As he started on his second scotch, he circled back to the top.

"She wants it at Saint Christopher's. She wants me to officiate. She wants seven bridesmaids and five ushers—gotta have those holy numbers, right? She wants a bouquet of peonies, marigolds, and vervain. And—AND—she wants to do it in two months!"

"What's vervain," Robin said dully, as though he hadn't already heard Shep's rant three times in the past quarter of an hour.

"Eugh, imagine if they pick Jason Mraz for their first dance," Shep continued. "Speaking of dancing—what about the reception? Are they just assuming they can have it at our house? Or the club?"

"Babe, they can have it at our house. That's probably easiest," Robin soothed. The audio crackled with background noise; Shep could tell he had him on speakerphone.

"What'chya doing?" he asked, the edge melting from his voice.

"Emailing, eating Fritos," Robin answered. Crunch. "Listen, I'll be through with my meeting by noon tomorrow and on the earliest flight home. We can On Demand that new superheroes-in-spandex movie—"

"Captain America: Civil War—"

"—and then deal with Rachel and Kyle next weekend. It's just a wedding. Didn't we just have one of those a few months ago?"

"And it went pretty well, if I'm remembering right," Shep chuckled.

His sister had a knack for ramping him up, for better or for worse, though he doubted she was even conscious of it. He twisted the platinum ring on his finger, still so new that it had not left a tan line, and basked in the memory of the day that, almost six months earlier, in defiance of a wicked Ohio winter, at the altar where he had been baptized and received his First Communion, Robin placed it there.