I can hear the bells Who: Amanda and Cameron Where: Wedding reception When: Early evening
It had been perfect, Amanda had decided, though she had made that decision long before the general event could truly be called eventful. Nothing had gone too wrong, and people kept telling her that that was mattered. Those sentiments had been met with a smile that was truly frozen in place, utterly forbidden from slipping out of place until further notice. Only acquaintances of the Blakes and Calverts could surmise that the most important part of a wedding was the lack of any catastrophe, however minor. Amanda just continued to smile, comfortable in the knowledge that she could sum up enough minor disasters that would more likely than not snowball in her mother’s eyes and turn the whole event into a complete nightmare. And that was just on the bride’s side, beginning when the maid of honour lost her necklace down the front of her corseted dress before the ceremony even started. Since it was a family heirloom, she proceeded to stare down her own cleavage every few minutes and remained beetroot red until she retrieved it. Or so Amanda had been told. Her focus had been elsewhere at the time. And there was that one joke in one of the speeches that she wasn’t sure how she felt about. Glancing up from the women fawning over the combination of engagement and wedding rings, she sought Cameron, instead homing in on her cousin staring at him. The smile didn’t move, though the rest of her did, nudging her cousin hard enough to change her line of sight considerably. “Beautiful,” she agreed, “but taken.” Or had she not attended the wedding after all? Smoothing down her dress - Perfectly chosen and fitted, thank you very much, Marion. - where that tiny altercation had ruffled it, she gave Cameron a rather more genuine smile as the first dance was announced. I am Amanda Blake-Calvert, and none of you are forgetting it. Skirts had to be hitched slightly if she wanted to move faster, but her attention lay with her husband just then. Or just Calvert. I’ll have to ask Daddy about that. And if her enthusiasm was showing, well, she didn’t care. It was her wedding, she could behave like that if she wanted to. Any other day and she might not have been seen reaching for him like that. Not outside the house, at any rate. “We made it.” Without the silver chainsaws. “And my cousin can’t take her eyes off you.”
Weddings were one of those things that Cameron had truly never paid that much attention to. Why? Because they didn’t affect him. They happened, people’s names changed and they went on their way. Except this wedding had been a considerable amount different because it was his and he found himself greatly affected by not only the outcome but the ceremony itself. His cousin, the best man, had been a little hungover as was expected but that couldn’t detract from Amanda. She had been beautiful and the ceremony had followed suit. What he recalled of it because he hadn’t been paying the most attention. He was sure that Amanda could recall all of the details if necessary and if not there was their mother’s. And when Amanda approached him for the first dance all he could do was smile at her. Getting married wasn’t that hard after all. “My cousin would be staring at you if I hadn’t made threats before the ceremony even began,” Cameron informed her. “As it stands I haven’t noticed your cousin look because my eyes haven’t left you.” It was only the truth. Amanda was absolutely radiant and it wasn’t just because of the dress. “But see... I told you the world wouldn’t end before we got married.” Score one for him, he had been right. The demons had even been decent enough to keep themselves away from the wedding.
If Amanda was blushing, she wasn’t acknowledging it. Part of her almost believed whoever had done her make-up had put in the flushed cheeks just in case her circulatory system did not know how to perform to everyone else’s satisfaction. It would be a lie to say she wasn’t in any way pleased to hear about any kind of threats being made involving her, though. Beaming, she draped arms over Cameron’s shoulders, forcing herself to forgo brushing off the usual imaginary speck of dust from his clothes. She loved him dearly, but if he chose now to shy away into any state of reserved appreciation, she would not be able to stop her heel from finding his instep. “I haven’t noticed your cousin either,” she admitted, fingers playing with the back of his collar. “I have noticed that you need to wear a tux more often.” If only so she could take it off - something she would have said aloud if it weren’t for the fact she suspected her mother was trying to lip-read. But really, there was not a single woman - Marion excluded - who could blame her for that thought. “Mm, husband and wife,” she mused. It felt strange to say; new but familiar and comfortable at the same time. “It might end sooner now, though. There are two Mrs. Calverts in the room, Cam.” And right there at their wedding was the softest anybody was ever going to see Amanda until she became a mother.
Public displays of affection were something that Cameron hadn’t ever been all that keen on, something that Amanda was completely aware of. He knew that she was because they’d had the discussion before. Saying ‘I love you’ on a regular basis for no reason other than because it pleased Amanda -- and because it was true -- had been difficult enough to become used to. “He’s going to ask you for a dance at some point and if you don’t laugh too hard at him then I’ll dance with whichever cousin was staring. We are expected to play nicely just this once.” When was it acceptable to leave again? All he wanted to do was see what exactly the honeymoon suite was like before they left the next day. Though he supposed that having Amanda smile at him like that was good enough reason to want to stay. He wouldn’t say it because he knew it’d probably upset her but he was just glad that nothing else had happened to keep them from this. No more vampires or demons or any of those freaks interfering or bringing harm to his -- wife. It would take awhile before he could think of her that way without a little smile tugging at his lips. “Yes, but there’s only one whose the most beautiful and I’m the one married to her. The other one and then the Mrs. Blake are probably going to be crying into their cake now that you’re Amanda Calvert. If you ever wanted anything from my mother take advantage of that because she’ll never be so compliant.” He was joking. Sort of. He was smiling at least.
Amanda’s smile had frozen into one of highly amused affection and tried to go no further. She would laugh at Cameron’s cousin. She would. Because the notion of having to dance with him was so ridiculous it was hysterical. Another day and she might have turned her nose up and walked in the other direction, or humoured him in a manner that made it clear how much she did not want to. Amanda simply didn’t give her attention to people just because they asked for it. “I’ll try not to laugh. Too much. But if he starts trying to break dance or does the robot, “ she added with an expression that was dying to laugh at the mental image she had painted, “all bets are off.” And then there was the one Cameron was offering to dance with. The maid of honour - the only bridesmaid, actually - Amanda still hadn’t forgiven for the stress she caused during the dress fittings. “And you get to dance with Grace. The one who put on about six pounds between dress fittings and nearly gave the female Calvert & Blake trifecta an aneurysm.” Grace had only really put on about one pound, but that wasn’t the point. Everything had to be perfect and, well... It was. Despite what she had to say about anybody, she could not stop smiling at Cameron - who always got her most genuine smiles unless she was angry, only right then they had an audience. She had stopped noticing. “Amanda Calvert...” Somehow it just sounded different when Cameron said it. Better. For a moment she found herself biting her lip, her thumb gently rubbing the back of his neck, before that smile drew her in further. “That suits you.” No, she wasn’t interested in his mother. She couldn’t think of anything she would want from her either. Except privacy. Could she get away with asking that? No. “You should do it more.”
“Six pounds?” Cameron arched an eyebrow before turning to find said cousin and give her a once-over. “It doesn’t look like she put on six pounds. Not that I’m intimately acquainted with her figure but... I can see it having given you problems if she put on any weight at all.” Mostly he was just saying that to see how Amanda reacted, and also because it was true. At least Grace wasn’t known for dancing in ways that did nothing but make everyone else laugh. Cameron had the easy end of the bargain here so far as he was concerned. Smiling down at Amanda, his wife -- how odd it was to think that and realize that it was completely true -- he hardly even noticed that someone else had said his name. It was really hard to pay attention to anyone other than Amanda right then. Even his own thoughts weren’t venturing that far away from her and how she looked. How nice it sounded to hear her call herself Amanda Calvert. “Smile? I haven’t had much reason to this past month, but I do now.” Yes that was all being blamed on her. He hardly cared about the ceremony or the guests, who he had to dance with or what they had to eat. What mattered was that Amanda was smiling like that. And had they really danced for the entire song already? They must have because people were clapping and coming out to join them. And though there were other dances to give, Cameron was reluctant. He was enjoying himself. “One more dance?” There were traditions to be followed; she had to dance with her father and he had to dance with his mother, then he’d dance with hers because he doubted Tiffany would allow him not to, but they could wait another few minutes.
“Six pounds.” As Cameron turned to looked at Grace, Amanda arched an eyebrow at her. The corner of her lip tugged momentarily into the kind of smile that she had only ever used to twist someone’s knife. Her cousin’s knife appeared to be Cam - or maybe weddings in general - but Amanda had his attention again. “That’s because the dress is corseted. Well...” Alright, she would make a minor concession. “Maybe it was more like four pounds, but I still don’t see how she can breathe in that dress.” That said, she could have sworn she’d heard their mothers giving her a diet regime. “Not that it matters.” That Grace was slim with or without those four or six pounds and actually looked marvellous in her dress was neither here nor there. Someone called for Cameron and she ignored it quite easily. She was the bride; she would keep him to herself for a time if she pleased. Besides which, there had always been something about Cameron’s smile that she couldn’t just walk away from. Not even when she was angry with him and dating his friends. “Mm,” she nodded, flashing her own smile again. “Although I’m enjoying the look of the rest of you, I admit.” For that one moment her nose wrinkled and she dismissed the last month with a shake of her head. No one needed to think about that. “Smile now. For me.” The day was making her soft. She could hear the future accusations already and they were going ignored. Others were coming out onto the dance floor and, truth be told, Amanda mostly felt like telling them to go away. But her father caught her eye and she remembered that tradition dictated such-and-such, et cetera, et cetera... “As if I could refuse.” And hopefully it wouldn’t be the last dance for the entire night.