Dee looked surprised but pleased. “Well, that’s wonderful. Paige is very creative.”
Now it was Paige’s turn to be surprised. “I am?”
Dee laughed. “You are. You always have been. Don’t you remember making those cat houses for the stray cats and decorating them?”
“How did she decorate them?” Tori asked, looking delighted.
“Well, she’d have some that looked like regular two-story houses, some that were log cabins, some that were tents. There was an igloo. There was one she painted to look like one of those old Volkswagen RVs.” Dee laughed. “She said all the cats had different personalities and would choose different places to live.”
Tori looked at Paige with wide eyes. Paige could feel her cheeks burning.
“You made cat shelters that all looked like different types of houses?”
Paige shrugged. “That was when I lived at home, and they wouldn’t let me take them all in.”
“And that’s what led you to open a cat adoption center.”
She nodded.
“And yoga with cats?” Dee went on. “Not just everyone would think of that. Hot chocolate massage cream for sore muscles? You can’t get that just anywhere.”
“Hot chocolate massage cream?” Cora had just come through the swinging door from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her towel.
Paige lifted a shoulder. “It’s just regular body butter, but I added a chocolate and marshmallow scent. I did a peppermint one too. For the holidays. But I told people to use it for massage.” She paused. “I’m using it as a gateway cream.”
Cora chuckled. “Gateway cream?”
“If they like it, they’ll come back, and I can maybe talk them into something with more healing properties.”
Cora nodded. “Good thinking.”
Paige looked down at her screen again. “Mom, this is Cora.” She turned her phone, and Cora waved.
Ellie was next to her. “Hello, Dee.”
“And that’s Ellie.”
“Nice to meet you both,” Dee greeted.
“And this is Maddie, the other bride. And Kennedy, the soon-to-be sister and cousin-in-law to these girls, and, of course, Mitch.” She panned the group, and everyone waved.
She faced Dee again.
“Mitch? The one who’s not Tori’s fiancé.”
Paige grimaced. “Yeah. Tori’s fiancé is Josh.” When Mitch had been in Iowa just after Christmas, they’d told Dee he was Tori’s fiancé so that she wouldn’t get any crazy ideas about Paige being serious about him. But in their last phone call, Paige had come clean about all of that. “Mitch is… my boyfriend.”
Dee’s eyebrows shot up, and Paige felt Mitch’s hand squeeze her thigh tightly.
Yeah, he’d like that. She knew that. And she knew what it meant to tell her mom that. But it was true, wasn’t it? If Mitch wasn’t her boyfriend, what was he? He was more than a roommate. He was more than a hook-up. He was more than a friend.
She was very afraid that she was falling in love with him, in fact. If that didn’t move him up to boyfriend status, she didn’t know what did.
And he knew better than to pull out a diamond ring.
She was pretty sure.
“Well,” Dee finally said after a long pause. “It’s very nice to know you all. And to know that you’re helping with the weddings. And that… you’re happy.”
“I am.”
“I can tell.”
Paige gave her mom a smile. “Yeah?”
Dee nodded. “Of course. I do want you to be happy, Paige.”
She believed that. She knew deep down that’s what her family wanted for her. She just knew that her family’s ideas about what would make her happy was different than her own. Telling them what she wanted over the years hadn’t seemed to convince them. Now, though, it seemed she was showing them.
How had she not been able to show them when she was in Appleby, but she could in Autre?
She wasn’t sure, but she knew she’d be thinking about that now.
“Thanks, Mom.” She suddenly wished she could hug her mother. “I was wondering if you had any other Swedish wedding traditions to share with us? Oh, and we need a recipe for the Swedish wedding cookies.”
Dee’s face lit up. “Of course! Don’t forget about the kissing tradition.”
“Oh yes!” Paige grinned and looked at the girls.
Kennedy leaned in. “What’s the kissing tradition?”
“Well, after the ceremony, any time the groom leaves the room, other men line up to kiss the bride. And if the bride leaves the groom alone, other women can kiss him.” She laughed. “It’s a lot of fun at the reception. Everyone watches for the first time the groom leaves. Often they get someone to trick him into leaving the room just for the kissing tradition.”
Kennedy’s eyes rounded. “Sawyer will hate that so much.” She nodded. “We’re totally doing that.”
Juliet laughed. “We’re not Swedish.”
“Well, you’re basically Cajun once you hang out with us long enough. I think that Tori and Paige’s Swedish can rub off too, don’t you?” Kennedy said.
Juliet nodded. “True. Why not? The more traditions in the family, the better.”
Paige felt a swoop in her stomach. She was adding traditions to the family? Sure, it was for Tori’s part of the wedding, but it still felt strangely good to be contributing.
Dee was rifling through her cookbook on her end of the phone call. “I can send you this recipe in your email, Paige. I’m sure they have great pecans down there. You’ll have to send me some of the cookies when you’re done.”
“Oh, no, just read it off to me.” Cora plucked the phone out of Paige’s fingers and turned away, taking the phone with her into the kitchen.
Paige watched her go, her mouth open.
Mitch chuckled. “I think your mom and Cora are going to be very good friends by the time they’re done baking together.”
“They’re just going to make the cookies now? Mom will just talk her through it?” Paige asked. But even as she said it, she realized that yes, that was probably what was going to happen.
Ellie reached over and patted her hand and, even without words, the gesture said everything is great, and you’re right where you should be, doing exactly what you should be doing. Then she turned and followed Cora into the kitchen.
Tori and Juliet reclaimed their stools, and the girls started talking about the kissing tradition and how hilarious it would be if they could let the guests know while keeping it from the grooms.
Mitch leaned in, successfully pulling all of Paige’s attention from everything going on around them. She looked into his eyes.
“It’s fucking adorable that you made shelters for cats as a little girl,” he said.
She smiled. She was glad her mom had shared that story. She was even happier to have heard Dee say she was creative. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard that from her mother before. “I built them out of all kinds of boxes and containers and scraps.”
“Does your mom have photos?”
Paige wondered. “Maybe. I would have said no until today, but maybe if she thought that was cute and creative on some level, she did take photos.”