Not fucking now.
For all her planning with the invites and scheduling, our wedding is a simple thing. Informal, fresh cut flowers scattered across the beach. Everyone we love present – and a few people we tolerate, like Milah Holly herself – perched in folding chairs. Reb's wedding dress is in the same style, a simple white sundress that suits her better than any layer cake of frills ever could.
I told her I didn't want to see a stranger caked in makeup and suffocated in Victorian layers on our big day. I want to see her, beautiful as ever without any gloss. My sweet, natural, sexy as hell Kenna, with her magic ability to ignite my blood with nothing more than a green-eyed glance.
This is us. The future. This is how it should be, and will be.
Me and my wife, doing things our own way. Finding out what works for us, just like we always have.
Sometimes, it's chaotic. Sometimes, it's peace.
But it always, always makes me happy. Because she’s changed my life several times over. She’s changed me.
And I know I wouldn’t be here without her. Hell, I'd barely be human.
I'm so deep in my own head I'm hardly listening to the priest. All the “dearly beloveds” and “we are gathered here todays” are nothing against the roar and crash of the foamy sea at our backs. Like Mother Nature herself is standing witness, saluting us – and this lovely little kitten of a woman looks up at me with a shy, dorky smile that makes me think of that girl I used to know.
That girl who brought me back. That girl who never left me, even when I left her.
That girl who's been my greatest right and wrong, and my biggest, brightest promise.
God as my witness, I’ll never, ever leave her again.
Come hell, come fire, come storm, come the world heaving itself apart...
I’ll never leave her side.
The stars are just coming out against a sky of violet and indigo twilight, looking down on us with their glittering eyes when the priest asks for our vows.
My gut knots. I’ve been holding off on figuring mine out for so long, unsure of the right thing to say.
But as I look into her eyes, I know. It's spontaneous, it's harsh, it's right.
The words just come, as if I’ve spilled them out in heart’s blood.
“Kenna,” I murmur, then grin. “Reb.” There’s a laugh from the peanut gallery, and I recognize Steve’s voice but don’t care. “I learned who I was years ago when I watched the stars with you, then lost myself when I forgot where they were. You brought the sky back to me again, and taught me how to be the kind of man I want to be. The kind of man I believed my father could be.” His ring is heavy in the pocket of my shirt, reinstated along with his reputation. “The kind of man who can cherish you. Love you. Protect you. Fight like hell for you till the day I die. And I want the stars that always drew us together knowing I'll love you. Always. Love you till their light burns out, the earth falls apart, and beyond.”
Her eyes are glistening, glittering bright as distant green starlight themselves. She lets out a shaky laugh, her cheeks flushed. “I thought I was the writer,” she whispers.
“You're the muse today,” I tell her, drilling my gaze into hers. “You draw it out of me. My best, Reb.”
She laughs, ducking her head, but clasps my hands tight in hers. “Careful. You’re going to make me forget my lines, Landon!”
I wink. “Hurry. We're waiting.”
Ass, she says with a smiling glance.
Then she trails into a sigh, those captivating green eyes so warm, so open, brimming with the emotion I’m so lucky she’s willing to trust me with.
“Landon...you were always beautiful to me,” she says, her voice thick. “Even when you thought you were at your ugliest, your worst, past the point of no return, I saw the same man. The one I fell in love with one day after school when he told me I could be myself, and take the world by the horns. Whether your heart smolders with darkness or burns with light, you were gorgeous. You were strong. You were beautiful. And you still are. So flipping beautiful I can’t help but love you, Landon, and all the wild, chaotic whirlwinds of emotion that's become us. You have a beautiful heart...and I’m so, so glad to finally call it mine.”
Fuck.
Fuck, this woman might destroy me, baring herself like this. But maybe I'm not afraid because we've already done that once. Exactly what I needed.
Destroyed and rebuilt into something and someone better, the rubble of that hateful, broken thing I was left behind.
“That's it, babe,” I whisper, leaning in where no one else can hear, grinning like a fool. “Because if you make me go all bleary-eyed in front of all these people, you're in so much trouble tonight.”
She grins back. “Looking forward to it,” she teases, only for the priest to clear his throat and pull us back from our absorption in each other, back into formalities.
The rest is a sugary sweet blur.
There’s a do you, Kenna? A do you, Landon? A with this ring, I thee wed. The rings, transferred from my pocket to our hands, slid reverently onto mutually shaking fingers. I do. I do.
I do, I do, I do.
Then an I now pronounce you.
Husband. Wife. Till Death do you part.
And then she’s in my arms, and our families are cheering and crying and laughing and shouting, and I’m kissing my wife for the first time.
Hot fuck. The first little flick of her tongue against mine does terrible things to the animal inside me. I have to restrain myself, remember not to grab her ass in public. I stop at the small of her back and just pull her in, attacking her mouth, the mouth I've claimed forever, pulling her into me.
She's mine, mine, gloriously mine.
Every day for the rest of our lives, I’ll remember.
I'll cherish.
I'll believe.
I'll love like madness.
How she falls into my arms with such absolute trust, absolute love, and kisses me with a joy and passion and promise that says no matter what rocky roads we may face, no matter how we may clash and push apart and pull back together...
She loves me.
And she knows I love her.
And I show her again and again and again, with every fiery pulse of lips to lips and dancing, swirling souls.
I want her to myself. Right the fuck now.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with a wedding party is the wedding party.
High on dizzy joy and clinging to each other nonstop, we hold court. Bide our time. And I force my throbbing dick to behave for a few more hours.
Mothers suddenly become mothers-in-law, hugs and tears all around. Another smack upside the head from Steve, who introduces me to their Gam-Gam, a ninety year old woman who pinches my cheek like Goliath. She tells me and Kenna we've given her the best late birthday present she could ever ask for – unless we're planning on giving her a grandbaby next year?
Fuck.
Pouting from Milah, who tries her damnedest not to show that she’s red-eyed from crying and forcing down the biggest grin. She’s pretending to be her usual sourpuss screw-the-world self, but the fact that she's here at all tells us there's more under her perfectly tanned skin.
When she hugs us both, it’s fierce and genuine. None of the smarmy act she puts on, and everything of a girl who’s slowly finding her way in the world, one mistake at a time. Incredibly, she doesn't even touch a drink the whole time I glance her direction.
She sniffs at us with mock hauteur. “You guys are so predictable, having a cheap wedding. It was quaint, I suppose. Charming.”
Kenna grins and tucks herself into my side. “Do I need to remind you I will end you?”
“Landon wouldn’t let you,” Milah fires back, though there’s no flirtatiousness behind it. She hesitates, then gives me an uncertain look. “I...fuck, I don’t know how to say this.”
“Say what?”
She looks away, rubbing her arm uncomfortably. “Just...thank you. Thank you both. For realsies.”