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“Of course, Sir.” Macklin took his job as Lucas’s right-hand man seriously, and he and Tate disappeared into the lobby.

“The rest of you—” Lucas took over. “We will start our little ceremony in five minutes, so please take your seats outside and enjoy this fine weather we’re having. But,” he cautioned, “we’d advise you to leave your phones and other devices indoors. I don’t think we have enough rice on the property to revive all the phones if they get too wet.” He gestured to Tate. “For those interested in photos later, Tate will use my camera.”

So this was actually happening.

Fine.

“Well, I’ll see you out there,” Ty drawled and walked off.

Shay joined us in the nick of time, right after I’d left my suit jacket behind the bar. Fuck the tie too. I removed it. And you know what? The shoes. They were really nice shoes, and they’d get wrecked out on the lawn. They’d lasted six years, partly because I only wore them when Reese forced me to. I had no plans to go shoe shopping any time soon.

“You look more annoyed than usual, my lovely Owner,” Shay said with a bit of humor glinting in his eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Not really.” I left the shoes on the shelf under the register. There was an empty spot between packets of straws and napkins. “Dog and pony shows are bad enough. Now we gotta do it in the pouring rain? And on top of it all—” I pointed toward the buffet, where Gael was preparing a plate for Dean. “Dean gets to eat, and I don’t.”

Reese’s forehead wrinkled. “He’s fucking diabetic, bro.”

Some got all the damn luck.

I didn’t say that part out loud.

I cleared my throat and folded up the sleeves of my shirt. “Whatever.”

Reese and Shay exchanged a look.

Then my brother glanced back at me. “We need to improve your sleep, Riv. You’re not gettin’ enough of it.”

I frowned. “I sleep fine. One nightmare in the past month—come on.”

He shook his head. “It’s not all about nightmares. You know that. But we’ll talk about that when we get home. Let’s go.”

I was in no mood to bitch about that now anyway, so sure, later. And I would bitch. He could count on it. I was past last year’s trauma nonsense. Because Shay had healed. He had recovered. He was thriving again, and he’d worked through pretty much all his fire-related triggers.

I was fine.

Lucian had been optimistic with his ten seconds. I was soaked through before I got off the patio.

I grimaced and rubbed the back of my neck.

“Lighten up, sweetheart.” Reese threw an arm around my shoulders. “It’s a wedding, not a funeral.”

I side-eyed him. “It’d be easier to lighten up if you hadn’t put product in my hair. My neck’s gonna be sticky as fuck when the rain washes it all the way down to my ass crack.”

His eyes brimmed with laughter, the asshole. “I’m not sure a quarter-sized amount of gel to tame your cowlick counts as product.”

I frowned and touched the top of my head. My hair didn’t need taming.

He smooched my cheek and refocused on Shay instead.

Just as well.

I didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with my mood, to be honest. Maybe I could concede to being slightly more irritable lately. Maybe.

No matter how much I hated crowds and big get-togethers, two of my closest friends had gotten married, and they were including their Little today. I was happy for them. I should at least try to enjoy myself.

If nothing else, we’d be fed soon-ish.

But I’d cut a motherfucker if I didn’t get a shrimp cocktail before they ran out. The buffet had a little bit of everything, with a focus on seafood and other cold dishes. Not every item had a serving for each guest. Between shrimp skewers, shrimp cocktail, marinated shrimp, and all the dishes that didn’t include shrimp, nobody was walking away hungry. But I specifically wanted a shrimp cocktail.