Chapter 85: The Venue Hunt
The air in the botanical garden was thick with the scent of damp earth and late-blooming roses, a perfume so heavy it felt like a tangible layer on Aurora’s skin. Sunlight sliced through the canopy of ancient oaks in dusty, golden beams, illuminating flurries of pollen drifting like lazy confetti. “Okay, aesthetically? A plus. Absolutely filthy, ten out of ten,” Rina said, her hands planted on her hips as she surveyed the clearing before them. A stone gazebo, charmingly aged and draped in cascades of purple wisteria, stood at the far end.“Logistically? My guy, the rain plan is a mud plan. You’d need a fleet of golf carts just to ferry Nana from the parking lot.”
Aurora drifted away from her, drawn to the edge of a tranquil koi pond. The water was dark and clear, fat orange and white fish gliding soundlessly beneath lily pads. “Rhys said the backup tent would be non-negotiable anyway,” she murmured, her voice barely louder than the trickle of a small waterfall tucked into the rocks.
“Smart alpha.” Rina joined her, peering into the water.“But is this you? It’s gorgeous, but it’s… a lot.All these flowers. It’s very… omega bride.”
Aurora blinked, pulling her gaze from the hypnotic fish. “What’s that mean?”
“You know.” Rina gestured vaguely at the riotous blooms surrounding them.“Soft. Pretty.Expected.I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m just asking if it feels like Aurora and Rhys, or if it just feels like Aurora, in a pretty dress.”
The question landed with a quiet weight. Aurora looked around, truly seeing it.The curated beauty, the profound quiet, the almost overwhelming sweetness of the air. It was a fantasy.A beautiful, passive fantasy where she was the delicate centerpiece. She thought of Rhys, of his grease-stained hands and the dark ink scrolling over his forearms, of his deep laugh in the auto shop’s gritty office. He’d fit here in his suit, but he wouldn’t breathe easy until the party was over and he could loosen his tie.
“It feels like a picture,” Aurora admitted softly. “Not a place.”
Rina slung an arm around her shoulders, giving a reassuring squeeze. “There’s nothing wrong with pretty pictures, babe. But we’ve got time. Let’s keep looking.”
They wandered down a narrower path, the sounds of the main garden fading behind them. The air grew cooler, the light dimmer under the dense fern fronds and twisting ivy.It felt secret. Then the path opened into a small, circular glade. In the center, bathed in a single, perfect shaft of sunlight, was a simple stone bench. It was half-hidden, surrounded by towering ferns and clusters of deep blue hydrangeas. The trees here were older, their bark mossy, their branches creating a natural, vaulted ceiling.The light was dappled, shifting with the breeze.
Aurora stopped walking.There was no pond.No roses. Just green, living silence and cool, gray stone.“Oh,” she breathed.Rina was quiet for a moment, observing. “Okay,” she said finally, her voice lower. “Talk to me.”
“It’s… quiet.” Aurora stepped into the glade, the moss softening her footsteps. She ran her fingers over the smooth, sun-warmed stone of the bench.“It feels old.Solid. Like it’s been waiting.”
“For you?”
Aurora looked back at the path, imagining it lined with the people they loved. Imagining walking towards Rhys, who would be standing right here, his big frame somehow perfectly suited to this green, private space.He wouldn’t be drowning in flowers. He’d be rooted.An anchor.And she would walk to him through that dappled light.
“Yes,” she said, the certainty warming her from the inside. “For us.”
A grin spread across Rina’s face.She pulled out her phone, snapping a few quick pictures. “No tacky fairy lights in sight.Just some classy-ass hydrangeas. I’m sending these to your man right now.” Her thumbs flew over the screen.“Caption: ‘Found it. Start practicing your solemn face, Loverboy. And by solemn, I mean ‘trying not to weep like a baby.’”
Aurora laughed, the sound echoing softly in the green chamber. She sat on the bench, tilting her face up to the shifting patterns of light and leaf. The bond mark on her neck, usually a gentle, constant warmth, gave a faint, sweet pulse. He’s looking at the pictures, she thought. A flush of pleasure, private and deep, spread through her.Her phone buzzed in her pocket a moment later.Not a text. An incoming call.Rhys’s name flashed on the screen.She answered, her voice barely a whisper. “Hi.”
His voice, gravelly and low, filled her ear. “Rina wasn’t kidding.”
“About which part?”
“The crying part.” He paused, and she could hear the faint whir of a fan in the background, the distant clang of a tool. He was at the shop.In his world.Looking at her world. “That’s the place, Aurora.”
It wasn’t a question.It was a recognition.
Tears pricked her eyes, not from sadness, but from the sheer rightness of it. “You think so?”
“I know so.It’s got… weight. It’s got you all over it.” She heard him take a slow breath. “It’s perfect.”
Standing in that secluded glade, with Rina giving her a knowing, thumbs-up signal from across the moss, and Rhys’s voice wrapped around her from miles away, Aurora felt a thread pull taut between all three points. It didn’t strain.It anchored.“Okay,” she said.“Okay,” he echoed. “Tell Rina I owe her a beer. A expensive one.”
“I heard that!” Rina called out.Aurora laughed again, easier this time. She talked to him for a few more minutes, about nothing—the drive home, what he was fixing, the sound of the wind in the trees above her. Ordinary things that felt extraordinary when shared across the space he was closing every day.
When she hung up, she let her hand drift to the side of her neck, her fingers curling just over the bond mark.It hummed softly, contentedly, against her touch.
Rina walked over, her work boots silent on the moss. “He’s a lucky bastard,” she said, her tone light but her eyes serious.
“I’m the lucky one,” Aurora said, and she meant it with every fiber of her being.
“You both are.” Rina offered a hand to pull her up.“Come on. Let’s go find the event coordinator before someone else snags your secret garden.I’ll do the talking. You just look convincingly blissful.”
Aurora took her hand, the solid strength of it as familiar as her own heartbeat. As they walked back down the shaded path, the garden noises slowly returning, the image of the stone bench remained etched behind her eyes.Not a pretty picture.A promise. And for the first time, the thought of walking down the aisle towards him felt less like a dream and more like a destination, solid and real and waiting just beneath the trees.