Chapter Text
“So.” Brad says as he sits next to Beckett with his dinner. “I have bad news about the venue.”
She puts her fork down and gives him a look.
“Please don’t tell me the Arboretum is already booked. There isn’t enough room to re-create it on a holodeck and fit everyone in there. We have too many guests! Although we could shorten the guest list…” she muses.
He gives her tense smile and shakes his head.
“My parents are insisting on having it at the vineyard,” he says it so fast she suspects he thinks it’s softening the blow.
“Absolutely not!” she replies. “I want it to be in a neutral place, that way, if your father acts up, like the last time we visited, it’s going to be easier to deal with.”
“No one in my family’s coming if it’s not held there. My father and siblings won’t come. No, not even my sister. She claims she has no one to look after the kids, even though they’re big enough to be left with her in-laws for a weekend. But I know it’s because they want to avoid threats of disownment if they don’t do as he says.” She opens her mouth to ask about his mother, and it’s almost like he can read her mind. “And I know he won’t let my mother go without him, just to spite me.”
She’s tempted to ask if they really need to be on the guest list. Because at this point, she’s had it with Mr. Boimler’s disapproval of his youngest child’s life choices. His mother has accepted it, as have his siblings by now, but the elder Boimler is still digging his heels in. Brad’s career has really taken off, recently, and, while everyone else is incredibly proud of him for it, every new announcement to his family was met with scoffs and demands to know when he’s going to let this whole spacefaring thing go and come home.
Instead, she says: “I watched this show from the early twenty first century recently and one of the characters said something like ‘In my case, there’s nothing like family to screw up a family’. That’s a million percent true for you, dude.”
She picks her fork up again and resumes eating dinner, without adding anything more.
He stares at her for a minute or two, then asks: “So what do we do?”
“Look, I need to think about this.”
“We host a lot of weddings,” he pleads. “Yes, even though our thing is raisins. Don’t look at me like that.”
She lightly tosses her bread roll at his face, and they both laugh.
“I’ll show you pictures of events that have been hosted there. It’s really not that big of a compromise, and you still get your nature setting, somewhat,” he says, before taking a bite of his meal.
“If your dad says or does anything unsavory, I’m kicking his ass.”
*************
“What do you think?” Becket asks, holding out fabric swatches. “I really like the combination of the burgundy and blush, but the navy blue and sunflower yellow is really nice too.”
“Mmmh?” Brad looks up from his PADD to look up at the small pieces of cloth she’s holding in each hand.
“Why not that orangey pink and grey, over there?” he points at another combination they’ve been thinking of that is sitting on the bed, among others. “I think those colors suit you better.”
“Yes, but you look really good in wine tones,” she says.
He gets up from the loveseat in their quarters and walks over to her, cupping her upper arms in his hands, and kissing her lightly.
“My mother’s always told me that my wedding day was going to be the most important day in my future wife’s life. It’s also just to decorate with. We’ll both be in uniform, anyway.”
“Right,” she breathes, before looking back at the bed. “Then maybe the salmon and silver would look good too.”
“Which ones are those again?”
“The colors you just said, dumbass,” she replies, laughing.
He shakes his head with a smile and kisses her in a way that makes them forget all about fabric swatches and wedding plans for the next half hour.
Afterwards, he takes two samples at random, and they end up with a rich wine color and gold, which they both agree on.
*************
Brad is starting to be nauseated from all the desserts they’ve been sampling. Granted, it’s replicated versions of various desserts in tiny portions roughly one or two bites each, but Beckett can’t make up her mind about which one she wants to have served. They must have tasted over 30 already.
He personally would have been happy with the basic vanilla they tried first, but she found it boring. Various flavours and levels of richness later, he’s sipping ice water to try to stave the nausea off. He’ll never understand how she can handle this much sugar and not feel absolutely rotten, afterwards.
“Okay, that’s the one, the white chocolate and raspberry!” she exclaims, pushing the plate at him. “Try it, it’s amazing.”
“I can’t eat any more, Beck. I feel sick,” he complains, feeling cold sweat spread from his scalp down his back.
“Seriously, it’s not like we were eating full portions, it’s just a bite.”
He's about to repeat that he really can’t, when a particularly bad wave of nausea hits him. He runs off to their bathroom to vomit.
“Weakling!” she calls out to him, before licking her fork clean.
“Urgh, it’s too much sugar!” he barely manages between retches.
“You’ll taste it at the wedding then, because we’re definitely getting that one!”
*************
The caterer has brought everything she needed to cook the entire sample menu. They’re in Ransom’s dining room because it’s large enough to do the tasting in with all the proper flatware and silverware for each type of dish, but they also invited him to stay so he can help with any tie breakers.
“What do you think? We should have, what, at least one non-veg and option and one vegan option?” Beckett asks. “Chicken would please most meat eaters in the group, I think?”
“My father will have a fit if he doesn’t get his red meat at dinner,” Brad replies, reading through those choices.
“Your fucking father again,” Beckett rolls her eyes. “He should eat more veggies, anyway. The man’s all meat and potatoes all the time, even at breakfast!”
“You can always do a choice of three mains,” Ransom says, trying to be helpful and ease the tension in the air, even though the tasting hasn’t even begun. “Plenty of weddings have more than two options.”
“We could also do it buffet-style, that usually pleases most people thanks to the options they have,” replies the caterer, with a nod.
“Can we at least try the prime rib?” Brad asks, voice pleading. “That’s his favorite.”
They end up with three main course options, because, after the tasting, even Beckett has to admit the prime rib is too good to pass up. It’ll be chicken with a creamy mushroom sauce and chickpea tagine with apricots for everyone who doesn’t want the beef.
*************
“DJ or live music?” Brad calls out from the bathroom, while shaving. He had loved the beard, but it had been too much maintenance, long-term, and he had better things to do with his time than trim, wash and oil it regularly so it stayed nice and within regulations.
Beckett pauses as she’s putting on her uniform trousers.
“I have no idea,” she replies.
“Wait. Do we need music?” he muses.
“It’s traditional? People will find it weird without the opening dances, I think.”
He walks into the room, still patting at his chin with a towel. “You want to dance?”
“Yeah? Don’t you? And it would be nice to have something playing in the background while we eat. And I guess we’d have more choice of what we’d like to hear with a DJ instead of live music.”
She looks up at him from having just put on her boots. “Aw, you got rid of it? I thought you were trimming and stuff…”
“Yeah… I know you liked the beard, I did too, but it is a lot more work than I have time for.”
“You look like a baby, without it,” she says coming closer to run the back of her fingers against his bare cheek.
“Yeah. A baby who’s often a hair away from having to order people to their deaths,” he scoffs. “Think of the lack of beard burn… anywhere.”
His eyes are twinkling.
“Don’t say that just as we’re about to be on duty! Now that’s all I’ll be thinking about all day!” she exclaims, blushing as if their relationship is still brand new.
He grins at her. “Maybe I did that on purpose? You know, anticipation and all that.”
“You fucking tease!” she laughs, as she throws his socks at him.