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And my heartbeat.
“Are you well?” Ollie asks me, his voice a murmur beneath the static of what could be thousands of fireflies. Everywhere. Gleaming. Glowing. Faerie lights without the faeries’ little rainbow pulses lost in them.
I release a tight breath. “I think so.”
“Your heart…”
“That’s just what you do to me, Ollie.”
He tosses a look over his shoulder, cheeks red, eyes stern. “Behave.”
I smile.
Because I’m about to get married.
I’m about to enter a world made for me with a man who loves me to every frayed edge of himself.
Instead of sacrificing myself to someone who asked for everything and left when I set the only boundary I dared, I’m becoming more with someone who has asked for nothing, given his everything, and made my feelings his top priority for over a year.
Whatever happens next, I will be wholly and wonderfully loved.
“Brittny,” Ollie murmurs.
“Hm?” I squeak.
He stops on the edge of a clearing just in front of a small pond of water, where the lights dance and reflect and skim tastes of the whole moon. Looking back at me, he lifts his free hand to my cheek. Doesn’t touch. “You’re crying.”
“You’re thinking inappropriate thoughts,” I quip.
His fingers close. “I’m sorry. It’s…hard not to right now.”
The apology is so genuinely self-loathing, I lift my hand and press his fingers to my damp cheek. “It’s okay. I am, too.”
His brows knit. “And…that’s why you’re crying?”
More tears bubble up and over. My words can only escape wet and sticky, with sniffles. “I just can’t believe that I’m going to be loved. So much. Finally.”
Something in him shatters, and his eyes glass. He slips his hand down to cup my chin. “Hey,” he soothes, searching my wet eyes. “I can hardly believe it either, beautiful.”
I laugh.
His thumb swipes along my jaw. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” I scrub my cheeks as best I can, take a breath, and ask, “Do I do the thing now?”
I don’t have to clarify. He says, “Yeah. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Doliver Talon,” I recite, “I release you from your oath.”
Taking a breath, he kisses my cheek and pulls me a little closer amidst the swirl of lightning bugs. The shine of the full moon hits us fully, carving shadows across the white of Ollie’s dual-painted face.
And…yeah. There’s just something about it, isn’t there?
The night.
When it’s no longer a solace from the expectations of the day, when it is not somewhere to hide from others or yourself, when it can just be, it is marvelously beautiful.
“Brittny Selene Page.” Ollie’s throat bobs. “Are you completely positive you want this?”
