Page 114
“She was coached by double board certified, handsy seniors and some highly intelligent former nurses. She stands on the shoulders of an entire wrinkled village pulling for her. But we go where she wants. She chooses.”
Claire chimes in, “You’ve got quite the challenge on your hands. She’s much smarter than you.”
“Nah. If that were the case, she wouldn’t have broken up with me in the first place.” I dust off my shoulders.
Everyone laughs, and I look around for her.
Lizzie points at me. “Nope. You don’t get to see the bride before the ceremony. And if you’ll excuse the rest of us ladies. Just hang with the Hot Bod Squad.” We all laugh and then I correct Lizzie.
“Ladies?”
Maggie slugs me in the arm. “Elizabeth is a lady.”
I correct Maggie. “She’s a knight, don’t forget that.” Hayden goes gooey-eyed, looking at his woman as she bows to me. I bow back to Sir Lizzie, who I knighted on that fateful night in Paris so long ago.
Maggie laughs. “I forgot. Good King, I’ll take my leave and fetch your queen.”
She disappears, and Dax hauls me into a hug. He whispers in my ear. “Come on, let’s push you towards adulting.”
I lean back toward him, bite his ear, and lick his cheek. “Never.”
Everyone hears me and laughs. The announcements of arrival flights and the billboards high up telling us who is in residence are all dulled when my mom guides over two familiar and fabulous people.
I kiss Mak’s mom’s cheek and shake her father’s hand. “I would have asked for your blessing, but she proposed and apparently got a blessing from my folks.”
“I’m glad to have you, son. That’s who she is. Not one to wait when she finally figures out what she wants.” Her father quips. But her mother puts her hand on my heart. “But hasn’t that always been the way with our girl?”
“I promise to love her forever the way she deserves. And let her be as wild and free as she wants to be.”
Her father scowls and says, “And you’ll let her finish her school. I have a feeling someone who got in all kinds of creative trouble may be too smart for their own good.”
“She is, sir. And I have it on good authority, she’s going to be a doctor.”
“Of course, she is, she can be anything she damn well pleases.”
“Agreed.”
Chelle and Julia walk down the aisle first, spreading petals. Then they try to give me a hug. I air kiss them instead to avoid the oil. They’re in their Lana dresses and tiaras. I love that they’re Makenzie’s flower girls.
Everyone looks, and I see her. Dark hair straight and dusting her shoulders, she’s stunning in a long, fitted, cream satin slip dress with a cowl neck that dips in all the right places. She’s flanked by the women I met her with and my mom. Everyone scurries to their seats. My brothers line up with Dax at the center. Of course, Dax got ordained. Robbie’s holding his phone with Law’s face filling the screen while in the dugout.
I stand at the end of the aisle with tears in my eyes as I realize all the shit I’ve done and will ever do was to get me to this moment and to her. Every prank pulled, test blown off, horrible idea, fabulous time, work achievement, drunken lost weekend, failed relationship, and alimony check all led me to this beautiful soul. And now I’m ready for her. I shake my head and jog down the aisle to her.
She scoffs at me. “You’re supposed to wait for me at the end of the aisle.”
“Nope. Done waiting.”
She leans toward me and dusts her lips over the corner of my wet smile. Then turns down the aisle with me beside her, squeezes my hand, breathes in deeply, and says, “To adventure.”
I raise my first in the air as we move forward.
“To adventure!”
epilogue
Mak
LATER
