Non Sequitur

Autumn Kinsington rushed out the door of the pharmacy, knowing she was going to be late. She was supposed to get off of work at 5:00, but it was nearly 5:30 now, as she had been on the phone with an insurance company for the last fifty minutes.

She had plans to meet with her best friend, Katherine Woods, and her wedding planner, Maya Jeffries, at 5:30, and there was no way she was going to make it across town with rush hour traffic. So, she pulled out her cell phone, quickly texting Katherine that she was going to be late. Katherine was always early, though there was a chance she'd be late, too, since she now had a six month old baby at home that caused her schedule to be off at times.

But, Autumn was unlucky when she got a text back from Katherine saying that she and Maya would just wait until she got there to order their dinner. Autumn groaned, knowing it was going to take forever to get there, as she glanced at the stand still traffic on the road.

She put her car in drive and made her way out to the road. She contemplated trying to walk to the restaurant they were meeting at, but it was nearly four miles away. Though, with this traffic, she would probably make it there quicker on foot than in her car. But, it was also over eighty degrees outside, and walking in her heels she had on would not make for a pleasant evening. So, she opted to sit in her car, tapping her fingers along the top of her steering wheel, waiting on the traffic to move.

She let out a breath as the cars slowly began moving, and she watched the minutes tick by on the clock as she moved at a crawling pace, slowly but surely across town. She finally made it to the restaurant just after 6:15, and she rushed inside, finding Katherine and Maya fairly easily. The two gorgeous blondes stood out in the room, and Autumn smiled, wondering how many men had hit on the two ladies.

"Hey!" she said, sitting down in the empty chair between the two of them. "I'm sorry I'm late! Traffic was awful," she explained, immediately grabbing the menu and looking it over. She had an early lunch, and hadn't eaten since eleven, so naturally she was starving.

"No problem," Maya assured her. "We were just talking about the Hawks," she said.

Autumn nodded her head in understanding. She wasn't surprised. Katherine was one of the biggest Blackhawks fans she'd ever met. She lived and breathed for the team her brother, Brent Seabrook, played for, and that team was often a topic of conversation between the women. "What about them?" Autumn asked, her eyes lifting from the menu to look at Maya.

"The parade," Maya replied. "Kat was just saying how cool it was."

Autumn smiled as she recalled the story Katherine told quite frequently. The last time the Hawks had won the Cup, Autumn hadn't been a part of their world just yet, as she hadn't even met Corey when it happened. And, they had lost in the Conference Finals this past year, so they hadn't gotten a parade. But, having heard Katherine's story so much, Autumn was sure she could narrate it as if she had been there, too.

The waiter came over at that time to take their orders, and then the girls forgot about the Blackhawks conversation and turned towards Autumn and Corey's wedding details. Autumn still couldn't believe that Corey had proposed to her just a few months ago. They had decided to go through this season and had set a wedding date of June 30th, knowing that the season would be over by then, and even if the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup once again this year, the celebrations should be over by then as well.

Maya pulled out a pen and notepad and looked over at Autumn. "Okay, let's get started. I've got the notes from last time, but I think we need to start focusing on determining an overall theme, or color scheme if you don't want an official wedding theme," she explained.

Autumn nodded her head. "I don't really know. I really like purple," she shrugged her shoulders. She had asked Corey if he wanted to be involved in the wedding planning, and he had told her as politely as he could that he wanted to be far away from all the planning. He wanted her to have the wedding she wanted, and all he wanted was to basically show up and say his vows and marry her. He could care less about all the decorations or invitations.

"What kind of purple? Lilac? Violet? Royal? Orchid?" Maya started naming off all different shades.

Autumn looked over at Katherine, wide-eyed, needing some help. "You've always liked the darker purple, haven't you?" Katherine provided.

Autumn nodded her head. She'd been looking through several wedding magazines and had shown Katherine some of the things she'd seen that she liked in them. "Yeah, with gray," Autumn added.

Maya reached down into her bag, and Autumn wondered what she was doing. But, a few moments later she got her answer when she had a handful of color swatches that she put on the table, sorting through them, trying to find the ones she was looking for. "So like this plum purple?" she asked, pointing her perfectly manicured fingernail towards a color in the middle. "And then you could do this lighter purple with it and this gray," Maya added, throwing a couple of different swatches next to the original plum color.

Autumn smiled. "I like it," she nodded her head approvingly before looking over at Katherine. "What do you think?" she asked.

"I think it's your wedding, and I think you like it," Katherine replied with a smile.

"You think it'd look okay?" Autumn asked cautiously, looking between the two women at her table.

Maya nodded her head. "I wouldn't even suggest it if it wasn't going to look fab!" she exclaimed excitedly. Autumn sometimes wondered if she and Corey had made the right decision going with Maya as their wedding planner. The woman was just twenty-six years old, younger than Autumn by two years. She didn't have the most experience, but she also wasn't enamored when she met Corey like several of the other wedding planners Autumn and Corey had met with had been. Maya seemed excited about her job, and she had done nothing to worry Autumn so far, but just her youth and inexperience sometimes worried her.

Drinks were brought to the table, interrupting the wedding talk momentarily. "How's Harper doing?" Autumn asked Katherine about her newborn daughter who was now six months old. Autumn saw Harper regularly, not only being her godmother, but also having been her surrogate for Katherine and her husband, Cade.

"She's cute, as always," Katherine gushed. "She knows her name. Whenever Cade comes home and says Harper, she looks up at him. It's so cute! She's absolutely in love with her daddy," she beamed.

"How's Cade doing?" Autumn asked, knowing that the emergency room doctor hardly slept at all between his job and his daughter. "Is he with her now?"

Katherine shook her head. "No, he's at work. Brent and Bri are watching her," she said, speaking of her brother and his wife.

"Busy house over at the Seabrooks," Autumn laughed, wondering how they were dealing with Autumn on top of their son, Ryan, who was born ten months ago.

Maya pouted her lips. "I want a baby!" she told the other two.

Autumn glanced over at her. "Are you dating someone?" she inquired. She didn't know much about Maya's personal life. They'd only hired her a couple of weeks before, and every meeting had really consisted of only wedding talk.

The young blonde shook her head. "No, but I'm hoping to have a baby one day soon!" she said.

Katherine looked over at Autumn. "Yeah, I think this one right here is up next," she said, pointing towards her best friend. She knew Autumn was waiting until after she and Corey got married, but she had no doubt in her mind that they would have babies soon afterwards. Corey had made it very clear that he wanted children with Autumn.

Autumn rolled her eyes. "I've got some time," she replied before turning back towards Maya and continuing talk of the wedding plans.

They talked through dinner and by the time the meal had ended, they had figured out the color scheme and had a roundabout number of guests they wanted to invite. Now, it was Autumn's homework to actually write down a list of people she and Corey wanted at the wedding.

She bid Katherine and Maya goodbye as she went back to her car and made her way back to the condo she shared with Corey. Traffic was much better now that it was almost nine, and she made it home fairly quickly. She walked inside and was greeted by Corey, who was sitting on the couch, watching television. "Hey, how was the meeting?" he asked her.

"It was good. We got a color scheme," she smiled as she stood behind him behind the couch, putting her hands on his shoulders, massaging them gently. "What do you think of purple and gray?" she asked.

He leaned his head back to look up at her. "Whatever you want, babe," he told her, and she rolled her eyes at his vague feedback. "Your dad called, by the way," he added.

She stopped massaging and walked into the kitchen to put her leftovers in the refrigerator. "What'd he need?" she asked. He had just moved to a suburb of Chicago forty-five minutes from Autumn, having lived in Canada his entire life. But, after retiring from his job as a pharmacist three months ago, he decided he wanted to be closer to his only daughter, and had moved two weeks ago.

"Wanted to know if you wanted to have lunch on Sunday," Corey replied as she walked back out into the living room.

"I think Maya's coming over to work on the guest list with us," she said. "But, I'll see if Dad wants to come by and we can just have a big lunch here," she suggested. She was sure Maya wouldn't mind if her father was there. Maybe he could even help with family members on her side and who she should and shouldn't invite. "You've got to help us with the guest list," she told Corey.

Corey groaned. "Can't you just decide?" he asked her.

She shook her head emphatically. "No. I don't know who you want to invite and who you don't. And we'll have to get it down to under a hundred and fifty," she said. "Besides, you have Sunday off," she said, knowing the Hawks schedule and that Sunday was an off day after their game Saturday night.

"You know, I liked it better when you knew nothing about hockey," he muttered.

"And I liked it better when you would just do what I wanted without arguing," she retorted.

"Well now I know I can get in your pants no matter what," Corey grinned.

Autumn shook her head. "Not tonight buddy," she said, trying to show who was in charge, as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Corey cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, is that what you think?" he questioned. Autumn couldn't keep herself from smiling and cracked within a few moments. She shrugged her shoulders and started trying to run to the bedroom, but Corey was quicker and snatched her up around the waist halfway down the hallway.

She yelped as he picked her up and pinned her against the wall, capturing her mouth with his own. She sighed in pleasure, and he moved his mouth to her jawline and up to her ear, knowing that she really liked that area being kissed. "Still trying to hold out?" he asked when she moaned lightly.

"Uh…" she trailed off as he sucked on the skin just behind her ear.

He took that as her answer and picked her up as she hooked her legs around his waist and he carried her to the bedroom, ready to show her that he can always get in her pants, just like he had said.