Save the Date

I glanced over at Bill, but he was already smiling his usual wide smile—apparently he had not had enough of my family already today. As we walked over, I felt my shoes pinch for the first time—I would have to get out of them soon if I didn’t want to have blisters tomorrow.

“Here,” Danny said, taking his suit jacket off the stool next to him, clearing it for me, and I sat down.

“Thanks.” I smoothed my skirt under me and crossed my legs, letting my shoe hang off my heel and immediately feeling better about things. “Where’s Brooke?” I asked, finally noticing she wasn’t with them.

“Calling her sister,” Danny replied.

Rodney frowned down at his watch. “It’s getting kind of late, isn’t it?”

“She’s in California,” Danny explained, and Rodney nodded.

“Not so late then.”

“And Mike?” I asked as I looked around the lobby, which was emptying fast, people gathering up jackets and purses and heading toward the doors. And Jesse, I added silently.

Danny shrugged, but I could see that he looked a little worried about this. “I haven’t seen him in a bit. He probably just left early.”

I nodded, trying not to let the disappointment I was feeling show on my face.

“Did everyone have a good rehearsal dinner?” Bill asked, looking around at the group.

“No thanks to J.J.,” Rodney said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What are you still doing here?” Danny asked Bill. “Aren’t your official duties over? Considering that the event is?”

“Just making sure everything got cleaned up okay,” he replied. “Do any of you need rides back to the house?”

J.J. shook his head. “Your job sounds exhausting, young Billiam.”

“It’s okay,” Bill said with another smile. “And, uh, it’s really not Billiam. Just Bill is good. Bill Barnes.”

“That’s a good name,” J.J. said, pointing at Bill. “That’s a superhero name.”

Rodney raised an eyebrow. “How is it a superhero name?”

“The double letter thing.”

“Alliteration,” I supplied.

Danny smiled at me. “Charlie knows what’s what.” Then he turned to J.J. “I still don’t get how it’s a superhero name.”

“They all have them,” J.J. said, gesturing expansively.

“I’m waiting to hear specifics.”

“It’s true,” Rodney agreed. “You can’t make a claim like that without evidence.”

“Rodney’s a lawyer,” J.J. explained to Bill.

“Not yet,” Rodney said, shaking his head. “Not until I pass the bar.”

“That’s a total lawyerly qualification to make,” J.J. sighed.

“Still waiting to hear examples,” Danny said as he took a sip from his nearly empty glass.

“Fine!” J.J. said, slapping his hand down on the bar. “Okay. How about . . . ?” He paused for a moment, furrowing his brow. “Peter Parker? Or Sue Storm? Or Bruce Banner?”

“Whoa,” Bill said, his eyebrows going up. “I guess I never realized that before. There are two superheroes named Bruce?”

“Who else?” I asked.

“Bruce Wayne,” Danny, J.J., Bill, and Rodney said at the same time.

“Oh, right, him.”

“Bruce Wayne is the exception,” J.J. said, shaking his head. “All the rest of them have the double letters.”

“Alliteration,” I supplied again, and Danny smiled.

“Reed Richards,” J.J. continued, starting to tick them off on his fingers. “Wade Wilson, Stephen Strange, Bucky Barnes, Lex Luthor, Lois Lane—”

“She’s not actually a superhero,” Bill pointed out.

“You’re not helping, Billiam,” J.J. snapped.

“What about . . . I don’t know . . . ,” Danny said. “Diana Prince, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Barbara Gordon, Clark Kent—”

“That sounds alliterative,” I pointed out. “So it might count on a technicality.”

“Archie Andrews,” Rodney supplied, apparently joining J.J.’s side on this. “Jughead Jones . . .”

“Okay, in what universe is Archie a superhero?” Danny asked, causing me to draw in a sharp breath.

“Hey now,” I said, and Danny rolled his eyes.

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I forgot about your thing for those comics.”

“It’s J.J.’s fault,” I said, and Danny muttered, “Most things are.” J.J. had had a huge collection of Archie books that he’d declared himself over and too old for when he started eighth grade, so he’d passed them on to me. I’d loved them, nursing an elementary school crush on Reggie that I’d told nobody except Linnie about.

“There’s also Beetle Bailey—” Rodney continued, and Danny threw up his hands.

“So we’ve just moved arbitrarily into the newspaper comics?”

“You think Superman was never a newspaper comic?” Rodney challenged, raising his eyebrows.

“I still think the majority of superheroes have them,” J.J. said stubbornly, clearly trying to get us back on track.

There was a beeping sound coming from Bill’s tablet, and he glanced down at it. “I should get going,” he said. “Need to go over some last-minute checks with my uncle.” I nodded, giving silent thanks that Pland had sent Bill and Will to us. I didn’t even want to imagine what things might have looked like without them. “I’ll be at the house first thing tomorrow to help get everything ready for the big day.”

“Great,” Rodney said, standing up and reaching out to shake Bill’s hand. “Thanks for everything. We really appreciate it.” Bill nodded and lifted his hand in a wave before continuing out the front door of the Inn.

I turned to my brothers, ready to jump back into the discussion, when I felt my purse start to buzz. I immediately slid off my barstool—I was pretty sure this was Siobhan calling, reminding me that I’d meant to call her back. But this was perfect timing, because things had wound down enough that we could finally talk. “Just going to take this,” I said, then hurried across the lobby. I pulled out my phone as I walked, and then nearly dropped it when I saw that it was Jesse calling me.

“Hi,” I said, answering the phone as I looked around. I glanced at my brothers and brother-to-be, but they were all still at the bar, arguing about superheroes and paying no attention to me.

“Hey, you,” he said easily, and just the sound of his voice was enough to make me feel like my insides were slowly turning to liquid. “Where are you?”

“I’m still at the Inn,” I said. As I spoke, I realized that maybe this was the first time Jesse and I had ever talked on the phone—beyond him calling the landline for Mike when we were in elementary and early middle school, before we got our own phones. And even then, those conversations had never been more than Sure, hold on a second. Let me get him.

“I meant where in the building,” Jesse said, a laugh in his voice, and I realized that he was still here—he hadn’t left yet. And he wanted to see me.

“Oh,” I said, spinning in a circle, my heart starting to beat hard, trying to figure out how best to describe where I was. “I’m kind of like off to the side of the main lobby, over by the check-in counter? And—”

A hand snaked around my waist and I jumped, then turned and saw Jesse, phone to his ear, giving me a half smile. “Hey, gorgeous.”

“Hi,” I said. I smiled wide, then tried to tone it down a little as I lowered my phone and pressed the button to end the call. “I didn’t see you—or Mike—so I wasn’t sure if you’d left.”

“Without seeing you?” he asked, taking a step closer and giving me an easy smile. “Never.” He glanced around. “I’m not sure where Mike went to. I saw him talking to your dad earlier, and it looked like kind of an intense conversation, so I thought I’d give him some space.”