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L inden had gotten her wish. She had woken up next to Asher and had kissed her good morning long and slow before they both had to get up and get ready for work. This was the part of being a wedding planner that was both the best part and the worst part – the actual weddings. During the week, Linden still worked typically Monday through Friday, having a few Mondays off here and there, but most weddings happened to be on the weekends, so that meant that she usually had a six-day workweek or, on rare occasions, a five-day workweek if she only had a Saturday or a Sunday wedding and not both. Usually, they tried not to give a planner two weddings to run in one weekend, but Linden and Asher were the best, so they got the most clients. There were also only so many weekends a year, and everyone tried to cram them in during the spring and summer.

She had left Asher at the door of Asher’s bedroom in order to get home, shower, and get ready for her wedding, which would be at a small church and then a hotel ballroom. She’d kissed her there again and promised to see her later that night because she didn’t want to go until tomorrow before she saw Asher again.

The wedding itself was only fifty guests and should only take about fifteen minutes since it wasn’t a religious ceremony. The church only had a front door and no rooms for the bridal party to get ready, so they had brought in a couple of trailers and had a few tents set up in the back for privacy. It would be awkward, but the bride would walk in through the front door, go to the back, and then the processional music would start, and she’d walk up to her waiting groom. Linden hadn’t ever held a ceremony in a location like this, but the bride had been insistent because this was where her parents had gotten married.

Linden usually hid in the back of the wedding, vigilant for any possible issues, but the church, which was really more of a chapel, made that difficult. There were only so many seats for the guests, and a pew ran the entire back wall, so if she stood back there, she’d block a guest’s view of the ceremony. In the front corner of the church was a small platform with a railing around it, where the three musicians were seated now that the ceremony was underway, so Linden stood behind them. When the ceremony finished, she rushed outside ahead of the bride and groom and small bridal party and motioned for all of them to go back to the trailers while the wedding guests departed for the reception hall.

Once she had everyone safely stowed away, Linden reached for her phone and messaged the assistant, who was already at the reception hall, to let him know that the guests were on their way and that the bridal party was thirty minutes out. The reception would be the more difficult part of today. The bride and groom had families that didn’t quite get along and hadn’t agreed on much throughout the planning process. They had all wanted to control the seating chart for the two hundred guests invited to the party after the ceremony. The mother of the bride wanted her sister to sit at the head table, but the mother of the groom had three sisters and thought it wouldn’t be fair for one and not all to sit up there. Linden was just hoping for a reception without any major drama or events.

When they arrived, she had the DJ announce the bridal party, followed by the bride and groom, and they were off. Linden bounced from the mother and father of the bride to the DJ to make sure he had the right song to play for the first dance and remembered to avoid certain songs that the couple didn’t want to be played. Then, she checked on the cake because it looked like it might be leaning a bit and had the vendor ensure her that it would stay standing for the cutting. She made sure the bar had enough booze and ice and that the tables were released to the buffet in proper order and timing. Finally, the real part of the event was underway. Speeches were done, the cake was cut, and everyone was now mingling, dancing, and enjoying themselves. She could finally breathe.

They only had the ballroom until eleven, which was an early time to end, but the wedding had been at one, and the reception had started at three, so that was still a pretty long party. By ten, a large percentage of people had already left or were making their way out of the event, and that made Linden smile because she wouldn’t have to help wrangle the drunk crowd to leave when the reception was over. The bride and groom were ready to depart as well, which meant that the rest of the group wouldn’t be far behind them. Linden organized their exit and waited until the rest of the guests began making their way home. Then, she settled things with the family of the bride and groom and the hotel and got into her car, sitting in the parking lot. It had been another long day, and she was exhausted. She knew she needed to get some sleep, but there was only one place she wanted to be.

◆◆◆

Linden pulled into another parking lot and turned off her car. She could hear the music playing from the tent and recognized it as a pretty standard song played at receptions. She’d heard it at least a thousand times by now. She got out of her car, locked it, and walked slowly toward the white reception tent. Thankfully, the heat and humidity had cooperated tonight, so it felt mostly okay to be outside. She scanned the tent, open on all sides, and found her.

Asher had her back to Linden and was standing outside of the tent, looking in, likely keeping her head on a swivel, as they were all trained to do. She was wearing a pastel green dress and short white heels. Her hair was pulled back as it usually was on wedding days, and she had her arms down at her sides. Linden knew that they’d all been taught by Carolyn never to cross their arms at weddings because it made them appear closed off or upset about something, and Asher was a rule follower, to be sure. She smiled at that as she walked closer.

“You look beautiful,” she said from just behind Asher.

Asher turned quickly and looked surprised before she smiled.

“What are you doing here?”

“Mine wrapped early, so I thought I’d see if you needed any help.”

“You’ve never done that before,” Asher replied with a lifted eyebrow.

“Well, now, there’s the possibility of sex,” Linden joked with a wink. “So…”

Asher laughed and said, “Oh, there is , huh?”

“I missed you, okay? It’s been a long day. My wedding was fine, but I missed you, and I knew your party wouldn’t be over yet. I wanted to see you.”

“It won’t be too much longer. Half the guests have already left, and he’s about to play the second to last song. Plus, the bar announced last call about thirty minutes ago.”

Asher then turned back around, likely to make sure everything was still okay, and Linden took the chance and wrapped her arms around Asher from behind.

“Linden, I’m working,” she said but giggled and didn’t push Linden away.

“Dance with me,” Linden whispered into her ear.

“I’m on the clock.”

“No one is paying attention. You know we’re invisible at these things unless we don’t want to be,” she said, kissing Asher’s neck as a slow song began to play. “Come on. Just here. We’ve never danced before. Not like this, at least.”

“We shouldn’t,” Asher replied.

“That’s not a no, Ash,” Linden noted, running her lips along the column of Asher’s neck.

“I want to,” Asher admitted. “I want to… slow dance with you. I’m not like Jill, though, Linden. I can’t do a sexy dance with you anywhere, but especially not here.”

Linden slowly turned Asher around to face her and wrapped her up in her arms.

“I don’t need you to sexy dance with me. I want us to really dance. In your kitchen the other night, we swayed for about two seconds before we stopped to kiss, and I do not regret that, but I want to dance with you like this, with people all around and a slow love song playing in the background.”

Asher only nodded and wrapped her arms around Linden’s neck, who pulled her in closer. They stood just outside the tent where several people were dancing on the wooden dance floor, and Linden couldn’t think of a single thing she’d rather be doing or a single person she’d rather be doing it with. She was with the person who understood her better than anyone else ever had. She was with her best friend in the world, who had been with her through just about everything. Linden was with the woman she was falling in love with. No, she was with the woman she was already in love with, and she’d never been in love before.

Her entire life prior to coming out had been about pretending and trying to fall in love with the men she dated. She hated that, in the past, she’d actually said those words to boyfriends after they’d said them to her, despite not feeling them in the same way. She hated it because it felt like now, Asher was the only person those words belonged to. None of the women Linden had gone out with had ever made her feel like there could be anything more, anything serious, anything real. She’d just been in this cycle that she’d had no idea how to get herself out of until Asher had told her that she was interested in women. It had been one woman after the other for Linden. She hadn’t slept with all of them, of course, but out of all of those drink dates, dinners, coffee chats, and nights spent in apartments and bedrooms, Linden hadn’t ever left a woman at the end and instantly missed her how she had with Asher that morning.

“This is nice,” Asher said against Linden’s neck.

“Yes, it is,” she replied.

“Will you wait for me, and we can go back to my place? Or do you want to stay at yours tonight?”

“Wherever you’ll be,” Linden said. “I want to be there .”

“My place is a little closer.”

“I packed a bag.”

Asher pulled back a bit and asked, “You did?”

Linden nodded and replied, “Clothes and toiletries. The basics. It was just in case we decided to stay at your place.”

“You can leave whatever you want there; you know that, right?”

Linden squinted at her and asked, “For a little while at least, right?”

“What do you–” Asher stopped when she figured out what Linden was talking about. “Not tonight, Linden. We’re dancing, and you’re going to stay tonight. Can we talk about it tomorrow?”

“How many tomorrows do we really have?” Linden said more to herself than to Asher.

“Baby…” Asher let out and pressed her forehead to Linden’s.

Asher hadn’t ever called her that before, and though Linden had been called ‘baby’ by a lot of women recently, it hadn’t ever been like this. It hadn’t ever meant as much. She leaned in and captured Asher’s lips, needing more of her right now, needing to feel as close to her as she possibly could in this moment.

“We’ll talk about this, okay?” Asher told her when they pulled out of the kiss. “But not tonight; not when it feels this good to hold you. I don’t want to ruin this night when there’s just so much promise.”

“Promise?” Linden asked.

Asher just kissed her again in response, and it was a little deeper this time. Her tongue slipped into Linden’s mouth, and she sucked on Linden’s bottom lip. It drove Linden crazy, so she pulled Asher fully against her, not caring that people could see them. When Asher pulled out of the kiss after a few minutes, Linden stood there a bit starry-eyed.

Asher chuckled and said, “You look like you can’t believe that just happened.”

“I can’t.”

“Not like it’s our first kiss,” Asher said, and her hand moved into Linden’s hair.

“Every time we kiss, I still can’t believe it happened; that this is happening.”

When the next song started to play, the DJ announced that it was the last song of the night.

“We suck at dancing,” Asher said, laughing a little. “We end up making out instead.”

“We just need more practice,” Linden suggested.

“I’ve got to settle everything.” Asher nodded toward the wedding.

“Need any help?”

“You can go get a piece of wedding cake for yourself,” Asher replied. “It’s your favorite and from Bakes & Cakes.”

“Yeah? Awesome,” she said. “Want me to get you one, too? I’m guessing you didn’t eat at all.”

“Well, if that’s true, I’m not starting with cake, Linden.”

“They didn’t serve kale chips tonight, Ash.”

Asher laughed and said, “Just get a piece of cake before it’s all gone. I’ll be done soon, and we can go home.” Asher pecked her on the lips and took off into the tent.

“Home?” Linden said to herself.

She could picture that. She could picture having a home with Asher. It was easy to do because they already spent so much time together at Asher’s much nicer apartment, and she could see them making it a home for the two of them. She could even see them buying a house one day. Linden could see them arguing about it, too. Asher would want something fancy, while she would want something basic and functional. She didn’t need a house like the one Kyle and Melinda had in the Garden District. She’d happily settle for anywhere with Asher. She could see them painting walls, moving furniture, and getting a cat or a hypoallergenic dog because of Asher’s allergy. She felt like a cat would better suit their vibe. Hell, she could see them naming that cat Kale or even Bacon as an inside joke.

As she watched Asher work, Linden knew she could see everything with her, and for the first time in her life, that wasn’t something she was scared of. The only thing that scared her at this moment was the fact that Asher still planned on moving away soon, and they’d only just figured out that this was how things were supposed to be with them all along. With Carolyn shutting down any possibility of her going to Dallas, too, if Linden went with Asher, she’d have to find a new job. She wondered if she could convince Carolyn to let her go there if she threatened to quit if she didn’t, or if she told her that she and Asher were together now and wherever Asher went, Linden would go. The only problem with that was that Linden really didn’t want to leave New Orleans at all.