! You made it!”