Page 66 of Blueline Baby

“Because I’m marrying you in four hours and I should probably know.”

He mumbles something into my hair and I roll over in his arms so I can look at him. His ears are already red. “Your legal, government-issued name is Jack Russell Anderson. Like the dog.”

“In my defense,” he says, “my dad put it on the birth certificate while my mom was asleep and didn’t tell her. She didn’t find out for a week. She still brings it up every year on my birthday.”

“You know what the worst part is?” I trace his jaw with one finger. “I already knew.”

He pulls his head back to look at me. “What?”

“On Monday we had to fill out the marriage license together. Did you think I wasn’t going to see it?”

He stares at me for a second. Then he rolls me underneath him. “You’re a menace, Backcheck Girl.”

“And you’re marrying me anyway.”

“First smart thing you’ve said all morning.”

He skips his morning skate and I shower while he irons his dress shirt and every time I pass the doorway, he’s grinning at nothing.

I picked a light blue dress to wear. He looked at it laid out on the bed and said, “That’s a sign, Chloe. Blue. It’s a boy.” I told him the dress was on sale. He told me signs don’t care about sales.

He drives us downtown at ten, and at a red light he reaches over and takes my hand across the console.

“Are you nervous?” he asks.

“No.” And I’m not, which is the strangest part. “You?”

“Terrified.” He squeezes my fingers. “Good terrified. Game-seven terrified.”

Dean and Lorelei are already standing on the courthouse steps when we pull up.

“They came,” I say, surprised. “I’m really glad you asked them.”

“Of course they came.” He puts the truck in park and kills the engine. “You didn’t want a hundred people staring at you. You never said anything about these two.”

I wipe under my eyes with my fingertips, catching a tear before it falls. “Okay. Let’s go do this before I cry off my own mascara in the parking lot.”

“Chlo. I’ve been ready since the second I fell through your front door.”

The wedding itself is fast and nothing like I ever imagined. Although, to be fair, I didn’t have many preconceived notions to begin with. I never planned a dream wedding as a kid, but whatever vague placeholder existed in my head didn’t involve a municipal waiting room. Then again, eight months ago you couldn’t have convinced me that I’d be marrying a professional hockey player on a Thursday morning while pregnant with his baby. So there’s that.

Jack is so nervous that his leg bounces the entire time we’re sitting on the wooden bench, hard enough to vibrate it, until I reach over and put my hand on his knee to make it stop. He’s checked twice to see if I’m too warm in my coat and once if the bench is hurting my lower back, and he keeps reaching over to touch the ring on my finger like he’s confirming it hasn’t disappeared.

“I find it strange how nervous you are right now,” I tell him. “Do you think I’m going to ditch you at the altar?”

“I’m not nervous.” His knee starts jiggling again the second I lift my hand. “Okay. A little nervous.”

Lorelei leans over from my other side and takes my free hand in both of hers. “You okay?”

“I’m okay.” And I mean it, which still manages to catch me off guard. “I keep waiting to panic. I keep waiting for the reality of this to crush me and it’s not.”

“It’s not going to,” she says, squeezing my fingers. “And don’t forget, I met you before he even knew your name. You were my friend first. So whatever anyone in that suite ever says to you, you already belonged there. He’s the one who got lucky.”

We’re finally standing hand in hand in a small room, facing each other, while a tired looking officiant begins a speech she’s probably recited three thousand times.

She looks down through her reading glasses at the marriage certificate. “Do you, Jack Russell Anderson, take⁠—”

There’s a strangled sound from directly behind us.