“I know they had a meeting today, too,” Melinda said. “With Asher.”

“Yeah, I saw them in her office,” Linden replied.

“So, can we make sure to get ahead of it?”

“Ahead of what?” Linden asked.

“I don’t want Bridge to accuse me of stealing her wedding ideas.” Melinda looked over at Kyle. “Do you?”

“I don’t care if we have identical weddings. I just want to marry you.”

“She’s sweet,” Melinda said to Linden. “You’re sweet,” she repeated to Kyle, who wrapped her arm around the back of Melinda’s chair. “Bridge and I have been talking about our weddings for years. Neither of us is a bridezilla or anything, but we want the day to be special and about us.”

“By us, she means her and Bridgette, apparently,” Kyle joked.

“I mean, special for you and me, and her wedding to be special for her and Monica,” Melinda said through a laugh.

“Well, based on what we talked about when we were all together, I think you’ll be fine. I can chat with Asher and see if anything’s changed that I should be aware of, but you are very different couples, so I think you’ll have very different weddings.”

“I’d like us to have something small,” Melinda said. “I know we haven’t talked about venues yet, but Ky’s family is small, and so is mine. I was thinking we could make this a real New Orleans wedding.”

“How so?” Linden asked as she pulled out her notebook and placed it on the table.

“Well, NOLA Guides is such a huge part of my life, and it is really how Kyle and I met since we didn’t talk that first night at the pub. I was going to invite people from the community, like Henry, and people who have supported me and the business over the years. They’ve given me so much. Because of NOLA Guides being as successful as it is, Jolie found a tour and booked it. Kyle showed up with her, and here we are,” she said, smiling over at Kyle.

“New Orleans loves a good party. Did you have anything in mind specifically, though? I assume no church wedding?”

“Right,” Kyle said. “And I really only have my sister, my mom, dad, his wife, and kids to invite, so my list is pretty short. Everyone else I would invite lives here. I was thinking about asking Myra to come. She’s the contractor who’s been redoing the house. Her work is amazing, and she’s building our dream house for us, but we’ve also become friends.”

“That’s a good idea,” Melinda agreed.

“What if we have a ceremony in one of the restaurants with a courtyard? That would keep the guest list small how we want,” Linden suggested. “I’ve done a couple of weddings like that. You can get anywhere between twenty to over a hundred people in one of those courtyards if you’re creative with the balconies.”

“We could,” Melinda said. “But maybe we just use our backyard garden. Ky and I have been talking about it, and it’s having some work done now on the flowers, but it will be ready in time.”

“It’s outside,” Linden pointed out. “And in a restaurant courtyard, you’d have a lot more shade and protection from the heat and humidity.”

“I know, but that garden is special to us,” Melinda replied, looking over at Kyle. “We’re sentimental, I guess.”

“Well, that makes my life a whole lot easier, so if it’s what you want, I’m in,” Linden said. “Would you want the reception there, too? If so, that would create a few logistic things we’d have to work through. You’d probably have all your guests in the house for at least an hour while we tear down the stuff from the ceremony and it’s turned into the reception space since the yard isn’t big enough to have two setups at the same time.”

“That’s the part where I think we can get creative,” Kyle replied. “Mel has talked to Pat O’Brien’s.”

“She has?” Linden asked.

“Yes. She knows everyone in this town,” Kyle joked.

Melinda just shook her head at her fiancée and said, “I was thinking we could close them down for the afternoon and evening. We’d have their courtyard, and they do receptions like this all the time.”

“Okay. Well, I can reach out to finalize all the arrangements unless you’ve already signed the paperwork,” Linden said, teasing her a little.

“No.” Melinda laughed. “And I have this idea of each table having a specific New Orleans item on it or something. Maybe one table has shot glasses with hurricanes. One had beignets. Another could have something to do with voodoo or tarot; I don’t know. Just that it would be all about New Orleans.”

“I thought you wanted your wedding to be all about you ,” Linden said, making a note.

“I want it to be special for us , and this would make it special,” Melinda said.

“I agree,” Kyle added. “I think it would be pretty cool. People could walk around and try a little of everything. There could be dancing inside, too, if they want, but it would give everyone something to do and experience, and then, we can go home early and just be the two of us.” She smiled over at Melinda.

“Yeah. And Pat O’s would be able to open up for the regular late-night crowd, so it would be cheaper for us, too.”

“Okay. Well, we can fit a lot of tables back there, depending on how you want them set up. Let me reach out to them and see how they’d recommend we do this, and we can get a contract put together and sent to you two to review.”

Linden wrote down a note to call her contact at Pat O’Brien’s.

“Now what?” Kyle asked. “Do we start trying to pick out cakes?”

“Well, we have venues and colors and a theme for the reception, even, so there are some things I need to work out on my end first before we get much further, but if you want, I can start setting up tastings,” Linden replied. “Did you want the cake to go with the New Orleans theme or be more traditional?”

“Oh. Can we do both?” Melinda asked. “I’m thinking we could do a king cake.”

“And whoever gets the baby has to host the next wedding?” Linden asked. “Oh, that could be cool. It could be like the bouquet toss, but instead of doing that, you have all the single ladies cut the cake, and the one that gets the baby–”

“Gets married next. Yeah. Cool, huh?” Melinda asked.

“I still don’t understand this tradition,” Kyle said.

“You’re not from here, babe,” Melinda replied, patting Kyle’s hand.

The king cake was a New Orleans tradition that involved a small plastic baby and a party. The cake was baked with a tiny plastic baby hidden inside, and the person who got the slice with the baby in it had to host the next party. In this case, it would be something totally New Orleans, fitting the theme of the event, and Linden hadn’t ever done this before for a wedding, so it would be something new for her as well.

“I love it,” she said. “I have someone who makes kick-ass king cakes. I can ask them.”

“That would be great,” Melinda replied. “And I’d like a regular cake, too. Something small, though. Just a couple of tiers.”

“Okay. I’ll get working on that and arrange the tastings,” she said as she wrote down everything they’d decided on.

“I can’t believe this is actually happening. We’re getting married,” Melinda said.

Kyle smiled over at her, and Linden looked down to give them this moment together as she usually did with the couples she planned for. It was the moment when it really sunk in for the couple that steps were being taken, plans were being made, and this was real; they were going to get married. She’d witnessed it hundreds of times now, and it never got old, but today, it hit her differently.

“Hey, I heard about Asher,” Melinda said.

“What about her?” she asked, looking back up.

“She’s moving.”

“Oh. Yeah. She’s going to Dallas, I guess.”

“You guess?” Kyle asked.

“She’s going. She’s just confirmed it with our boss this morning.”

“How do you feel about that?” Melinda asked.

“Honestly, I’m not great,” Linden admitted, closing her notebook.

“I figured,” Melinda replied. “Best friend moving away; that’s tough.”

“She’s not just my best friend,” Linden said. “She’s this place.” She looked around.

“What do you mean?” Kyle asked.

“Ash got here a couple of years before me. We used to sit across from each other out there in the cubicles. We grew up together here. I’ve never been in this office without knowing that if she was out for the day, she’d be in tomorrow. I can’t count the times I’ve just walked into her office to see if she wanted to grab lunch or hang out later. She’s leaving, and I won’t have my best friend here anymore, but this place won’t be the same, either.”

“She’s not leaving the company, though, right?” Melinda asked.

“No, but it still won’t be the same. She’s going to be running the Dallas office. She’ll be crazy busy, and it’ll be hard for us to keep in touch. How many times a year can she really just visit New Orleans while she’s trying to set up her life there? She’ll make new friends and probably meet someone there. Then, she’ll settle down, and I’ll hardly see her.”

“I think you can both make the effort to stay connected,” Melinda said. “It’ll be hard, yeah, but you can’t just wash ten years of friendship away like that.”

“I know, but…” Linden leaned forward. “She’s never talked about wanting to move away. She loves it here. Now, she’s suddenly all about change and how she needs it? I call bullshit.”

“Bullshit?” Kyle asked.

“She got a job offer, Linden. It happens to be in Dallas. It’s not like she can just work from here and plan Dallas weddings easily,” Melinda added.

“She doesn’t want to move. I know it. I think something else is going on. She won’t tell me, though, so I’m in the dark, and I hate that. I’m never in the dark with her.”

“What do you think it is?” Kyle asked.

“I don’t know. She just dumped Gavin and came out, and she loves planning weddings, but she wants to own her own company one day. She says this is good practice, and I don’t think she’s wrong, but it’s not the best practice. The best would be for her to wait it out here until she’s ready and to launch her own company here, where she’s always planned to.”

“You’re not in charge of her, though,” Melinda said. “If this is what she says is best for her future business plans, you don’t really get a say, Linden.”

“I know.” She sighed loudly. “I want her to be happy.”

“If this makes her happy…”

“I just… I don’t think it does. There’s something I can see in her eyes, and it’s bothering me.”

“Give her time. She’ll talk to you,” Kyle suggested.

“In the meantime, Ky and I have a question for you,” Melinda said with a smirk on her face.

“What?” Linden asked.

“Well, we have someone we’d like you to meet.”

“Someone?”

“Yes. She’s a friend, and we think you two might hit it off.”

“You’re setting me up?”

“Why not?” Melinda replied.

“You’ve never tried to set me up before.”

“You didn’t seem interested in anything real.”

“What makes you think I am now?” she asked.

“If you’re not, you’re not,” Kyle said. “But we thought it was worth a try.”

“I don’t know… I’m busy with work right now. Asher leaving means I’m taking over some of her accounts.”

“Monica and Bridge?” Melinda asked.

“No, she’s going to keep theirs. She’ll do as much as she can from here and fly back as needed once she moves. I already talked to Carolyn, our boss, about that one.”

“Well, that’s good, at least. I was worried,” Melinda said.

“With Ash leaving so suddenly, I’m still a little in shock. I don’t know that I want to go out with anyone right now. I think I want a tub of ice cream in my lap later tonight and a TV show that I’ve seen a hundred times on in the background while I wallow.”

“You sound like you’re going through a breakup,” Kyle noted.

Linden swallowed and replied, “Not exactly.”

“Hear us out,” Melinda said. “Just one date. I’ll firm up the details with her and text you. It’ll be good for you. Get out and meet someone. Have a drink. If it goes nowhere, it’s no big deal. If it does, maybe having something positive in your life would help with the whole Asher moving thing.”

“I’ll be bad company.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll turn on your charm like you always do,” Melinda said. “So, back to our cake. Can we talk flavors, or do we have to do tastings first?”

Linden picked up her pen, opened her notebook again, and said, “We can do it either way: narrow down what you want or don’t want now, and I’ll mention it to the vendors, or we can just show up, and they’ll give us samples of everything.”

“I like the idea of having samples of everything,” Kyle said, pretending to think and causing Melinda to laugh.

Linden jotted down a note and thought of Asher. Then, she pictured herself sitting at some restaurant, waiting for a woman Kyle and Melinda wanted her to meet. Normally, she would be excited at the prospect of meeting someone new, but she wouldn’t be this time. She would be too busy thinking about how Asher was about to leave New Orleans.

After Melinda and Kyle left her office, Linden packed up her things and noted that it was long after five and most of the rest of the staff had gone home, including Asher. She stood in the doorway of Asher’s office for a moment, realizing that soon it would be hers but that she didn’t want it. It would always be Asher’s office to her. Then, she walked over to their old desks, which were still there, though occupied by new planners. She remembered those first few weeks, how she’d tried to get a smile out of Asher, and she wondered if the two people sitting here now understood the important history of their desks. She doubted they did. Walking back to her own office, she grabbed her things and decided that she needed to spend time alone tonight to try to get over her shock so that she could support Asher in her decision because if this was what she really wanted, Linden needed to be there for her.