Page 168 of Sparks Fly

Two years ago those words would have felt impossible. Now they felt simple.

When she left the room a minute later I turned back toward the mirror.

The woman looking back at me still loved beautiful dresses, elegant dinners, and hosting friends around a crowded table. She still worked long hours and cared too much about how a room felt when people walked into it. The difference was that none of those things felt like a role I had to perform anymore.

They were simply parts of the life I had chosen.

A knock sounded on the door and Lilly’s voice came from the hallway. “It’s time.”

I took one last look at the reflection before turning toward the door. For most of my life I believed that being honest about who I was might cost me the life I had built, but standing there in that quiet room I understood something different.

Telling the truth had not taken that life away from me. It had given me one that finally felt like my own.

* * *

Sawyer

The room smelled faintly like flowers and polished wood, the kind of quiet, clean scent that came with places designed for important moments. I stood at the front of the aisle with my hands clasped loosely in front of me and tried not to shift my weight every three seconds like Benji had already warned me not to.

“You’re fidgeting,” he muttered under his breath beside me.

“I’m not,” I said without looking at him.

“You absolutely are,” he replied. “Your left foot has moved four times.”

I exhaled slowly and forced myself to stand still. Benji was my best man, which meant he had been watching me like a hawk since the moment we got here. He stood next to me in a dark suit that somehow looked almost respectable despite the fact that I knew he had tried to convince the tailor to add embroidered flames to the inside of the jacket.

On the other side of him stood Vic and Jay, along with the rest of our crew from the shop. Seeing them all lined up there in suits felt surreal in a way I hadn’t expected. A year and a half ago most of us had been standing in the middle of a welding shop arguing about measurements and eating takeout at midnight. Now they were here at my wedding, dressed like they belonged in a magazine spread.

Vic caught my eye and grinned. “You good?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” I said.

It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth either. The truth was that my chest felt tight with a kind of nervous energy I hadn’t experienced in a long time. It wasn’t fear exactly. It was more like standing at the edge of something huge and knowing there was no version of the future where you walked away from it.

Benji leaned slightly toward me. “If you pass out,” he said, “I’m not carrying you.”

“I’m not going to pass out.” I rolled my eyes.

“You look like you might.” He teased.

I glanced down at my hands and flexed my fingers once before letting them settle again. The suit fit perfectly. Addison had insisted on going with me when I got it tailored, even though I told her she didn’t need to. She sat in the corner of the shop watching the whole process with a quiet smile that made the tailor nervous for reasons he probably couldn’t explain.

It was black and fitted through the shoulders, the cut sharp and clean in a way that made me stand a little straighter when I put it on. The shirt underneath was crisp white, and the accents Addison had chosen were subtle enough that I barely noticed them until she pointed them out.

“You still look like you,” she had said when I tried it on.

That had mattered more than I expected. I shifted my shoulders slightly and looked down the aisle.

The room was full. I recognized most of the faces now. Addison’s friends were scattered through the front rows, along with her family. My chosen family was all there, people I’d known forever, people who had my back when no one else did.

A year ago the idea of all those worlds sitting in the same room might have made Addison nervous. Now it just felt right.

The music started softly from somewhere behind me, and the room quieted almost immediately. Conversations faded and chairs shifted as everyone turned toward the back of the aisle.

Benji nudged my elbow. “Okay,” he murmured. “Here we go.”

I lifted my head. Addison stepped into view at the far end of the aisle with her father beside her.