Short Kings Anthem

Part 32

"Okay so that would make my parents, sister and your brother and sister?" Chris asked tentatively, typing out names on his phone.

"You'd have to add my niece and nephews to the list. My sister would have to tell the little ones which means to keep it fair the older three should probably know too."

"That and they would probably beat me up if we kept it a secret from them," Chris added and Lauren couldn't help but laugh. The couple were now quite set on the idea of keeping their wedding a surprise but they agreed there were key people they wanted to know in advance in order to keep the pressure off them in organising a wedding all on their own.

"Have you had any thought to bridesmaids or anything?"

"Oh I obviously want the girls but I think they'd go MAD at the surprise, like I don't think they would be angry at us keeping it from them, but their reaction would be something else. I'm toying with the idea of keeping it from them until the day." Lauren explained.

"I agree, not with your friends obviously you know them better than I do but in terms of Arthur, I think he would lose his mind but in a good way."

"Aww you want Arthur as your best man?" Lauren gushed with a big smile on her face, it surprised her a little bit but she didn't know why, they had been friends since childhood and were still close to this day.

"Yeah, I keep going through different people but I keep thinking about Arthur,"

"That's cute."

"Fuck off." Chris could feel his cheeks heating up.

"It is though! Especially in this yeah bloke lad banter era it's just nice to have two boys friends for years side by side it's sweet."

"Well moving on, I've got two quotes from two different hotels. The one I showed you before is the better deal, and I got a better vibe from them" Chris explained getting his phone out. Lauren looked through the email carefully, nodding along as the hotel's plans for secrecy made a lot of sense plus the beach and the ball room looked beautiful. She kept on reading and her eyes widened when she saw they had one date available for that September and one for October.

"You didn't say you wanted it for this year did you?" Lauren asked, a few months was not a lot of time to get everything organised for a wedding, not in her mind anyway.

"No, just keep reading, these guys at the hotel organise everything so it's not impossible..." Chris trailed off placing his hands in his pockets.

"What are you saying?" Lauren asked Chris her eyebrows sitting high on her forehead.

"I want to marry you, I don't care where or when or how I'm just really excited at the prospect of me calling you my wife," Chris admitted with a small shrug. He knew that Lauren cared about the day a lot more than he did but to him it was just a means to an end. As long as he had his family and some of his friends there he didn't mind what else happened, but it was important to Lauren and he wanted to make it as smooth and as stress free as possible for her.

"When you were born was there rejoicing and birds singing? You are just the sweetest." Lauren could have melted on the spot, despite everything moments like this still surprised Lauren how could one man continue to be so sweet to her and still make her feel this giddy? "Well you sound like you have it all figured out," Lauren commented sounding a little breathless, she was blindsided.

"You okay?" Chris asked worried and snaked an arm around Lauren's back, most of all he was worried she was changing her mind.

"Yeah, it's all just happening isn't it? Considering everything else I really should have expected you to figure everything out and to want to get married soon but I didn't."

"I will never pressure you to do something you don't want to do. I want you to have the wedding you want when you want it. Tell me what you want and I'll see if we can make it happen like I have with this, and if you change your mind we'll look into something else," Chris soothed and Lauren nodded.

"I think, I think with all this as well it's just making me think about my parents and I am missing them a little bit," Lauren admitted sadly as tears pricked her eyes. Chris kicked himself a little for not thinking about this earlier and he kissed Lauren's head as he squeezed her tight.

"I'm sorry, that's the only thing I can't do," Chris mumbled into Lauren's hair as he kissed it again. Lauren smiled at Chris's words, it wasn't anyone's fault and he couldn't fix it but the fact he understood her pain meant a lot to her.

"I've got some time from video shooting and meetings tomorrow I'll sit down and properly have a look at everything and we can discuss it," Lauren sat up and smiled at Chris, she was excited about this whole process, every time she thought about becoming Chris's wife she couldn't help but smile.

"No rush my love," Chris replied before getting up from the sofa and asking the red head what she wanted for dinner.

"I think we've got some duck just about to go out, I'll give you a hand," Lauren answered also standing up, cooking was one of those things which she enjoyed and it also relaxed her somewhat. Although having Chris in the kitchen with her could be tumultuous at times.

"Did Chip speak to you about come dine with me?" Chris asked as he watched Lauren pick up some potatoes and garlic. Her ability to come up with a meal from a seemingly random group of ingredients was something he admired about her.

"He did, I'm up for it if you are," Lauren replied looking in the cupboard for marmalade and honey in order to make a quick sauce.

"I hope you know what you're letting yourself in for," Chris joked as he placed a pan on the heat.

"I cook with you most evenings, I think I know," Lauren said with a wink.

"I was talking about the other contestants but okay..."

"I know I was just joking around. If we're going to do this thing and do well at it I need you to come here and pay attention," Lauren warned as she started to mince some garlic.

"Yes miss!" Chris didn't need to be told twice. He loved it when Lauren took charge of things, often she could be unsure, indecisive and anxious about things so to see her when she was confident it did something to him.

"So how did I do?" Chris asked when they were eating their food. They had made pan fried duck, an orange and honey based sauce, some garlic mashed potatoes and some green veg.

"Over sweetened the sauce a little bit, almost burnt the duck you just about saved it and your knife skills could do with a bit of improvement but overall I'd give you a solid seven out of ten." Lauren commented. Chris nodded he was quite happy with that, he really wanted to win this mainly because Lauren was a good cook but he knew the other people in the video would come down on him hard for the tiniest mistakes.

"We need some practice, maybe we should invite your friends round or your nephews or something," Chris suggested and Lauren giggled a little. The oldest three nephews were more like younger brothers to Lauren as they were quite close in age and despite her being older than all of them they had a protective aura around Lauren so Chris was desperate to impress them. He needn't worry, they liked him and liked him much more than they ever liked Tom so he was already doing something right so had no need to be nervous around them. Chris was just intimidated by their sheer size such a stark contrast from Lauren and to an extension himself but Lauren assured him it was all appearances and they were gentle giants, especially when she asked them to be.

"I haven't seen them for ages it would be good to get them over actually. Oh! Maybe we can get all of mine and your family over and tell them about the wedding?" Lauren added excitedly.

"That's not a terrible idea. We can bounce our feelings off them and see what they say. The final decision is yours obviously," Chris reassured, his family were quite chill, he didn't envision anything else other than their support, only helping out if specifically asked.

"That's a great idea. I'll try and get a date locked in if it works with your family, mine can be more flexible."

"Well all of mine are on the mainland, I don't want your parents to be scrambling round for flights,"

"It's fine, we'll sort it out,"