Jennie
Okay. It does look a little mad in here. But my heart lifts. "It feels like coming home." I sigh as I take in the wall and slip my cardigan off my shoulders.
Ren is pleased, I can tell, even though he'd never admit it. "Yes, well. We don't play here."
"Hi!" Nayeon says and waves. She's sitting cross-legged on the furthest of the twin beds with her laptop in front of her, Bluetooth in one ear. She offers a bag of hotel pretzels. "Want some?"
"No, thank you." I say. Lisa perches on the edge of the bed beside her, however, and does take a pretzel. "What's the damage?"
"Nayeon is on flower duty. Meanwhile, I've been going back and forth with the antique store trying to get the wedding altar up and ready." Ren sits down at a desk, piled up with folders. His large laptop sits on the desk, and he starts clicking through to a spreadsheet. "Otherwise, we're going to have to have them stand under an Ikea room divider."
"Okay." I push a stray piece of hair behind my ear, out of my face, so I can focus. "I'll call Mike. I'm sure I can get him to work something out. Can you pull up his number?"
He hovers his finger over a line on the screen. "Here you are."
I flip out my phone and get to work. We dive into it, headfirst. Ren has everything organised on spreadsheets and lists, every job colour-coded: green for done, yellow for needs to be done, red for should have been done yesterday. He delegates jobs between Nayeon and me, but by the end of the night we're flowing smoothly back and forth. Calling, emailing, organising. Pulling all the final threads together to make tomorrow possible.
Lisa mostly stays out of it and makes sure that we're all eating. At one point, she leaves and comes back with containers of Chinese food, which she doles out between the four of us and refuses to take money for.
Ren's extensive wall of wedding to-dos covers the window, so I lose all track of time. I don't even realise how much time has passed until I look at the clock on the computer screen. It's 3:06 a.m.
"When did midnight happen?" I ask.
"Sometime around the second round of egg rolls."
I twist my neck, and my spine cracks all the way down my back. I glance behind us. Lisa is passed out on the bed. She's half-propped up, as though she tried to stay awake and failed. Her glasses are still on her face, with her mouth hanging open.
Nayeon has curled up, literally, at Lisa's feet like a puppy. She's clutching her phone like a teddy bear to her chest, with her Bluetooth still blinking on her ear.
"It looks like we're the sole survivors." I observe.
"Aw..." Ren coos. "Look at our children."
"What do you think they're going to be when they grow up?"
"A stripper and a psychologist, probably."
"Which is which?"
A smile quirks the edge of Ren's mouth. "I've missed you, little bug."
