On The Same Page Ch. 13

Note: Thank you all who have stuck with the story! I appreciate all of you! I am nowhere near done with their story yet, so I hope you stick around! I know I made a bold choice with going with a non-traditional romance, and I know thats not everyone's cup of tea, but I think I am writing a story ya'll will continue to enjoy! Please feel free to leave constructive feedback! Its both encouraged and appreciated! Enjoy Chapter 13!

Chapter 13: New Beginnings

We stayed in the hot tub for a little while after that. Honestly, I had no fucking idea how long. Time had gotten a little strange somewhere between Kat telling Cassie she was in love with her and all three of us finally admitting what had been happening between us for months.

I was getting married in a month. I loved Kat more than I knew how to put into words. And I loved Cassie. Not the same way. I didn't think anything would ever feel exactly like what Kat and I had. There was too much history there. Too much pain and too much life we'd somehow found our way back through. But I loved Cassie. And Kat loved Cassie. Cassie loved both of us.

Somehow, saying it out loud hadn't changed nearly as much as I would've expected. Kat was still tucked against my side. Cassie's leg still rested against mine beneath the water. My hand was still absently moving over Kat's shoulder while Cassie's fingers traced lazy patterns over the back of Kat's hand. We were still us. We'd just finally stopped pretending we didn't know what that meant.

Eventually, Cassie looked at me. There was something different in her expression now. The guardedness I'd gotten so used to seeing whenever things became too serious wasn't there. She wasn't hiding behind a smile or waiting for the right joke to pull us away from whatever she was feeling. She just looked happy. Really fucking happy.

"Hey guys, can we, uh... can we go inside?"

Her voice was soft enough that something tightened in my chest. Kat lifted her head from my shoulder. Cassie's eyes moved between us.

"I don't want to rush anything." She swallowed. "I just... I want this."

Her eyes settled on mine.

"I want you, Robbie. If that's still okay."

Fuck. I'd heard Cassie say considerably dirtier things than that. Somehow, those three words hit harder than any of them. I looked down at Kat.

"You still want this, babe?"

She smiled at me.

"I do." Then she looked at Cassie. "I really do."

Cassie's smile was small, almost shy. That was new.

"Okay," I said.

Cassie nodded. "Okay."

We climbed out of the hot tub. There was no rush. No sudden scramble to get inside and tear each other's clothes off. If anything, everything seemed to slow down. Kat took Cassie's hand as we walked toward the house, and I followed beside them, watching their fingers lace together.

For everything sexual we'd already done together, tonight felt different. Because tonight wasn't something that had happened. We were choosing it. All three of us.

By the time we reached the back door, Cassie stopped.

"We should probably shower."

"Probably a good idea."

Her eyes found mine again. "I'll meet you guys at my place?"

"Yeah."

She hesitated before stepping toward me. Then her arms slipped around my waist. I wrapped mine around her without thinking, and she rested her cheek against my chest. Somehow that felt more intimate than half the things we'd already done together.

I kissed the top of her head. "We'll be over in a little bit."

She squeezed me once. "Okay."

Then she released me and turned toward Kat. Kat didn't even give her the chance. She pulled Cassie into her arms and kissed her softly. Not deeply. Not sexually. Just a kiss. When they separated, Cassie looked at her for another second before whispering, "I love you."

Kat smiled. "I love you too."

Cassie looked at me. There was still something almost vulnerable about her expression.

"Both of you."

I smiled. "We love you too."

Her smile came back. Then she headed toward the pool house.

Kat and I went upstairs. I walked into our bedroom and reached for the hem of my shirt, but before I could pull it off, Kat came up behind me. Her arms wrapped around my waist. I stopped as she pressed herself against my back and rested her cheek between my shoulder blades. For a few seconds, neither of us said anything. I covered her hands with mine.

"You okay, babe?"

"I'm extremely happy."

I turned my head slightly. "Yeah?"

She nodded against my back. "Beyond happy."

I turned in her arms. Kat looked up at me, and I brushed the damp hair away from her face.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

I kissed her slowly. Her arms slid around my neck as she rose onto her toes, and I pulled her against me. There was nothing uncertain about kissing Kat. There never had been. I knew her. I knew the way her body relaxed against mine when I held her. I knew the tiny breath she took when I kissed her slowly enough. I knew the way her fingers moved into my hair when she wanted me closer. She was home. None of that had changed. Nothing could've made me love her less.

That had been one of the things I'd been terrified of without ever admitting I was terrified of it. That somehow acknowledging what was happening with Cassie meant taking something away from Kat. Standing there with my fiancée in my arms, I understood how wrong I'd been. There wasn't less. There was more.

Kat slowly pulled away. Her fingers traced along my jaw.

"I want you to let yourself have this tonight."

I studied her face.

"I don't want you worrying about me every five seconds. I don't want you wondering if you're touching her too much or kissing her too long. We talked about this. I know what I want." Her thumb moved across my cheek. "And I know what you want."

I leaned into her hand. "You."

Her smile was immediate. "You have me."

"Always?"

"Always, baby. That will never change."

I kissed her palm.

"And Cassie?"

Kat's smile softened. "You have her too."

"And that's okay?"

"More than okay."

That landed somewhere deep. Kat kissed me once more.

"Go shower and get ready for your girlfriend."

Hearing Kat say girlfriend the way she did, with a look that was part adoration and part excitement, it hit different. We showered and changed, neither of us dressing for anything in particular. I pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants and a T-shirt. Kat stole one of mine, naturally, and paired it with sleep shorts. Her hair was still damp when we crossed the yard toward Cassie's place.

I knocked softly.

"Come in."

I opened the door. Cassie was standing near the couch. She'd showered too. Her hair was damp, falling naturally over her shoulders. She'd changed into a loose tank top and a pair of soft sleep shorts. No makeup. No effort to turn herself into something seductive for me. Just Cassie. Though, if I was being honest, the way her tank top left so little to the imagination, that was seductive enough. I'd never looked at her quite like this before. Not in a romantic or intimate way when it was only her.

She smiled when she saw us. That same soft smile she'd given me outside. Kat walked in first. Cassie reached for her almost immediately, and Kat took her hand. Then Cassie looked at me. My heart beat a little harder.

I walked toward them. Cassie's fingers tightened around Kat's before she let go and turned toward me. I stopped in front of her. For a moment, neither of us moved.

We'd touched before, obviously. Jesus Christ, we'd done a hell of a lot more than touch. But we'd never had this. I'd never stood in front of Cassie like this, knowing that I could reach for her simply because I wanted her. Because she wanted me. Knowing that it was okay.

Her eyes moved over my face. Then she stepped closer. Her hands settled against my chest after hesitating for the briefest moment.

"Hi," she whispered.

"Hey."

She looked up at me. No joke. No smart-ass comment. No shield. Just Cassie. My hand rose to her face. I brushed my thumb across her cheek, and her eyes fluttered closed for half a second before opening again. That tiny reaction sent heat through me. Not something immediately sexual, something much more intimate at first.

Her expression softened even more as I took a deep breath and just soaked in the moment. Kat had sat down on the couch, her feet tucked under her as she smiled supportively and watched. I turned my attention back to Cassie. I leaned in to kiss her. Our lips met slowly.

I'd kissed Cassie before, but not like this. The other times we had seriously kissed were fueled by lust, our emotional barriers still up while in the midst of a threesome. This was just us. Us allowing ourselves to experience each other and the moment together, our guards down. It took me a brief moment to push past those mental barriers and remember Kat wanted us to have tonight, to give myself to the experience.

Her lips moved gently against mine. My hand slid from her cheek into her damp hair, settling against the back of her neck. Cassie's hands moved higher on my chest, her fingertips curling lightly into my shirt before the kiss broke.

I kissed her again, a little deeper. She melted into me. There was no other way to describe it. Whatever tension we'd been carrying disappeared as I wrapped my other arm around her waist. Her body settled against mine, and a soft breath escaped her as our tongues found each other in a slow sensual dance.

Fuck. There she was. Not the Cassie who could turn anything into a joke before somebody got close enough to hurt her. Not Kat's loud, sarcastic best friend. Not the woman who had spent months pretending the things happening between the three of us didn't mean as much to her as they obviously did. Just Cassie. Soft in my arms. Trusting me with a part of herself I wasn't sure she'd let many people see. I recognized the difference immediately, and I stowed that thought away in the back of my mind.

I pulled back just enough to look at her. Her eyes opened slowly. She didn't say anything. She simply looked at me and slid one hand around the back of my neck. Then she pulled me down and kissed me this time.

That kiss was different. Still tender. Still slow. But there was definitely want in it now. Her fingers moved into my hair as my hand slid along her back. I felt the warmth of her through the thin fabric of her tank top. Felt the way her body pressed more firmly into mine when my hand settled at the small of her back.

I let myself enjoy it. Her. The unfamiliarity of knowing someone so fucking well and discovering an entirely new way to know her.

I knew Cassie's laugh. I knew the sound of her footsteps coming through our house in the morning. I knew how she took her coffee. I knew what she ordered when we went out. I knew she would steal my spot the second I stood up and somehow convince herself that possession was nine-tenths of the law. I knew what she looked like asleep on our couch and what her voice sounded like when she'd had a shitty day but didn't want anyone worrying about her. I knew my friend. I knew the woman I loved that way. I knew Kat's friend. But this? I didn't know this yet, and I was actually excited to learn about her.

I didn't know how Cassie liked to be kissed when the kiss belonged only to us. I didn't know how she kissed when it went past a carnal animalistic lust and into something truly vulnerable and sensual. I didn't know that her fingers would tighten in my hair when I started to pull away. I didn't know that if I brushed my thumb slowly along her side, she'd take a deeper breath and press herself closer. I didn't know how fucking sweet she could be when she finally stopped protecting herself. And I wanted to know all of it.

I slowed the kiss until our lips barely moved against each other, then kissed the corner of her mouth, her cheek and her jaw. Cassie's head tilted slightly as my lips moved lower. I kissed the soft skin beneath her ear. Her breath caught.

"Oh, Robbie..."

It wasn't loud or performative. My name simply escaped her. I closed my eyes for a second. There was something almost overwhelming about hearing it from her that way. My arms tightened around her. Cassie wrapped hers around my neck and held me. For several seconds, that was all we did. I kissed her neck, her cheek, her mouth, slowly learning her and letting her learn me.

Then, somewhere behind her, I caught sight of Kat, settled on the couch watching with rapt attention and almost reverence for the moment. She wasn't smirking or teasing us. She wasn't looking at us like this was some performance we'd agreed to put on for her. She was watching two people she loved finally stop being afraid to love each other.

Her eyes met mine, and she smiled. That was it. No reassurance needed. No question.

I looked back at Cassie. She touched my cheek.

"Stay with me, Robbie," she whispered.

I understood exactly what she meant. Don't look over there. Don't worry. Don't think. Be here. With her. I turned my face and kissed her palm, then looked into her eyes.

"I'm right here."

Cassie smiled, and I kissed her again. When the kiss broke again, Cassie took me by the hand and led me back to her room. Without breaking eye contact with me, she motioned for Kat to follow. When we got back to her room, Cassie had lit several candles throughout the room. They cast a soft, flickering amber glow that warmed the space without quite chasing away the shadows. There was a large, comfortable-looking plush armchair in the corner. Kat saw the chair and immediately took her spot in it, tucking her legs under herself and getting comfortable as she looked on.

Cassie spun to face me again when we were next to the bed. She pulled me down into another kiss. The emotion and sensuality were still there, but there was a new intensity to this kiss.

She reached for the hem of my shirt and started to lift it up over my head. Cassie gently pulled my shirt over my head, but instead of immediately reaching for me again, she paused and really looked at me. Her eyes traveled over my broad shoulders, muscled chest, and chiseled abs with an openness I'd never really seen from her before, like she was allowing herself to appreciate every inch without pretending she wasn't staring. When her hands finally settled against my bare chest, the slow sweep of her palms over my skin somehow felt more meaningful than anything we'd done together before.

I slowly lifted Cassie's tank top over her head in turn, but once it was gone, I found myself pausing the same way she had with me. My eyes wandered over her bare torso, lingering on the soft fullness of her perky breasts before following the subtle curves of her waist and the gentle flare of her hips. I'd seen every inch of her before, but I'd never allowed myself to simply stand there and admire her like this, to openly take in how gorgeous she was and let her see exactly how much I wanted her. When my hand finally settled against her waist, I traced those curves slowly, taking my time as I drew her closer. I brushed some of her ginger hair out of her face as I pulled her in for another kiss.

I felt her hand start rubbing the bulge of my stiff cock trapped by my sweats. It was amazing how I knew where this was going, but I still found myself filled with a nervous excitement to get there. Cassie broke the kiss and started kissing down my neck, down my chest, my stomach. As she moved her kisses down, she slid my sweats down with her. The second my cock sprang free, I felt her wrap her hand around my shaft.

She settled down onto her knees in front of me as her hand slowly stroked my length. I stepped out of my sweats and kicked them aside. She brought her mouth toward my cock, but instead of just taking it in her mouth, she began to slowly kiss it, starting with the head. Each of the kisses started with her tongue and ended with her lips. It was slow and deliberate, like she was trying to taste every single part of my cock. She kept stroking me as she did this. Her other hand would alternate between playing with my balls and running her fingers over the skin of my thigh with her nails. She was building the tension and excitement up in me slowly. Finally, she ran her tongue up the entire sensitive underside of my cock from the base to the head before taking me into her mouth.

Her warm, wet mouth closed around the crown of my cock, and immediately her tongue swirled around the head before she took me deeper into her mouth. Seeing her lips stretched around my cock was sexy on its own, but the way her eyes stayed locked on mine gave the sensation a whole new intensity. She took more of me into her mouth until her nose was pressed against my skin. She didn't gag or anything as her eyes stayed on mine. They finally fluttered closed as she pulled back, and she began to build a rhythm as her head bobbed up and down on my cock. My fingers laced into her soft ginger hair as I leaned my head back and moaned in pleasure. I was starting to lose myself in the ecstasy of the moment before I forced myself to stop her. I wasn't ready to cum just yet.

She seemed confused for a moment, but that disappeared quickly when I helped her to her feet and kissed her deeply. When I broke the kiss, I pushed her back onto the bed. I reached up and hooked the waistband of her shorts and pulled them off of her. She had decided against wearing panties, so when the shorts came off, I was welcomed by the sight of her naked form laying before me. She spread her legs for me, allowing me my first look at her pussy. Just like the rest of her, I had seen it before, but it was different tonight. Tonight it was mine. Her pussy was completely bald with the exception of a neatly trimmed strip of ginger hair right down the middle. The subtle folds of her entrance were already glistening and slick with arousal.

I crawled on the bed next to her. I leaned in and pulled her into another kiss. As I kissed her deeply and passionately, my hand slid from her neck down her chest to the gentle swell of her firm, full breasts. I massaged them firmly, rubbing my thumb over her stiffening nipples. I gently pinched them just hard enough to get a moan from Cassie as I continued kissing her. She squirmed as I ran my fingers down her breasts and over her stomach, my fingers barely making just enough contact to raise goosebumps on her skin. I teased her more as I ran my fingers over her pussy to the inside of her thigh, first one side and then the other. She was writhing under my touch, making noises that were somewhere between grunts and moans as I teased her.

Finally, my fingers found the soft landing strip of hair on her pussy. I followed it down firmly toward her slick entrance. She was so wet that two of my fingers slid in easily. I slid them in and immediately started the come-hither motion with them. Instantly, Cassie was moaning and arching her back off the bed. She gasped loudly as my thumb found her already swollen clit. Her moans got louder as I continued. She reached up and pulled me into a kiss as I continued fingering her. It surprised me how quickly she was on the edge of her orgasm. I felt her walls fluttering as her hips snapped shut and she started bucking harder. Her body went tense for a moment before I felt her arousal coating not just my fingers but almost pooling in my hand. A loud, satisfied moan tore from her as her orgasm smashed over her, hard.

I didn't allow her any time to recover. Before she could stop me, I slid down between her legs and put one thigh on each of my shoulders as I lowered my head to her dripping wet folds. Her natural musky scent drove me mad with lust. I ran my tongue up and down her slit, savoring the flavor of her arousal. She gasped as I plunged my tongue inside of her to taste her even more. I gripped her thighs as I ran my tongue up her slit to her swollen clit. The second my tongue found her clit, she moaned loudly and tangled her fingers in my hair. I could tell she was trying to form words unsuccessfully as I continued my oral barrage on her pussy. I started moaning as I ate her out, adding vibrations to the assault on her senses.

I struggled to keep her thighs from locking around my head like a vise as another orgasm ripped through her. Tasting her arousal fresh from the source drove me wild. When she finally came down, I got back to a kneeling position on the bed as I looked down at her breathing heavily, her fiery red-orange hair a mess. Despite being completely here with Cassie in the moment, we couldn't help but be aware of Kat watching from the corner. Somewhere along the way, she had removed her clothes and was very much enjoying what she was watching.

I crawled between Cassie's legs, which opened wider to accept me. As I took my spot, her thighs clamped around my hips. I looked into her eyes. She reached down between us and took my rock-hard cock softly in her fingertips and guided me to her entrance. The head of my cock easily slid past her slick lips as I was engulfed by the wet heat of her pussy. Again, I was momentarily overwhelmed with the sensations of the moment. We had fucked plenty of times before, but this wasn't some emotionally detached fucking in the middle of a threesome. This was slow, intimate, sensual, vulnerable.

Her hands slid up my arms, my shoulders and my neck until they cradled the back of my head. We looked into each other's eyes as I slowly slid every inch of my cock inside of her. She was breathing heavily, as was I. I leaned down and kissed her deeply as I slowly started sliding my shaft in and out of her pussy. This was not going to be the hard, carnal, primal fucking that we had done before. We were going to take our time and enjoy each other, and that's exactly what we did. Each thrust was long, slow and deep. Our hands explored each other's bodies. We constantly came back to kissing each other deeply. The sensuality of the moment kept bringing the intensity to the very brink of overwhelming as her pussy gripped my cock inside her.

I held myself back as long as I could. I looked down into her eyes as she was breathing heavily. I didn't need to say a word. Her eyes met mine and she immediately understood. Her legs stayed locked around me. She brought one of her hands to my cheek and breathlessly said, "It's okay, I'm on the pill. You can cum inside me. I want you to cum inside me!"

That was all the encouragement I needed. I sank my dick all the way into her pussy and finally surrendered to the intensity. I erupted inside her. As I felt warm, thick jets of cum fill her pussy, I felt her walls clamp down on me. She began to moan along with me. Her body tensed up as her orgasm washed over her. My body shuddered as I felt the last ropes of cum fill her pussy. I leaned down and kissed her again as we both started coming down. Our attention was taken for a moment by the distinct sound of Kat's moaning. She was reaching her own orgasm as she fingered herself wildly.

I finally collapsed down next to Cassie. We looked deeply into each other's eyes. I brushed her hair out of her face again and kissed her softly. "Was that good? What you expected?"

She giggled cutely and said, "It was amazing, Robbie. I know we've fucked before, but that was something different. It was so amazing."

"Was it what you expected for our first time, you know, like this?"

She thought about it for a moment before kissing me and saying, "I really didn't know what to expect, but there is no way anything I could've pictured would have done this justice. It was... perfect."

I smiled at her, and we just looked at each other for a long moment. Eventually, Cassie said, "Was that okay for you, Kat? You still good?"

"I was a little nervous that I would feel a little jealous, or possessive or something, but that was so beautiful to watch. I absolutely loved it. Those feelings never came."

"But you did! I heard that, girl!"

"I'm sorry! It was just so sexy and hot. I couldn't..."

"Don't you dare apologize, girl! I think we kind of all assumed it would happen with you being here in the room with us! Now get your ass in here and cuddle with us!"

She didn't bother to say anything. She just smiled widely and took her spot on the other side of me. We talked for a while longer, surprisingly little about what just happened. None of us felt the need to. Surprisingly, nothing felt strange or really different. If it did to the ladies, they never said anything. Personally, I took it as a sign we made the right choice. We decided that none of us really felt compelled to move. It was a Friday night. We could sleep in a little bit tomorrow morning. So, we settled in for the night. Sleep found us easily at first. I fell asleep spooning Cassie with Kat spooning me as best she could.

I woke up the next morning because I was fucking hot. Not sexy hot. Not comfortable hot. I was trapped-under-three-blankets-in-August hot even though it was May.

It took my half-asleep brain a few seconds to figure out why. Then I realized Kat was plastered against my back, one arm draped over my waist, while Cassie was initially curled against my chest. At some point during the night, Lady had apparently decided there wasn't enough shit happening in the bed already and wedged herself down near our legs. I was six-foot-five, sleeping in a queen-sized bed with two women and a dog that had absolutely no concept of personal space. As amazing as last night had been, something had to change. That would be a later problem, though, as I fell back asleep.

Apparently, Cassie had already reached the same conclusion because she was gone when I fully woke up later on. Funnily enough, Lady apparently felt the need to take her place.

I carefully untangled myself from Kat without waking her and climbed out of bed. Lady immediately lifted her head like I'd personally betrayed her by moving, then dropped it back onto the mattress. I pulled on my sweatpants from the night before and walked out into the main room.

The smell of bacon hit me almost immediately. Cassie stood in the kitchenette wearing a thong and the T-shirt I'd had on when we came over the night before. I stopped for a second when I realized it was mine. I didn't know when she'd stolen it. I didn't particularly care. Her ginger hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, and she was standing barefoot in front of the stove moving bacon onto a plate while something else cooked in another pan.

She looked over when she heard me.

"Morning, papi!" she said cheerfully.

There was something about the way she smiled at me that stopped me for half a second. No hesitation. No wondering what last night meant now that the sun was up. Just Cassie making breakfast in my shirt like this was something she'd done a hundred times. I pondered over the pet name she picked for me for a brief second and decided I liked it. Probably more than I should. Her calling me papi also reminded me of her Hispanic background, which explained the delicious smells coming from what she was cooking.

I walked over behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. She immediately leaned back against me.

"Morning, chica," I said in my normal gravelly morning voice.

She smiled as I kissed her cheek.

"You cook?"

She turned her head enough to look at me. "Yes, asshole, I can cook."

"Forgive me! You just never have!"

She smiled and turned back toward the stove. "How'd you sleep?"

"Terribly."

She stopped. I felt her body tense slightly against mine before I realized what she thought I meant.

"Not because of you," I said immediately.

She relaxed.

"Your bed fucking sucks."

Cassie laughed softly. "My bed is fine."

"Your bed is not fine. Your bed was fine when it was you and Lady. Your bed was probably fine when it was you and Rosa. Your bed is not fine for three grown-ass adults, one of whom is six-foot-five, plus a dog."

She laughed harder and turned around in my arms. "What do you suggest?"

"A California King."

Her eyebrows went up.

"Let me rephrase. I'm buying you a California King."

"Robbie, you are not buying me a new bed."

"Yes, I am."

"No."

"Yes."

"I already have a bed."

"You have an undersized torture device which doubles as an oven."

"It's a queen."

"Exactly."

"That is a perfectly normal-sized bed."

"For one person."

"Two people sleep in queen-sized beds all the time."

"Two normal-sized people. I am roughly the size of an industrial refrigerator."

That got another laugh out of her. She wrapped her arms around my waist and looked up at me.

"You're not buying me a California King just because we were crowded one night."

"Chica, I love you, but this is not a democracy."

The words left my mouth before I really thought about them. Cassie went still. So did I. For half a second, I wondered if I'd fucked up. Then her entire expression softened. Her arms tightened around me, and she rose onto her toes to kiss me.

I kissed her back, smiling against her lips. When she pulled away, she looked ridiculously pleased with herself.

"You keep calling me chica."

"Apparently I do."

"I like it."

"Good, and I liked it when you called me papi."

She kissed me again.

"You're still not buying me a bed."

"I absolutely am."

"You're impossible."

"And yet somehow you people keep falling in love with me. Besides, it's logical. I highly doubt it will only be one night."

Cassie shook her head, but there wasn't any real fight left in her. She turned back toward the stove, and I kept my arms around her for another few seconds before letting her finish breakfast.

That was how Kat found us.

She walked out of the bedroom looking half asleep, wearing another one of my old T-shirts and rubbing at her eyes. Her hair was an absolute disaster.

"Why does it smell so good?"

Cassie looked over her shoulder. "Because I made breakfast."

Kat shuffled toward us.

"Coffee?"

"Already made."

"I love you."

Cassie smiled. "I love you too."

Kat walked straight to me and kissed me before going to Cassie, wrapping her arms around her from behind and kissing her cheek before continuing toward the coffee maker.

I stared at both of them.

"What?"

Kat looked at me over her mug.

"I am just wondering if I ever get to keep any of my old shirts."

"Prospects don't look good."

"Well, shit. I'll just appreciate the fact that my girlfriends both make breakfast."

Kat took a sip of coffee.

"Girlfriends?"

I looked at Cassie.

Cassie looked at Kat.

Then both looked at me.

"Yeah?"

Kat smiled over the rim of her mug.

"Just checking."

For some reason, that made me smile too.

Breakfast was aggressively normal. Huevos rancheros, bacon, avocado, coffee and an argument about whether I actually had the authority to replace furniture in a house that technically belonged to me but was very clearly Cassie's home. I informed Cassie that ownership gave me exactly that authority. She informed me that entering her home without permission to replace her furniture would be grounds for murder. Kat sided with Cassie until I pointed out that she'd complained about the bed being too small too. That tipped the argument my way, and she finally agreed.

By the time we finished eating, nothing felt awkward. Nobody seemed to be waiting for some emotional bomb to go off. Cassie kissed Kat when she passed behind her to put a plate in the sink. A few minutes later, she leaned against me while checking something on her phone. Kat stole the last piece of bacon off my plate and acted like she hadn't done it while chewing directly in front of me.

That was the strangest part. Nothing had changed. Except everything had. It made more sense to me than it felt like it should've.

Later that morning, Kat and I headed back to the house to shower and change. Cassie stayed behind to clean up despite both of us telling her we could help. She eventually threatened to throw us out, so we left.

Kat was quiet as we crossed the yard. Not uncomfortable. Just thoughtful. When we got inside, I followed her upstairs. She stopped in our bedroom and turned toward me.

"So..."

I leaned against the dresser. "So..."

She studied me for a moment.

"You good?"

"Yeah."

"Actually good?"

I smiled. "Actually good, babe."

Kat nodded, but I could tell she wasn't done.

"How do you feel?"

I thought about it before answering. She deserved more than some automatic fine.

"Happy. Weirdly calm about it, actually. I thought I'd wake up this morning and everything would feel different. It doesn't." I looked toward the window. From there I could see part of the pool house through the trees. "I mean, it does. I kissed Cassie good morning without having to think about whether I was allowed to. She was wearing my shirt. Apparently I call her chica now."

Kat's face lit up.

"You called her chica?"

"I didn't mean to, but she liked it."

"That is adorable."

"I swear to God, woman."

She laughed and came over to me. I put my hands around her waist.

"But yeah," I continued. "It feels different in little ways. Not bad ways. Just... like something that was already there finally has somewhere to go."

Kat's expression softened.

"That's kind of how I feel."

I brushed my fingers through her hair.

"What about you?"

"Good."

"Actually good?"

She smiled. "Actually good."

"No weird feelings about last night?"

"No." She thought for a second. "I thought there might be. I told you guys that. I kept waiting for something to bother me, especially once you two started..." She paused, searching for the word. "Connecting, I guess. But it didn't. I loved seeing you with her."

I searched her face.

"And us?"

Kat gave me a look like I'd asked the dumbest question imaginable.

"Robbie."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Yeah."

She put her hands against my chest.

"I am marrying you in less than a month. I am ridiculously, stupidly, hopelessly in love with you. None of that changed last night."

I leaned down and kissed her. There it was again. The same feeling I'd had before we went over to Cassie's. Kat's arms slid around my neck. My hands settled against her waist. Familiar. Easy. Hers. Mine. Whatever new thing existed between Cassie and me hadn't taken a damn thing from this. When I pulled away, I rested my forehead against hers.

"I'm ridiculously, stupidly, hopelessly in love with you too."

"I know."

She smiled.

"And you love her?"

"Yeah."

"So do I."

That was it. There were probably people who would've thought we needed some six-hour conversation after what happened. Maybe other people would have. Maybe someday we would. But right then, there wasn't anything left to solve. We'd talked before it happened. We'd checked in while it was happening. We were checking in afterward.

We were good. So, we showered, got dressed and went about our Saturday. The California King was delivered the following Wednesday. Cassie called me ridiculous and needy. Then she kissed me and told me she loved it. Life after that settled into something surprisingly easy. Not identical. Easy.

The biggest change was that we stopped pretending the little things meant nothing. Cassie had always spent an absurd amount of time at our house, but now if she fell asleep on the couch with her head in my lap, nobody thought anything of it. If Kat was working late at The Bowery, Cassie and I might have dinner together. Sometimes I walked across the yard in the morning and kissed her before leaving for school. Sometimes she came over to our place before Kat woke up and drank coffee with me in the kitchen.

The kisses became normal faster than anything else. Cassie kissed me when I left for work. She kissed Kat when she got to The Bowery, not in front of anyone, of course, but still. She kissed either one of us when she passed close enough and apparently felt like it. Nothing dramatic. Sometimes it was barely more than a peck on the cheek or the corner of my mouth. Other times she wrapped her arms around my waist, looked up at me with that soft little smile I'd started seeing more often, and kissed me like she had nowhere else to be. I loved that version of her.

She was still Cassie everywhere else. She still gave Ricky shit. She still tormented me whenever the opportunity presented itself. She still had enough sarcasm to supply a small country. But with Kat and me, something had changed. Or maybe something had disappeared. She didn't need to turn every sincere moment into a joke anymore. If she wanted to curl against me on the couch, she did. If she wanted Kat to hold her, she asked. If she was having a shitty day, sometimes she simply told us she was having a shitty day instead of making us drag it out of her.

And every time she did something like that, I understood a little more how much trust she'd placed in us.

There were changes between Kat and Cassie too. I noticed those mostly from the outside. They'd always been affectionate, but now there was an ease to it that hadn't been there before. I'd walk into the kitchen and find Kat standing between Cassie's legs while Cassie sat on the counter, their arms around each other while they talked. Sometimes I'd find them curled together watching some show I didn't give a shit about. Other times one of them would come home irritated and disappear into the other's arms for five minutes before either of them bothered telling me what happened.

It never made me feel excluded. If anything, I loved knowing they had something that didn't require me.

That was probably the part I understood better than I would have a year earlier. Kat and I were still Kat and me. Cassie and I were becoming Cassie and me. Kat and Cassie had years of friendship underneath whatever their relationship was becoming. Then there was the thing all three of us had together.

Nobody needed every piece to look exactly the same.

The wedding didn't become our wedding either. That mattered. It was mine and Kat's.

Cassie never tried to insert herself into that, and we never made her feel like she needed to disappear because of it. If anything, she became even more invested. She was still Kat's maid of honor. She still spent ridiculous amounts of time helping with whatever final wedding shit needed to get done. She still listened to Kat debate details I couldn't tell apart and somehow had actual opinions about them.

Every once in a while, I'd walk into the kitchen and hear them discussing flowers or table arrangements and immediately turn around.

"Don't you fucking dare," Kat would yell.

I'd stop.

"I forgot something upstairs."

"You're lying."

"Prove it."

"Get back in here!"

Marriage was apparently going to require me to learn considerably more about centerpieces than I ever wanted to know.

The school year was winding down too. Wrestling had been over long enough that the soreness and exhaustion of the season had become a memory. Henry and Alex had already started talking about next year, and for the first time I could talk about another wrestling season without that complicated knot forming in my stomach. I wasn't thinking about whether I belonged there anymore. I was thinking about what I wanted to do differently.

Teaching had become comfortable too.

There was something satisfying about watching my seniors slowly realize high school was actually ending. Some couldn't wait to get the hell out. Some were terrified and pretending they weren't. Some suddenly cared about grades they'd spent nine months pretending didn't matter.

Then, one afternoon, the final bell rang. That was it. My first year at Stonebridge was over. I stood in Room 214 after the last student left and looked around at the empty seats. There were papers on my desk, shit still written on the board and enough abandoned pens on the floor to stock an office supply store. I should've started cleaning.

Instead, I stood there smiling like an idiot. I had made it. Not survived it. Made it. There was a difference. I loved teaching. I loved coaching. I had students I was going to miss and students I hoped I never saw in my classroom again. I had coworkers who had become friends. I had plans for next year.

For the first time since the accident, I had stopped thinking of my life in terms of what came after wrestling. This was just my life. And it was a damn good one.

The last couple weeks before the wedding disappeared almost immediately after that. Without school occupying most of my day, Kat apparently decided I had become an available wedding-planning resource. That was a mistake on my part.

I knew June 16th was coming. Obviously. I had been looking forward to marrying Kat since the second she said yes. But there was something about reaching June that made it real in a way the months before hadn't been.

Boxes started appearing by the door. Garment bags hung upstairs. My suit came back from its final fitting. The weather forecast became something Kat checked approximately seventeen times a day despite my repeated explanation that she could not control the atmosphere.

Then people started arriving.

Billy and Patrick came in from Michigan a couple days before the wedding. I hadn't seen either of them in person in too damn long. Billy barely got through the front door before pulling me into one of those half-hug, half-wrestling clinches that immediately made my knee remind me I was no longer twenty years old.

"Easy, asshole."

He stepped back and looked me over.

"Jesus Christ, Stockton. You got old."

"We're the same fucking age."

"Yeah, but I've aged gracefully."

Patrick walked in behind him.

"No, you haven't."

"Fuck you."

I laughed and hugged Patrick.

For a second, standing there with them, I was twenty again. Hotel rooms. Road trips. Cutting weight. Practices that felt like they were specifically designed to kill us. The three of us sitting around after meets talking shit until somebody finally passed out.

Then Kat came downstairs. Billy smiled.

"There's the woman who finally domesticated him."

Kat walked straight into my arms.

"I wouldn't go that far."

"Thank you, babe."

She looked up at me.

"You're still mostly feral."

"Less appreciated."

Cassie came in from the pool house a few minutes later, and introductions turned into another round of conversation. It was strange bringing different pieces of my life together like that. Billy and Patrick knew the version of me who thought wrestling was the center of the universe. Rosa knew the version of me who had been trying to figure out who the hell I was when wrestling disappeared. Imani and the people from Stonebridge knew the version who had finally figured some of that out.

Tomorrow, all of them were going to be in the same place.

Rosa arrived that afternoon.

She barely made it out of her car before I pulled her into a hug.

"There's my best man."

She hugged me back.

"I will stab you."

"Best person?"

"Better."

"Best woman?"

"I will still stab you."

"I missed you too."

When I released her, Kat was already waiting behind me. Rosa hugged her, then Cassie. That one lasted slightly longer. Not dramatically. If I hadn't known their history, I probably wouldn't have noticed. But I did.

Later that afternoon, I was walking across the yard when I saw the two of them sitting together near the pool. I almost went over before realizing from their expressions that they were having a conversation that didn't involve me. So, I kept walking. Cassie told us about it later.

She and Rosa had already known what they had wasn't going to become some long-distance romance. They'd made that decision a long time ago. Still, Cassie didn't want Rosa coming here for the wedding and finding out indirectly that something had changed.

Apparently, Rosa had figured it out before Cassie finished telling her.

"You three finally stopped being idiots?" was, according to Cassie, her exact response.

That sounded like Rosa. Cassie told her everything that mattered. Not the details of what happened in her bedroom. Just that the three of us had finally admitted we loved each other and decided to see what a relationship between us actually looked like.

She also told Rosa that meant whatever romantic door they'd deliberately left cracked after those two weeks was closed. Rosa was okay with it. More than okay, according to Cassie.

Their time together had mattered. They'd cared about each other. They still did. But neither of them had been waiting around for the other. They'd known what they were choosing from the beginning. Cassie told me Rosa had hugged her afterward and said, "I like you way too much to turn something good into something shitty just because it didn't become something else."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

By the time we left for the rehearsal dinner the next evening, the house felt like a hotel lobby.

People were everywhere.

Kat's sorority friends had arrived, including Caroline, who I'd met years earlier when Kat accidentally introduced me as her boyfriend before we'd even officially figured out what the hell we were doing. I hadn't seen her in forever, but apparently that didn't matter because within ten minutes she and the other women had taken over half the downstairs with garment bags, makeup bags and enough luggage to suggest none of them planned on leaving Pennsylvania.

Cassie was right in the middle of them.

Watching her with those women reminded me that there were entire parts of Kat and Cassie's lives I'd only ever heard stories about. They had a history together that had nothing to do with me, just like Billy and Patrick had memories of me that Kat would never have been there for. Tomorrow all of those histories were meeting in one place.

The rehearsal itself went surprisingly smoothly.

Frank took his job walking Kat down the aisle extremely seriously. June cried approximately thirty seconds into the rehearsal despite repeatedly insisting she was not crying. Ricky asked enough questions to make it seem like he expected a written exam afterward. Rosa spent most of the evening threatening me whenever I intentionally referred to her as my best man.

Cassie stood beside Kat. That was the part I kept noticing. Not because anything about it looked strange. Exactly the opposite. She belonged there. My fiancée and my girlfriend standing beside each other should have been an objectively bizarre sentence. Somehow, looking at them together, it wasn't.

Tomorrow I was marrying Kat. Nothing about that felt diminished. If anything, the closer we got, the more impossible it became to understand how I'd ever survived those four years without her. I loved that woman with everything I had. Tomorrow she'd walk toward me, we'd say whatever vows we somehow managed to get through without losing our shit, and afterward she'd be my wife.

My wife. Jesus Christ. After the rehearsal, everybody moved into the private dining room for dinner. That was when the wedding finally started feeling bigger than us.

Lillian had arrived earlier that afternoon. She and Kat had disappeared together for a while before the rehearsal, and whatever conversation they'd had seemed to leave both of them in a good mood. Frank and June were already there, naturally. Imani arrived with her husband, and seeing someone from Stonebridge mixed in with people I'd known from Michigan made me smile more than I expected.

Then there were Cassie's parents.

I'd met them before, of course. They'd known Kat's family for years, and their daughter had been Kat's best friend for what felt like forever. There was nothing strange about them being there. As far as anybody in that room knew, Cassie was still exactly what she'd always been: Kat's best friend, maid of honor and practically another member of the family.

Which meant there were things they didn't know. I caught Cassie's eye across the room while she was talking to her mother, Maria. She smiled at me. Not the big public Cassie smile. Something smaller. Softer. Mine. I smiled back before turning toward Kat as she slipped her hand into mine.

"You okay, baby?" she asked.

I looked around the room.

Billy and Patrick were arguing with Ricky about something. Rosa had somehow ended up talking to Imani and looked like she'd known her for years. June was laughing at something Caroline had said. Frank was standing near the bar. Lillian was talking with the wedding planner. Cassie was still with her parents, listening to her dad while occasionally glancing toward us.

Then I looked at Kat. Tomorrow, she would be my wife.

"Nope," I said, squeezing her hand. "I'm so far beyond okay."

She smiled and rested her head against my shoulder.

Cassie eventually worked her way across the room toward us. She didn't kiss either of us. Not here. Not with two hundred questions waiting to be created by one careless gesture. She simply stopped beside Kat, and Kat reached for her hand where nobody was likely to notice.

Cassie's fingers closed around hers. I looked at them. Then at Kat. Then at Cassie.

This was going to be complicated eventually. I wasn't stupid enough to think otherwise. We hadn't even told the people closest to us yet. There would be questions. Maybe judgment. Maybe people who didn't understand. Maybe people who never would.

But that wasn't tonight.

Tonight, the woman I loved was beside me, one day away from becoming my wife. The other woman I loved was beside her. Our friends and families filled the room around us, completely unaware that our definition of family had quietly changed.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't particularly worried about what came next. Tomorrow, I was marrying Kat. Tonight, the three of us were exactly where we wanted to be.

After the rehearsal, Cassie and Kat made their way with the bridal party to the hotel where they would be staying for the night. Rosa, the boys, and I went back to the house. We spent the rest of the night hanging out, reminiscing about the old days in Michigan. Rosa was soaking it all in. I felt like she and Ricky were seeing me in a different light with all the stories of my early college years. We ended up drinking some beers and lounging in the pool and hot tub. Patrick busted out the cigars, and to my surprise, Rosa even partook in smoking one as well. Towards the end of the night, Rosa checked if I was good. I assured her I was. I had to force myself to sleep. I was too excited to marry the woman of my dreams the next day.

Kat's POV

I woke slowly, warm beneath the blankets, with the strange feeling that something was different. For a few seconds, I didn't open my eyes. I just lay there in the quiet, caught somewhere between sleep and waking. The room was unfamiliar. The mattress felt different beneath me. Robbie's warmth wasn't beside me. His arm wasn't draped over my waist. There wasn't the quiet sound of his breathing or the familiar weight of him shifting beside me.

Then I remembered.

My eyes opened, and for a long moment, I simply stared at the soft morning light beginning to glow around the edges of the curtains. Today. It was June 16th. My wedding day.

A smile slowly spread across my face before I could stop it. "Oh my God."

I was getting married today. I rolled onto my back and pulled the blankets against my chest as everything came rushing in at once. Four years. Exactly four years ago today, Robbie and I had finally found each other again. Sometimes it still seemed impossible that we'd actually made it here. There had been years when I'd thought the boy I loved was simply gone from my life. Not dead. Not forgotten. Somehow that would've almost been easier to understand. He'd just existed somewhere out there in the world while I went on without him.

I'd gone to college. I'd built another life. I'd gotten engaged to somebody else. I'd convinced myself that whatever Robbie and I had been was something beautiful that belonged to another version of me. Then one night, he'd walked back into my life.

And somehow, despite four years apart, I'd looked into those blue eyes and there he was. My Robbie. Except he wasn't the same boy anymore. He'd grown up. So had I. Somehow, we'd fallen in love all over again. I felt tears gathering in my eyes and laughed quietly at myself.

"Jesus Christ, Kat. It's seven in the morning," I said out loud to myself.

I wiped beneath my eyes. Apparently, I was going to be completely useless today. At least that would be the case if I couldn't stop crying. The thought only made me smile more.

I reached over to the nightstand for my phone. There were already notifications waiting for me, but I ignored all of them. For one stupid second, I wanted to text Robbie. I wanted to tell him I loved him. I wanted to ask if he was awake. I wanted to know if he'd slept. I wanted to tell him that I couldn't believe we were finally here.

Instead, I stared at his name. In a few hours, I would be walking down the aisle toward my fiancé, then walking back down the aisle with my husband.

My husband.

I pressed the phone against my chest and closed my eyes. God, I loved him. As if on cue, my phone buzzed. I looked at it, and it was Robbie. I hadn't texted him, but he texted me telling me how much he loves me, hoping I slept well, telling me to try to stop crying and finally saying he'll see me at the end of the aisle. I laughed out loud as I thought to myself that it was impossible for me to be more in love with someone.

A soft knock came at the bedroom door.

I lowered my phone. "Come in."

The door opened slowly, and Cassie stepped inside carrying two cups of coffee. The second I saw her, my smile widened. She smiled back, but there was something different about her this morning. There was none of the usual mischief in her expression. No sarcastic comment waiting behind her smile. She looked at me with so much warmth that my chest tightened.

"Good morning," she said softly.

"Morning."

She walked over and handed me one of the cups before sitting beside me. "How are you feeling?"

I wrapped both hands around the warmth of the coffee. "I don't even know."

Cassie settled against the headboard beside me. I looked down at the cup and laughed quietly.

"I woke up and forgot for like five seconds."

Her smile grew. "And then?"

I looked at her. "Then I remembered I'm marrying Robbie today."

Saying it out loud did something to me. My voice cracked on his name.

Cassie's eyes immediately softened. "Oh, Kat."

"I know."

Cassie reached over and took the coffee from my hands before I could spill it, setting both cups on the nightstand. Then she wrapped her arms around me, and I went into them immediately. I buried my face against her shoulder and laughed through the tears already coming.

"I'm so fucking happy, Cass."

"I know." Her arms tightened around me as her hand moved slowly over my back. "I know you are."

"I can't believe it's today."

"It is."

"I've been waiting for this forever."

"I know."

There was something about hearing those words from her that broke whatever little control I'd still had. Cassie knew. Maybe better than anyone except Robbie. She'd known me when he wasn't there. She'd been there through the years when I tried to move on. She'd watched me build another life. She'd been there when everything with Tristin fell apart, and she'd been there when Robbie came back.

Cassie had watched me fall in love with him.

I pulled back enough to look at her. "You've been here for all of it."

Her own eyes were wet now. "Yeah."

"God, Cass."

She brushed a tear from my cheek. "I wouldn't be anywhere else today."

I covered her hand with mine. For a moment, we simply looked at each other. There was so much history between us that I didn't know how to fit it into words. She hadn't just become part of my life somewhere along the way. She was woven through it. My best friend. My maid of honor. And now something more. Something neither of us had planned.

I leaned forward and rested my forehead against hers. "I love you."

"I love you too."

I kissed her softly. Nothing demanding. Just a quiet kiss that felt completely natural now. When we separated, Cassie stayed close, her hand still resting against my cheek.

"I'm so happy for you, Kat."

I smiled. "I know."

"I mean it. I've watched you two for four years. I even watched you when you didn't know you were waiting for him. Today you finally get him."

"I already have him."

Cassie smiled. "Yeah, you do. Today you finally get the forever with him you've always deserved."

My eyes filled all over again. "Jesus, Cass. You're really trying to make sure I spend the entire morning crying, aren't you?"

Her smile softened. "Only the happy kind."

I rested my head against her shoulder again. The room fell quiet for a few seconds, and my eyes wandered toward my phone on the nightstand.

"I miss him."

Cassie was quiet for a moment.

"Me too."

I lifted my head and looked at her. She almost seemed uncertain whether she should have admitted it, but the thought didn't bother me. Quite the opposite. Something warm spread through my chest.

"You do?"

"Of course I do." Her smile was softer now. "I love him too."

There was no awkwardness in hearing her say it. No little stab of jealousy or instinct to remind either of us that Robbie was mine first. I knew exactly what he and I were. I knew what today meant. Cassie loving him didn't make any of it smaller.

I took her hand and squeezed it. "I'm glad you do."

The uncertainty disappeared from her expression.

"I really want to see him," I admitted.

"So do I." Cassie leaned her head against mine. "But I can wait."

"I don't want to."

She laughed softly. "Neither do I."

I closed my eyes and pictured him standing beneath the gazebo. "I keep imagining his face when he sees me."

"Oh, he's fucked."

I laughed again. "You think he'll cry?"

"Kat." Cassie pulled back enough to look at me. "I've watched that man look at you when you weren't paying attention. You're going to walk toward him in that dress, and he's going to realize you're about to become his wife. He also hates showing emotions in front of too many people, so either he is going to cry like three very manly tears, or he is going to start beaming at you like a fool to keep himself from crying."

My eyes immediately started burning again.

"Goddammit, Cassie."

"I'm sorry!"

"No, you're not."

"No." She smiled and wiped the tear from my cheek. "I'm really not."

I took a shaky breath and smiled at her. "You know what's weird?"

"What?"

"This doesn't feel weird."

Her expression softened.

"Any of it. You sitting here with me. You telling me you miss him too. Knowing you love him." I shook my head slightly. "It just feels like us."

Cassie squeezed my hand.

"I think that's because it is."

That was enough. I didn't need to analyze it today. I didn't need to figure out what we would tell people or what our relationship was supposed to look like six months from now. I was sitting beside one of the people I loved most in the world, talking about the man I was going to marry in a few hours.

I was happy. Completely, overwhelmingly happy.

Cassie leaned over and kissed my temple. "Today is about you and Robbie. My job is to make sure my girlfriend gets to that gazebo without worrying about a single fucking thing except marrying the love of her life."

I smiled. "Maid of honor mode?"

"Maid of honor mode."

"Should I be scared?"

"Absolutely."

I laughed and leaned against her again. For another few minutes, neither of us made any effort to get out of bed. A soft knock came at the door before Caroline poked her head inside. "Can I come in?"

"Of course."

She stepped inside and smiled when she saw us sitting together. "Breakfast is here whenever you're ready. Everybody else is up."

"Thanks, Caroline."

Her eyes moved over my face, and her expression softened when she realized I'd been crying. She crossed the room and hugged me, and I held her for a moment before she slipped back out to give Cassie and me another minute.

That was how the morning really started. Not with panic or some ridiculous wedding-day disaster. With love. So much love. I knew it wasn't traditional, but I didn't need it to be. None of us did. It was right for us, and that's what mattered.

By the time I came out into the main part of the suite, everyone was awake. The curtains had been opened, filling the room with soft June sunlight. Breakfast covered the dining table. Coffee was everywhere. My bridesmaids surrounded me almost immediately with hugs, kisses on my cheek, telling me how beautiful the day was, asking how I'd slept and how I felt.

Nobody expected me to do anything. That might have been the strangest part for me. For the last year, I'd had a hand in everything. Flowers. Food. Invitations. Seating arrangements. Music. Transportation. Decorations. A thousand tiny decisions that somehow went into creating one day. This morning, Cassie wouldn't let me touch any of it.

Every time my eyes wandered toward somebody's phone when the wedding planner texted, Cassie quietly handled it. When I asked whether the flowers had arrived, she told me they had. When I asked about the dresses, she assured me they were already at the venue. When I asked whether Grandpa knew when he was supposed to arrive, she put her hands on my shoulders and looked directly into my eyes.

"Kat, everything is handled."

"But..."

"Everything." Her hands moved gently down my arms. "You spent a year planning today. You don't have to plan it anymore. You get to experience it now."

I stared at her for a moment.

"Your only job today is to marry Robbie."

My heart fluttered.

"That I can do."

"I know."

So, I let her take care of me. I ate breakfast even though my stomach was filled with so many butterflies I wasn't convinced food would fit. I drank coffee. I sat with women who had been part of different pieces of my life and listened while they talked around me. Caroline and the other girls brought up memories from college, old sorority events, late nights and pieces of our lives together that felt simultaneously like yesterday and a lifetime ago. Cassie was in so many of those memories that looking at her now occasionally felt surreal.

In none of those memories could I have imagined this morning. I hadn't known Robbie was going to come back into my life. I hadn't known I would eventually own The Bowery. I certainly hadn't known that my best friend would someday be sitting beside me as both my maid of honor and my girlfriend while I prepared to marry the love of my life, the man we both happily loved.

Every few minutes, it hit me again. I'm getting married today. Every single time, I smiled.

Mom arrived later that morning. When she walked into the suite, she didn't look like Lillian Johnson, executive. She looked like my mother. Her eyes found me almost immediately, and for a moment, she simply stopped before her face softened into a smile.

"Good morning, sweetie."

Something about her voice nearly got me again. "Hey, Mom."

She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around me. I held her tightly.

"I'm so happy you're here."

"There's nowhere else in the world I would be."

That sentence meant more than she probably knew. Or maybe she knew exactly what it meant. There had been years when I'd wondered whether my mother would ever truly understand me. Years when it seemed like every decision I made became another thing between us. Now she was here. Not because she'd finally gotten the daughter she wanted, but because she'd finally learned to love the woman I'd become.

She brushed her fingers through my hair. "How are you feeling?"

"So happy I don't know what to do with myself."

Her smile trembled slightly. "Good."

"Mom..."

"I'm fine."

Her eyes were already shining.

I laughed softly. "You haven't even seen me in the dress yet."

"I've seen you in the dress."

"Yeah, but not today..."

Her expression softened. "No. Not today."

Cassie came over and hugged Mom before quietly telling her that breakfast was still available if she wanted anything. I watched them together, and that did something to me too. My mother loved Cassie. She'd known her for years, but somewhere along the way, Cassie had become more than my childhood friend to my family too. She was part of holidays. Family dinners. The Bowery. Our home. My life.

Mom didn't know everything yet. Today wasn't the day for that conversation, but watching the two of them together still made me smile. Eventually, I slipped into the bedroom under the excuse that I needed to grab my phone charger. I was digging through my overnight bag when Mom appeared in the doorway.

"Need help?"

"No, I got it."

I found the charger buried under a pair of jeans and stood up, but Mom didn't leave.

I looked at her. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Mom."

She smiled. "I was looking at you."

"That's not ominous at all."

"You look happy."

I stopped.

We'd had this conversation before. In a bridal boutique, months earlier, while I stood in front of her in my wedding dress and she tried unsuccessfully to pretend she wasn't crying.

"I am."

Mom walked farther into the room. "Nervous?"

"A little."

"About Robbie?"

"Not even remotely."

Her smile widened. "I know what you mean."

She reached up and tucked a loose piece of hair behind my ear. It was such a simple thing, but there had been years when we hadn't been close enough for gestures like that.

"I wish your father could see you today."

My eyes burned immediately. "Mom."

"I know."

I looked down for a moment before meeting her eyes again. "I wish he could too."

"He would be so proud of you." My throat tightened as she continued. "And he would have loved Robbie."

"You think?"

"I know." Mom smiled through the tears gathering in her eyes. "He would've given him a hard time."

"Mercilessly."

"Absolutely. Especially after he found out Robbie wrestled."

That made me laugh through my tears.

"But he would have loved him," Mom continued. "More importantly, he would have loved who you are with him."

I looked down at our hands when she took mine.

"I didn't understand that for a long time," she said. "I thought loving you meant making sure you made all the right choices. The right schools. The right career. The right people. I spent so much time trying to make certain you had the life I thought you deserved that I stopped paying attention to the life you actually wanted."

"Mom..."

"I'm not trying to apologize again. We've done that."

I nodded. She was right. This wasn't the morning to dig up everything we'd already worked through.

"I just want you to know that when I look at you now, I don't see the life I would have planned for you." She squeezed my hands and smiled. "I see something so much better."

Fuck. That did it. I pulled her into a hug. Mom held me tightly, and for a few seconds I was just her daughter. Not the bride. Not the owner of The Bowery. Not somebody trying to figure out a relationship that had become considerably less conventional over the last month. Just her daughter.

"I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, sweetie."

We stayed like that until someone knocked lightly on the open door. Cassie stood there, and her expression softened when she saw us.

"The cars will be here in about twenty minutes."

Mom stepped back and wiped beneath her eyes. "Perfect. I'll make sure everyone is ready."

She kissed my forehead before leaving the room. Cassie watched her go, then looked at me.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." I smiled. "Good Mom stuff."

Her face softened. "Good."

She came into the room and helped me gather the last few things from my bag. For a few minutes, we worked without saying much. Phone. Charger. Purse. The little emergency bag Cassie had assembled with everything any of us could conceivably need.

I watched her zip it closed.

"Cass?"

"Yeah?"

"I love him so much."

She stopped and looked at me.

"I know." Her fingers settled over mine. After a moment, she smiled. "I do too."

I didn't know why those words made me as happy as they did, but they did. Cassie sat beside me on the edge of the bed. "Sometimes I still can't believe this is my life. I didn't know I could love you and love him and somehow have those be two completely different things without either one feeling smaller."

"Neither of them is smaller."

"No." She smiled. "They really aren't."

"And him loving you doesn't make what he and I have smaller either."

"I know."

"Or me loving you."

"I know that too."

I rested my head against her shoulder, and she rested hers against mine. Somewhere across town, the man we both loved was probably getting ready too, and instead of that thought feeling complicated, it filled me with this ridiculous warmth.

"I still really fucking miss him," I whispered.

Cassie's fingers tightened around mine. "Me too."

I smiled. "We saw him last night, so I know we shouldn't."

"I know!"

"And somehow this is terrible!"

"It really is."

I laughed softly and closed my eyes. "I want to see him."

"So do I." Cassie turned her face slightly toward mine. "But the first time I see him today, it will be when he is waiting st the alter, waiting to see you."

My throat tightened all over again.

I could already picture him. Standing beneath the roses. Blue eyes finding mine at the other end of the aisle. That little change in his expression when something hit him harder than he expected.

I smiled at her, and she leaned forward and kissed my forehead.

I stopped in front of the mirror. I wasn't dressed like a bride yet. My hair wasn't done. My makeup wasn't done. My dress wasn't even in the building anymore. I was wearing comfortable clothes and sneakers, but when I looked at myself, I saw her anyway.

Mrs. Stockton.

The thought sent another rush of butterflies through my stomach. Cassie appeared behind me in the mirror. A moment later, Mom stepped into view farther behind us, and for just a second, I remembered the bridal boutique. The three of us standing in front of another mirror. Mom on one side. Cassie on the other. Me in the middle wearing the dress I would finally put on for real today.

Cassie's hands settled gently on my shoulders.

"You ready?"

I looked at her reflection, then at Mom's.

"Yeah." I smiled. "I'm ready."

We left the hotel together. Cassie rode with Mom and me. I sat beside the window with Cassie on one side and Mom on the other while the city moved past outside. They talked quietly around me, but I barely heard them. Every mile brought me closer to him and closer to the place where we'd walked together almost a year earlier without knowing that a simple date was about to give us our wedding venue.

Then the familiar entrance appeared ahead. My breath caught.

"Oh my God."

Cassie immediately took my hand. Mom took the other.

I laughed softly as my eyes filled again. "There it is."

As the car turned onto the long drive, the gardens opened around us. Flowers filled the landscape beneath the bright June sun. Trees stretched over winding stone paths that disappeared into the green. Somewhere beyond them was the conservatory, and farther back was that secluded garden with the white gazebo covered in climbing roses. I could see it in my mind exactly the way I'd seen it the first time.

Except now the chairs weren't imaginary. The flowers weren't imaginary. Our families weren't imaginary. Grandpa really was going to take my arm and walk me down that stone aisle. Cassie really was going to be waiting beside me.

And Robbie wasn't some beautiful future I could picture standing beneath that gazebo.

He was here. Today. Waiting to become my husband.

I squeezed Cassie's hand and then Mom's as another tear slipped down my cheek. Four years ago today, Robbie and I had found our way back to each other. In a few hours, I was going to walk down that stone aisle and make sure we never had to find each other again.

The car continued along the winding drive until the conservatory came into view through the trees. Even after everything I'd seen during the planning process, the property looked different today. Maybe because it was ours now. Not literally, obviously. Mom probably could've bought the place without blinking, but that wasn't the point. For one day, every flower arrangement, every chair tucked beneath the trees, every ribbon moving gently in the breeze and every person walking quickly between buildings was here because Robbie and I were getting married.

Our car pulled around to a private entrance on the side of the conservatory, well away from the garden where the ceremony would take place. The wedding planner was already waiting when we stopped. Before I could even reach for the door handle, somebody opened it from outside.

"Bride stays hidden from this point forward," she said as she leaned down with a smile. "Robbie arrived about twenty minutes ago."

My heart immediately jumped.

"He's here?"

Cassie squeezed my hand. "Of course he's here."

"I know he's here. I just..."

I stopped because there wasn't any point finishing the sentence. Robbie was somewhere on the same property as me. Probably less than a few hundred yards away, and suddenly that felt like an impossible distance.

The wedding planner laughed softly. "He's exactly where he's supposed to be, and he has been given very strict instructions about where he is and is not allowed to go."

"Did he listen?"

"So far."

"That doesn't sound promising."

"Remember, Rosa is with him."

"Oh yeah. Then he's not going anywhere."

Cassie smiled. "Definitely not."

We were ushered inside before there was any chance of Robbie accidentally wandering somewhere he could see me. The bridal suite occupied a private section of the conservatory building overlooking one of the smaller gardens. Tall windows filled the room with natural light. Mirrors lined one wall above a long counter already covered in makeup, brushes, curling irons and enough bottles of hair products to qualify as a small salon.

My dress hung by itself from a decorative hook near the windows, which I was assured we could see out of, but people couldn't see in. Seeing my dress there stopped me in my tracks.

I'd seen it hanging before. I'd seen it in the bridal boutique. I'd stood in it during fittings while somebody pinned fabric around me. I'd seen it after the final alterations. But this was different.

There was no garment bag anymore. No consultant waiting to adjust something. No future appointment. It hung there completely finished, ivory lace catching the sunlight, the long train falling almost all the way to the floor.

My wedding dress.

Mom stopped beside me. Cassie stood on my other side. Nobody said anything. Nobody needed to.

The next couple hours moved strangely. Parts seemed to disappear while other moments stretched out enough that I could remember every tiny detail. I sat in front of the mirror while my hair was styled, watching the room move behind me. Cassie, Caroline, Krystal and Amy drifted in and out of the suite as hair and makeup rotated between them. Grandma had joined us too, and seeing her sitting near the windows in her dress while Mom moved around the room did something unexpectedly emotional to me. Three generations of women from my family were here together while I got ready to become somebody's wife.

Someone opened a bottle of champagne, although Cassie made sure I drank more water than champagne. Music played quietly from somebody's phone. Every few minutes the wedding planner came through the door with another update, and every single time Cassie intercepted her before I could start asking questions.

The flowers had arrived. The photographer was ready. The ceremony space was finished. The guys were dressed. Guests had started arriving. Robbie was still safely contained on the other side of the wedding area. That last update made me laugh.

My hair was finished first, styled in soft waves that fell over my shoulders instead of anything overly complicated. I'd considered putting it up. Mom had liked that idea. Cassie had liked it down. Robbie had once told me, completely unrelated to the wedding, that he loved when I wore my hair loose because he liked running his fingers through it. Down won.

By the time my makeup was finished, I barely recognized the morning anymore. The woman looking back at me was still me. That mattered. I didn't look transformed into some version of a bride from a magazine. My freckles hadn't disappeared beneath layers of foundation. My eyes still looked like my eyes. Everything was simply softer and brighter, designed to survive the tears everyone had correctly predicted I would spend most of the day crying.

At some point, Caroline announced that if we stayed in the room much longer, we were all going to suffocate on hairspray. That was how the champagne migrated outside. There was a small private terrace off the bridal suite, screened from the main gardens by trees and tall hedges. The wedding planner assured us there was absolutely no chance Robbie could see me from there, so all of us escaped outside for a few minutes before anyone started getting dressed. The June air felt incredible after the controlled chaos inside.

Warm sunlight spilled across the terrace, but the trees kept most of us in shade. Cassie passed me a glass of champagne. Caroline already had hers. Krystal and Amy followed us outside with their glasses, while Grandma accepted one despite Mom giving her a look.

"Oh, hush, Lillian. My granddaughter only gets married once."

Mom immediately surrendered.

I laughed and raised my glass.

Nobody made a toast. Not a real one. That would come later. It was simply ten quiet minutes where nobody was doing my hair or checking a schedule or asking me to turn my head slightly toward the camera.

Then laughter carried through the trees. Deep, unmistakable laughter. I froze with the champagne glass halfway to my lips. Another burst followed it, several voices this time, and then one louder than the rest.

Robbie.

My entire face broke into a smile. The girls heard it too.

"Oh my God," Caroline said softly. "They're over there."

We couldn't see them. The hedges and the building completely blocked whatever private area the guys had been given, but now that we were listening, we could hear them.

Reggae music drifted faintly through the trees. I laughed. Of course. Some relaxed reggae beat was playing somewhere on their side of the property while Billy, Patrick and Ricky laughed loudly enough for us to hear them from here. Then Rosa's voice rose above the rest for a second, followed by another explosion of laughter. Whatever was happening over there, they were having a damn good time.

I leaned against the railing and listened. It was strangely comforting.

All morning, everybody had been asking how I was doing. Whether I was nervous. Whether I needed anything. Whether I was ready. Apparently, Robbie was over there listening to reggae music and laughing his ass off with Rosa and the boys.

Good.

I took another sip of champagne. Cassie came to stand beside me.

"He sounds happy."

"Yeah."

Another burst of laughter carried through the trees. I smiled.

"He really does."

That was all I needed from the moment. I didn't need to see him. In a little while, I would. For now, I liked knowing he was over there surrounded by people who loved him, enjoying the morning just as much as I was.

"So, Kat, I hear Robbie invited a bunch of his former teammates," Krystal said.

"Yeah, two of them are in the wedding party, but he invited a bunch more."

"Are they single?"

"Girl, how am I supposed to know?"

"Fair enough, but at least tell us, are they all built like Robbie?"

I smiled and said, "I can neither confirm nor deny this information."

"Sounds like it's open season tonight!" Amy said.

We all laughed and giggled. Caroline lifted her glass.

"To both sides of this wedding having significantly more fun than they probably should be."

I lifted mine.

"I'll drink to that."

Glasses touched lightly around me. For a few more minutes, we stayed outside in the sunshine, drinking champagne while reggae music occasionally drifted through the trees and the guys' laughter mixed with ours. Then Cassie checked the time.

"We should probably get you married."

My stomach flipped again.

"Right... That."

We went back inside. Cassie appeared behind me in the mirror a little while later. She was dressed now.

The deep burgundy gown looked even more beautiful than it had during the fitting. It hugged her waist and hips before falling to the floor, the black lace along the neckline and bodice giving the dress enough contrast to make the color look even richer. Her ginger hair had been styled into loose curls that fell around her shoulders.

I smiled at her reflection.

"You look beautiful."

"So do you."

"I'm not even dressed yet."

"Doesn't matter."

There was nothing playful hiding beneath it. She simply meant it. She rested her hands gently on my shoulders and looked at me through the mirror.

"You doing okay?"

I nodded. "I think so."

"You need anything?"

"No."

"Water?"

"I've had seventeen gallons because you keep giving it to me."

A small smile touched her lips. "Good."

I reached up and covered one of her hands.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For today."

Her expression softened.

"Always."

That was enough. The photographer came in a few minutes later, followed by Mom and Grandma, and suddenly it was time for the dress.

Everyone else was politely thrown out of the room except Mom, Grandma and Cassie.

I stood in the middle of the suite in my underwear while Mom and Cassie carefully lifted the dress from its hanger and lowered it around me. Thankfully, Mom and Grandma refrained from commenting on my choice of underwear and how little of it there was.

Mom held the dress while I stepped into it. Cassie carefully guided the fabric up my body. Their hands worked together behind me, fastening everything into place while I stared straight ahead at the mirror. The dress slowly became mine in that moment.

Ivory lace hugged my body from the thin straps over my shoulders down through my waist and hips. The fitted silhouette followed my curves before flaring just above my knees, the fabric spilling behind me into the long train. The plunging neckline was still daring enough that Mom had needed some convincing the first time she saw it, but there was nothing cheap or risqué about it. The lace softened everything. Elegant without being delicate. Sexy without looking like I was trying to be. Me.

Cassie crouched behind me and carefully spread the train across the floor. Mom stepped away. I looked up. Everything stopped. Not because I suddenly saw some different woman staring back at me. Because I finally looked like the woman getting married today.

My hand rose slowly to my mouth.

"Oh..."

Mom made a tiny sound beside me.

I looked over.

"No, don't look at me yet."

She pressed her lips together.

"Mom, we haven't even left the room."

"I'm aware."

"You're going to ruin your makeup."

"I'm also aware."

I laughed, which immediately made my own eyes burn.

Cassie stood and came beside me. Her eyes were wet too, but she was smiling.

"Kat."

I looked at her.

She shook her head slowly as if whatever she'd been about to say wasn't enough.

"You're so beautiful."

That almost got me worse than Mom.

"Thank you."

She reached down and took my hand. Grandma came closer then. Her eyes had been wet from practically the second I stepped into the dress, but she was holding herself together better than Mom.

Barely. She touched the lace with the tips of her fingers.

"Oh, sweetheart."

"Grandma..."

"Your father would've been so happy to see you like this."

That did it. I closed my eyes for a second. Grandma took my hand and kissed my fingers.

"He would have thought Robbie hung the moon for making you look this happy."

I laughed softly through my tears.

"He already kind of does."

"I know."

Mom moved to the other side of me, and for a few seconds the four of us stood together. Then Mom reached for a small velvet box sitting on the counter.

"I have something for you."

I looked at her. "What?"

She opened it. Inside was a pair of diamond earrings. They were beautiful without being enormous or ostentatious, each diamond catching the sunlight coming through the windows and throwing tiny fragments of light against the inside of the box.

I looked at Mom. Her eyes were already wet again.

"Your father gave these to me."

My throat closed.

"He gave them to me for our tenth anniversary," she continued. "I thought you should wear them today."

"Mom..."

"I want you to."

I looked down at the earrings again. Dad. For all the things I had today, there would always be one person missing from the room. I nodded because I didn't trust my voice.

Mom carefully removed the earrings from the box and helped me put them on. When the second one was in place, I looked at myself in the mirror.

The diamonds sparkled beside my face. My fingers touched one gently.

"Thank you."

Mom rested her hand against my cheek.

"He's with you."

I covered her hand with mine.

"I know."

Then my eyes dropped lower. Against the ivory lace of my dress rested another piece of jewelry. The necklace Robbie had given me. A delicate chain held a beautiful sapphire diamond at the center of my chest. He had given it to me for today, my something blue, and the stone looked almost impossibly vivid against the ivory lace.

Dad in my earrings. Robbie at my heart.

That thought almost wrecked me. Cassie seemed to recognize exactly what had happened because her hand quietly settled against my back.

I breathed through it. No speech. No explanation. I didn't need one.

The next knock came from the wedding planner.

"Twenty minutes."

My stomach flipped. Twenty minutes. Everything changed after that. Not emotionally. Logistically.

The room suddenly emptied and filled at the same time. Bouquets appeared. Phones disappeared into bags. Somebody checked my lipstick. Somebody else adjusted the train. Cassie, Caroline, Krystal and Amy gathered around me for pictures. Grandma joined several of them, insisting she wanted photographic evidence that she'd survived the morning without Lillian confiscating her champagne.

Mom rolled her eyes. I laughed.

For a little while, photographs became the only thing anyone asked me to do. Mom and me. Grandma and me. Mom, Grandma and me. Cassie and me. Caroline, Krystal and Amy each taking their turns with me before the photographer gathered the entire bridal party around me, burgundy dresses surrounding all that ivory while she kept moving us toward the windows and adjusting bouquets by inches.

Eventually, Mom disappeared because she needed to be seated before the processional. Grandma kissed my cheek before leaving with her. Then Cassie and I were alone again. She picked up my bouquet and brought it to me.

It was beautiful. Ivory and burgundy flowers woven through deep greenery, elegant without looking overly arranged, the stems wrapped neatly beneath my hands. Cassie adjusted one small piece of lace near my waist and stepped back. For a second, she just looked at me.

"You ready?"

My heart was pounding now.

"Yeah."

She smiled.

"Good."

"You're supposed to tell me to breathe or something."

"You are breathing."

"Barely."

Her hand settled gently over mine around the bouquet.

"You don't have to do anything perfectly, Kat. You don't have to remember where your hands are supposed to go or worry about whether you walk too fast. You don't have to think about the people watching you." Her eyes held mine. "Just go marry Robbie."

Some of the tension left my shoulders. That I could do.

"I can do that."

"I know, girl."

She kissed my cheek, careful of my makeup, and took my free hand. We left the bridal suite together.

The closer we got to the ceremony garden, the quieter everything became. Not actually quieter. I could hear the distant music now. Voices beyond the hedges. Birds in the trees. The faint rush of one of the fountains somewhere nearby.

But all the frantic movement of getting ready had stopped. This part couldn't be prepared anymore.

The wedding planner positioned us behind the tall hedge that separated the garden entrance from the main path. From where I stood, I could only see the backs of the final rows of chairs through the opening.

They were full. Two hundred invitations had become actual people. People who had known Robbie and me at different points in our lives. People who had known us together and people who had known us apart.

Mom and Grandma had already been seated in the front row. Somewhere beyond the hedge, Rosa and the groomsmen took their places next to the bridesmaids.

Then I heard the music start. The beautiful notes of Canon in D filled the air. Then the wedding party began making their way down the aisle.

Amy caught my eye before her turn. She smiled warmly and squeezed my hand before taking Billy's arm and disappearing around the hedge.

Krystal followed her, giving me one last bright smile before taking her turn, walking with Patrick.

Then Caroline and Ricky. Her eyes were already shining when she hugged me quickly.

"I'll see you up there."

I smiled. "Go."

She disappeared around the hedge. Then it was Cassie's turn. She turned toward me. The music was playing softly beyond us.

For a second, she looked like she wanted to say something. Instead, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. I held her tightly.

When she pulled away, her eyes were shining.

"See you up there."

I smiled.

"Save me a spot."

"Always."

She took her bouquet and walked around the hedge arm in arm with Rosa, who looked stunning in a simple black dress as Robbie's Best Person. I watched her disappear.

Then I was alone. Only for a few seconds. A familiar voice came from behind me.

"Well, kiddo..."

I turned.

Grandpa stood there in his tux.

Grandpa had always seemed larger than life to me when I was little. Maybe every little girl thought that about the man who made her feel safe. Age had softened him. His hair had gone gray. There were more lines around his eyes than there used to be. But when he looked at me, I was suddenly a little girl again. He stopped. His mouth opened. Then closed.

"Oh, Grandpa."

He shook his head.

"He would've been..."

He couldn't finish it. I knew who he meant.

My eyes filled. He came forward and took both of my hands as he took a deep breath.

"Your father would be so proud of you."

"I know."

"And so am I."

That was almost the end of my makeup. I laughed through the tears. "Everybody has to stop doing this to me."

Grandpa smiled and kissed my forehead.

"You picked a good one."

"I know."

"I suppose I should tell you that if you change your mind, we can still make a run for it."

I stared at him. He smiled.

"I didn't think so."

"Not a chance."

"Good."

His expression softened again.

"Then let's get you married, kiddo."

He offered me his arm. I took it. The music changed to the classic Bridal Chorus. Everyone stood. Grandpa and I stepped around the hedge.

At first, I didn't see anything clearly. There were flowers everywhere. Rows of white chairs filled both sides of the stone aisle. The gardens seemed almost impossibly alive beneath the June sun, overflowing with color beneath towering trees that filtered the light into shifting patterns across the grass. White and burgundy flowers framed the aisle without overwhelming the garden itself. At the far end, climbing roses wound around the old white gazebo.

Cassie stood beneath it on my side, closest to where I would soon stand. Caroline, Krystal and Amy completed the line beside her, their deep burgundy dresses rich against the green of the garden.

Across from them stood Robbie's people. Rosa closest to him. Ricky beside her. Then Billy and Patrick, his two oldest friends from Michigan.

And between them was Robbie.

Everything else disappeared.

He was wearing a black tuxedo tailored perfectly across those enormous shoulders, crisp black shirt beneath it, his tie matching the deep burgundy woven throughout the wedding. His hair was neatly styled in a way I knew wouldn't survive my hands for more than an hour after the reception started.

But I barely noticed any of that.

I saw his face.

Cassie had been right. For half a second, Robbie simply stared at me. His lips parted slightly. Then his entire expression changed. That smile. The one Cassie had predicted. The one that started slowly before spreading across his face until it reached his eyes.

Except it didn't save him.

His eyes were already wet.

I laughed softly through my own tears. There they were. Three very manly tears. He lifted one hand and wiped beneath his eye, shaking his head as he smiled at me.

I forgot there were two hundred people watching. I forgot the photographer. I forgot the music. I forgot how slowly I was supposed to walk. There was only Robbie at the end of the stone path waiting under the gazebo.

Four years ago, I'd found him again. Now every step carried me toward him.

Grandpa's hand covered mine where it rested against his arm. That small pressure brought the rest of the world back just enough for me to notice the people around us. Mom was crying openly now. Grandma sat beside her, tears shining behind her glasses.

Ricky stood near Robbie with an expression I wasn't sure I'd ever seen on his face before, all the usual hardness gone. Rosa stood nearest to Robbie, her smile filled with the unmistakable pride of someone who had seen him through one of the hardest periods of his life. Billy and Patrick were smiling beside Ricky.

Then I looked at my side. Amy was already wiping carefully beneath one eye. Krystal was smiling at me. Caroline had completely abandoned whatever promise she'd made about not crying.

Then I looked at Cassie. She was crying too. Not sad tears. Nothing about her expression was sad. She looked from me to Robbie and smiled, and there was so much happiness on her face that my chest tightened.

Then my eyes returned to him. They stayed there. By the time Grandpa and I reached the gazebo, Robbie looked like he had been ready to run down the aisle and carry me the rest of the way, almost like a dog who is waiting for you to throw their ball.

Grandpa stopped beside me. The officiant smiled.

"Who gives this woman to be married?"

Grandpa looked at me before answering.

"Frank Henderson, her grandfather, on behalf of our family, with all our love."

That got me again. He turned toward me and kissed my cheek.

"I love you, sweetheart."

"I love you too."

Then he placed my hand into Robbie's. The second Robbie's fingers closed around mine, everything inside me settled.

There you are.

His thumb moved over my knuckles.

"Hey," he whispered.

I laughed quietly.

"Hey, baby."

"You're..."

His voice broke.

I squeezed his hand.

"Don't. I won't be able to stop."

He laughed under his breath and looked down for a second.

"I'm trying really fucking hard here."

The people close enough to hear us laughed softly.

I leaned slightly toward him.

"You were crying, baby."

His eyes narrowed before he cracked into his big smile.

"Jesus Christ, you're beautiful."

There was such adoration in his voice.

My eyes burned again.

"So are you."

"I don't think that's how this works."

"Shut up, you know what I mean."

His smile widened.

My Robbie.

The officiant began, and somehow the world expanded around us again.

"Family and friends, we are gathered here today to celebrate Katarina Johnson and Robert Stockton Junior, and the life they have chosen to build together."

Robbie squeezed my hands. The officiant continued.

"Every marriage begins with a story. Kat and Robbie's began long before today. It began when they were young, when neither of them could possibly have known everything life would ask of them. Their story has known love, separation, change and reunion. It has known the strange way life can take two people in different directions only to bring them together again when they are ready to recognize what they found the first time."

My throat tightened. Robbie's eyes never left mine.

"Four years ago today, Kat and Robbie found each other again. Today, surrounded by the people who have loved them through every version of themselves, they choose each other again. Not as the teenagers they once were. Not as the people they thought they were supposed to become. But as the people standing here now."

That landed harder than I expected. Because that was us. We hadn't gotten back what we'd lost. We'd built something new from it. The officiant said a few more words about marriage, about choosing someone not once but repeatedly through every season of a life together. I heard them. I knew they were beautiful.

But I kept looking at Robbie. His thumb hadn't stopped moving across my hand. Then the officiant smiled.

"Kat and Robbie have chosen to write their own vows. Robbie?"

His eyes widened slightly.

I smiled.

He took a breath.

Then another.

"Okay..."

A few people laughed softly.

Robbie looked down at our joined hands for a moment before his eyes came back to mine. He took a slow breath, and when he spoke, there was none of the nervous humor I'd expected him to hide behind.

"Kat, I have loved you for over half my life."

My breath caught.

"I loved you when we were young enough to believe love was supposed to be simple. Back then, I thought loving you meant wanting every second I could steal with you. It meant missing you five minutes after you left. It meant lying awake at night imagining some impossible future where somehow, despite everything waiting for us after high school, I would still get to wake up beside you."

His thumb moved slowly over my knuckles.

"I didn't know anything about marriage. I didn't know anything about building a life with another person. I certainly didn't know how much life could change us. But somehow, even then, I knew you."

My eyes were already burning.

"I knew the sound of your laugh could make a terrible day better. I knew there was nowhere I felt more like myself than when I was with you. I knew that when something happened to me, good or bad, you were the first person I wanted to tell. And I knew that whenever I tried to picture the man I wanted to become, you were always there beside him."

His voice softened.

"I think some part of me knew before I had the words for it. Then I lost you."

The words weren't dramatic. He said them quietly, and somehow that made them hurt more.

"For four years, I tried to accept that. I told myself we had been young. That what we'd had was real and beautiful, but it belonged to another time in our lives. I tried to believe that some people could be that important to you and still only be meant to stay for a little while."

His eyes held mine.

"I never truly believed it."

A tear slipped down my cheek.

"I kept living. So did you. We grew up. We changed. We became people neither of us could have imagined when we were fifteen. And then, four years ago today, I walked into a bookstore for work and saw you again."

His smile appeared then. Not the enormous grin from when I'd started down the aisle. Something smaller. Softer.

"And there you were."

My lips trembled.

"I wish I could describe what that felt like. I'm supposed to be good with words, but I've spent four years trying to find the right ones for that moment, and I still don't think they exist. Because I didn't look at you and remember that I had loved you once."

His fingers tightened around mine.

"I looked at you and realized I still did."

I couldn't stop the tears now.

"It wasn't nostalgia. It wasn't some memory I had spent four years making prettier than it really was. It was you. Older. Stronger. More beautiful than I remembered. Standing in front of me as this incredible woman I didn't know anymore and somehow still knew better than anyone."

He swallowed, and I saw his own eyes shining again.

"And then you gave me a chance at something I never thought I'd get."

His voice grew quieter.

"You let me know you again."

That one hurt.

"You didn't ask me to love the girl you had been. You let me fall in love with the woman you became. I got to learn your dreams again. Your fears. Your stubbornness."

A tiny smile touched his lips.

"Which, somehow, keeps getting worse."

A soft ripple of laughter moved through the garden, and I laughed through my tears.

"But I got to discover you all over again. And somewhere along the way, I realized something."

His expression changed.

"I don't believe we found each other again by accident."

My heart seemed to stop.

"Maybe that's ridiculous. Maybe I'm supposed to be more practical than that. But I can't look at everything that had to happen for you and me to be standing here today and believe you were simply somebody I happened to meet twice."

He lifted my hand slightly between us.

"I think there are people we choose. And I think, every once in a while, if we're unbelievably lucky, there is someone we were always going to find."

A sob caught somewhere in my throat.

"For me, Katarina, that person is you."

Hearing my full name in his voice nearly destroyed me.

"You are the love of my life. Not because our story is perfect. God knows it isn't. Not because we never lost each other. We did. You're the love of my life because somehow, through all those years and all those miles and every choice that should have carried us farther apart, my life still found its way back to yours."

He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it.

"And when it did, I knew."

There wasn't a sound from the crowd behind us.

"I knew I had been given something extraordinary. A second chance with the woman I had never really stopped loving. And I knew I wasn't going to waste it."

His eyes moved over my face like he was trying to memorize me standing there.

"You've loved me through some of the hardest years of my life. You loved me when I didn't know what came next. When I was angry about everything I'd lost. When I looked at myself and saw all the things I couldn't be anymore, you somehow looked at me and saw everything I still could. You loved me when I struggled to love myself."

His voice broke slightly.

"You never asked me to become the man I was before. You loved the man standing in front of you."

I squeezed his hands.

"And because of you, I learned to love that man too."

That one went straight through me.

"You gave me a home when I didn't realize I was looking for one. You gave me a family I didn't know I wanted. You gave me Cassie and Lady, despite my extremely reasonable objections."

A few people laughed softly.

"You gave me bookshelves to build, a bookstore to love, Sunday mornings and late-night conversations and coffee in the kitchen. You gave me thousands of ordinary moments that somehow became the best parts of my life."

His smile trembled.

"And today, you are giving me the privilege of calling you my wife."

The tears spilled over his cheeks again.

"I don't know what I did to deserve that. But I know exactly what I intend to do with it."

He drew a breath.

"I will spend my life being worthy of the choice you're making today."

My face crumpled.

"I promise to love you loudly when you need to hear it and quietly when you simply need to feel it. I promise to know when to stand beside you, when to stand behind you and when to get the hell out of your way because you have decided you're doing something and God help anybody stupid enough to try to stop you."

Laughter moved through the garden again, but Robbie barely seemed to notice.

"I promise your dreams will never become smaller because you married me. I will be the man cheering for you when you chase them, the man beside you when you reach them and the man holding you when they don't happen the way you hoped."

His thumbs brushed across my hands.

"I promise there will never be a version of you that has to earn my love. Not when you're happy. Not when you're angry. Not when you're successful. Not when you're lost. Not when you're twenty-something and standing in front of me looking more beautiful than I have ever seen you, and not when we're old enough that neither one of us remembers why we walked into the room."

I laughed through the tears.

"I promise I will keep talking to you. I will keep listening to you. I will keep learning you, because the woman standing in front of me today isn't the last version of you I'm going to love."

His voice softened again.

"I get all of them."

That shattered whatever control I had left.

"The woman you'll be at thirty. At forty. At sixty. At eighty. Every dream you haven't had yet. Every wrinkle I haven't kissed yet. Every version of this life we haven't lived yet."

He shook his head slightly, smiling as he fought his own tears. I was openly crying now.

"You were the girl I fell in love with. You're the woman I fell in love with all over again. You're my best friend. You're my home. And in a few minutes, somehow, you're going to be my wife."

He smiled at me, tears running freely down his face now.

"I love you, Katarina, and I will choose you every day for the rest of my life."

For a moment, I forgot there was supposed to be anything after that.

I took a breath and looked down at our hands.

"Robbie, I spent weeks trying to figure out what I was supposed to say to you today. And after listening to that, I'm realizing I probably should've made you go second."

He laughed softly.

"But I think maybe mine are simpler."

I looked back into his eyes.

"I love you."

My voice immediately trembled.

"I loved you when I was fifteen and had absolutely no idea how rare what we had was. I loved you for years after I lost you, even when I tried really hard to convince myself that I didn't anymore and we were just kids. And when I found you again, I think some part of me knew almost immediately that I was never going to let you go twice."

His fingers tightened around mine.

"You are the kindest man I know. You make me feel safe without ever making me feel like I need to be protected from the world. You believe in me when I don't believe in myself. You make me laugh when I'm angry, which is incredibly annoying in the best way."

His smile widened.

"And somehow, no matter how complicated life gets, being with you has always felt simple."

I swallowed past the lump in my throat.

"You're home to me, Robbie. You always have been."

His eyes filled again.

"I don't know whether I believe everything happens for a reason. There were years without you that I would never choose to live again. But I do believe there are people who belong in our lives so completely that somehow, we find our way back to them."

I smiled through my tears.

"You found your way back to me."

My thumbs brushed over his hands.

"And then you did something even more important. You stayed."

A tear slipped down my cheek.

"You stayed when things were messy. You stayed when I was scared. You stayed when loving me meant loving all the complicated pieces of my life too. You never asked me to make myself smaller or easier for you. You just kept loving me."

I shook my head slightly.

"I don't think you will ever understand how much that means to me."

He looked like he was barely holding himself together now.

"So, I promise to give you the same thing."

I squeezed his hands.

"I promise to choose you when loving each other is easy, and especially when it isn't. I promise to be your partner before anything else. To listen to you. To believe in you. To remind you who you are when life makes you forget."

My voice softened.

"I promise to protect the life we've built together. To keep laughing with you. To keep dreaming with you. To keep finding new reasons to fall in love with you, even when we're old and stubborn and arguing over something neither of us actually remembers starting."

He laughed through his tears.

"And I promise that wherever this life takes us, you will never have to wonder where I want to be."

I brought his hand against my chest, his fingers resting beside the sapphire diamond he'd given me.

"It's here."

His face crumpled.

"With you."

I smiled at him through my tears.

"You were my first love. You became my second chance. And today, you become my husband."

I had to stop for a second before I could get the last words out.

"I choose you, Robbie. I choose this life. I choose every version of us that comes after today."

My fingers tightened around his.

"And if I had to lose you a thousand times to end up standing here with you again..."

I shook my head, smiling through the tears.

"I'd still choose our story."

I took one shaky breath.

"I love you. I have loved you for what feels like my whole life."

My voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"And now I get to love you for the rest of it."

For a moment, neither of us moved. Then Robbie leaned forward instinctively. The officiant cleared his throat. Robbie froze about three inches from my face. Everyone laughed.

"Not yet," the officiant said.

"Shit, right."

I was laughing hard enough that I had to look down.

"Baby! You couldn't wait another two minutes?"

"Nope."

"That tracks."

The officiant waited for us to regain whatever dignity we had left before continuing. The rings came next. Rosa handed Robbie mine. Cassie stepped forward with his. For one brief second, as Cassie placed the ring into my palm, her fingers closed gently around mine.

Her eyes met mine. She smiled. Then she stepped back. That was all. And it was perfect.

Robbie took my left hand. His fingers were shaking. I smiled.

"Nervous?"

"Shut up, woman!"

I laughed.

He slid the ring onto my finger beside the engagement ring.

"With this ring," he repeated after the officiant, "I give you my promise, my love and my life."

My throat tightened again. Then it was my turn.

I took Robbie's hand. Those enormous hands that had held mine when we were teenagers. The hands that had taped wrestling injuries, built bookshelves, held me while I cried, cooked with me, touched me, protected me, and spent countless mornings wrapped around a coffee mug across from mine.

I slid the ring onto his finger.

"With this ring, I give you my promise, my love and my life."

The ring settled into place. I stared at it. Robbie Stockton was wearing a wedding ring. My wedding ring. I looked up at him. His smile was unbelievable.

The officiant said the final words, but I barely heard the beginning. Then I heard the part that mattered.

"By the authority vested in me, and with the enormous privilege of having witnessed the promises you've made to one another today, I now pronounce you husband and wife."

Husband. Wife.

Robbie's fingers tightened around mine. The officiant smiled.

"Robbie, now you may finally kiss your bride."

He didn't need to be told twice. One hand came around my waist while the other cupped my face. He pulled me against him and kissed me. Everything else vanished again. It wasn't some polite ceremonial kiss. It wasn't obscene either. It was Robbie.

Warm and familiar and trembling slightly against me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed my husband while two hundred people erupted around us.

My husband.

Holy shit.

My husband.

I felt him smile against my lips before he pulled away just enough to look at me.

"Hello, Mrs. Stockton."

I laughed, crying all over again.

"You're my husband, baby!"

He kissed me again. The cheering got louder. Somewhere behind me, Cassie was crying. Ricky was yelling something. Billy whistled loudly enough to probably terrify every bird in the botanical gardens. Patrick joined him. Caroline, Krystal, and Amy were cheering. Mom and Grandma were completely gone.

I didn't care. Robbie pressed his forehead against mine.

"We fucking did it."

I laughed.

"We did."

The officiant eventually managed to reclaim everyone's attention long enough to announce us.

"For the first time, it is my pleasure to present Mr. and Mrs. Robert and Katarina Stockton."

Applause rolled through the garden again. Robbie offered me his arm. I looked down at it. Four years ago, we'd found each other again. Now there was a ring on his hand. There was a ring on mine. I slipped my arm through his. We stepped down from the gazebo together.

The garden looked different walking back through it. Maybe because I could finally see everyone instead of only Robbie. Mom stood with one hand pressed over her mouth. Grandma was beside her, crying just as hard, while Grandpa stood with them looking like he was barely holding himself together. Ricky was clapping hard enough for both hands to hurt. Billy and Patrick were making enough noise for an entire section by themselves. Imani was smiling. Caroline, Krystal and Amy were all crying.

Rosa stood near the gazebo, smiling at Robbie with the unmistakable pride of someone who had seen him at his worst and gotten to watch him reach this.

Then there was Cassie.

She stood beside Rosa with her bouquet held against her dress, tears streaking down her cheeks. Our eyes met. She smiled.

Not because anything about this moment belonged to her. Because she knew exactly how much it belonged to us. And she was happy.

That was all I needed.

Robbie and I reached the end of the aisle and rounded the hedge before either of us stopped.

The second we were hidden from the guests, he turned and lifted me completely off the ground. I squealed.

"Robbie!"

His arms locked around my waist as he kissed me again. I forgot about the photographer following us. I forgot about my train. I forgot that there were people twenty feet away. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back. When he finally put me down, I kept my hands against his face.

He looked at me. Really looked at me. The joking disappeared.

"Mrs. Stockton."

Hearing it quietly was somehow completely different. I ran my thumb beneath his eye, catching the dampness still there.

Then he kissed my palm.

"You're my wife."

My chest tightened.

"You're my husband."

He shook his head slightly like he was trying to make the words fit inside his brain.

"I've wanted that for so fucking long."

"So have I."

He pulled me into him.

I rested my head against his chest, listening to his heart hammer beneath his suit. The sapphire diamond he had given me pressed lightly between us, and for a moment I touched it with my fingertips.

There would be pictures in a few minutes. Family. Friends. The wedding party. There would be a reception and dinner and speeches and dancing. There would be a honeymoon after that. Eventually there would be Monday mornings and grocery lists and arguments about whose turn it was to do something neither of us wanted to do.

There would be ordinary days. Thousands of them, if we were lucky.

That was what I wanted.

Not just this day. Not the dress or the flowers or the gazebo or the pictures.

Him.

The life waiting on the other side of all of it.

Robbie kissed the top of my head.

"I love you, Kat."

I closed my eyes and held my husband.

"I love you too."

We shared that one private moment that belonged to us until the rest of the wedding party joined us. They showered us with congratulations. Ricky jokingly offered me his condolences. There were so many hugs and kisses and people talking and just chaos. Eventually, my grandparents and Mom joined us along with Evan. A small army of golf carts came around, and we all got on. The photographer took us around to all the best spots on the grounds where we took so many pictures. By the time the pictures were done, the sun had begun setting. Our reception area outside was set up with beautiful fairy lights creating a magical ambiance.

The entire garden had changed while we were taking pictures. The bright colors of the afternoon had softened beneath the setting sun, and hundreds of tiny lights had begun glowing above the tables and along the paths surrounding the reception space. The conservatory rose behind everything, its enormous glass panels reflecting the last gold and pink streaks of daylight. Burgundy and ivory flowers covered the tables beneath the lights, mixed with greenery and candles that flickered as the evening breeze moved through the garden.

I stopped when I saw it.

For almost a year, I had looked at pictures, diagrams, fabric samples, flower arrangements and table settings. I had made more decisions about chairs than I ever wanted to make again. I had spent hours with the wedding planner trying to turn the picture in my head into something real. Somehow, seeing it finished was completely different.

Robbie slipped his arm around my waist. I leaned against him and looked down at his left hand where it rested against the ivory lace of my dress. The ring was still there. Obviously. I had checked approximately seventeen times since the ceremony. My husband was wearing a wedding ring. I smiled like an idiot all over again.

Our entrance into the reception became another blur of cheering, applause, and music. Everyone stood when we were announced, and Robbie took my hand as we walked between the tables. I couldn't have told you afterward what song was playing. I barely remembered where we were supposed to go. I remembered laughing. I remembered Robbie smiling beside me. I remembered seeing Mom standing near the front with Grandma and Grandpa and realizing that somehow, we had actually done it.

Then, finally, we sat down for dinner. The food I'd spent months discussing with caterers somehow became the least important thing on the plate. Robbie ate like he hadn't seen food in three days. I managed considerably less because apparently getting married had rendered my stomach incapable of deciding whether it was hungry.

Mostly, we talked. Or tried to. Every few minutes somebody came to our table. Friends. Family. People Robbie knew from wrestling. People I knew from college. Coworkers from Stonebridge. People who had known one of us as children and people who had only met us after we'd found each other again. That might have been my favorite part of the reception.

Our entire lives were in one place. There were people there who remembered Robbie before the accident and people who had never known him as a wrestler. There were people who had known me before my family moved away, people who knew me from college and people who knew me as the woman who owned The Bowery. There were people who remembered us together when we were kids, people who had known us only during the years we were apart and people who had never known one of us without the other.

Somehow, all of those versions of us had ended up beneath the same lights. As dinner wound down, the speeches started.

Grandpa spoke. So did Mom. Rosa spoke for Robbie, and Cassie spoke for me.

I couldn't tell you every word afterward. I remembered laughing until my face hurt. I remembered crying again despite repeatedly insisting I was done crying. I remembered Robbie squeezing my hand beneath the table when Rosa talked about the man he'd become when he was student teaching. I remembered Cassie talking about watching the two of us find each other again and seeing Robbie's eyes immediately move toward me.

Cassie's speech probably hit me the hardest. Not because anyone else in the room understood everything those words meant now. They didn't. But I did. Robbie did.

When she talked about being lucky enough to have a front-row seat to our story, she meant something different now than she would have a month earlier. Nobody else needed to know that. There was nothing secret hidden in her speech for people to decode. She was still my best friend and maid of honor celebrating the two people she loved.

Only now, Robbie and I knew just how literal that had become. When she finished, I hugged her for probably longer than was necessary. Then she hugged Robbie. Nobody thought anything of either one. Eventually, the tables began to clear and people shifted their attention toward the dance floor.

That was when Robbie and I finally danced. For everything else about the reception that seemed to move too quickly, those few minutes slowed down. Two hundred people disappeared surprisingly easily when Robbie wrapped one arm around my waist and took my hand in his. I rested my other hand against his shoulder and looked up at him.

For the first few seconds, we both smiled. Then I started crying again. Of course I did. Robbie laughed quietly and pulled me closer. I rested my head against his chest and let him move us slowly across the dance floor beneath the lights. I could hear people around us, cameras clicking and the music playing, but none of it really mattered.

There had been a time when dancing with Robbie at our wedding was something I could only imagine. Now I could feel his wedding ring against my hand. That was real.

When the song ended, the rest of the traditional dances followed. Grandpa and I had ours. Robbie danced with Grandma, which predictably destroyed her and nearly destroyed me watching them. Mom danced with Robbie too, and seeing the two of them laughing together after everything it had taken for them to understand each other was one of those moments I knew I would remember long after I forgot half the details of the day.

Then came the cake. I had apparently spent an unreasonable amount of time deciding what that thing should look like only for Robbie and me to immediately cut a hole in it while approximately two hundred people watched.

We behaved ourselves. Mostly. I put a small amount of frosting on his nose. He stared at me long enough that I immediately realized I had made a tactical error. I managed to save my makeup only because I reminded him there were photographers present and threatened consequences if he ruined it.

After that, the reception stopped having anything resembling a schedule. The dance floor filled. And stayed filled.

Billy and Patrick apparently took the existence of an open bar and music as a personal challenge. Ricky wasn't much better. Within an hour, Robbie's old wrestling friends had somehow collected into a group large enough that I finally understood why Krystal and Amy had been asking about them earlier.

Based on their continued presence on that side of the dance floor, they had apparently received satisfactory answers to their questions. Caroline dragged me into dancing with the girls. Cassie joined us almost immediately. Mom even made it out there eventually, although it took Grandma physically pulling her from her chair.

Robbie danced with me. Badly. Enthusiastically, but badly. I loved every second of it. He barely had rhythm before his accident, and that definitely didn't help things. He danced with Cassie too, although nothing about it would have looked unusual to anyone watching. They were friends. They had been friends for years. Nobody knew that when he spun her beneath his arm and she came back laughing against his chest, there was something new underneath it now.

I did. And instead of hurting, it made me smile. Later, Cassie danced with me. That wasn't unusual either. Two best friends dancing together at a wedding didn't earn more than a passing glance. So, we could laugh and hold each other's hands and spin around beneath the lights without anybody wondering what it meant.

For tonight, that was enough. There would be time later to figure out everything else. Tonight I didn't want complicated. I wanted my husband. I wanted my best friend. I wanted my family. I wanted champagne and music and sore feet and photographs I would probably spend the next month obsessively looking through.

So that was exactly what I had. At some point, my shoes disappeared. I genuinely didn't know where they went. I suspected Cassie. My dress eventually stopped looking like something that belonged in a bridal magazine. The bottom collected little traces of grass and dirt from hours spent moving through the gardens. My hair loosened. Robbie's tie disappeared. His jacket followed not long after, and by late evening his sleeves were rolled to his forearms while he danced with Ricky, Billy and Patrick like they were twenty years old again.

I stood off to the side for a moment and watched him.

My husband.

There was something almost absurd about how happy he looked. Ricky grabbed him around the shoulders. Billy was yelling something I couldn't hear over the music. Patrick was laughing. Rosa stood nearby with a drink in her hand, shaking her head at all of them.

For so much of his life, Robbie had believed wrestling was the thing that gave him a future. Then it was taken from him. Looking at him now, surrounded by his brother, his oldest friends, Rosa, coworkers, my family and everyone else who had become part of the life he'd built afterward, I wondered if he could see what I saw. Nothing had ended. His life had simply become something he never could have imagined back then.

As if he felt me watching, his eyes found mine across the dance floor. His entire face changed. That stupid smile appeared. Then he walked away from everyone and came straight toward me. He didn't need to say anything.

Neither did I. I met him halfway. That was how most of the rest of the night went.

We drifted between people. We danced until my feet hurt. We stopped long enough to drink water because Cassie apparently intended to continue enforcing hydration even after completing her official maid-of-honor responsibilities. We talked to people we hadn't seen in years and promised far too many of them that we wouldn't wait so long to see them again.

I hugged Mom more times than I could count. Grandpa cried again before he and Grandma left. Ricky hugged me and officially welcomed me to the family as though I hadn't been part of it for years already. Rosa hugged Robbie hard enough that whatever she whispered to him made him close his eyes for a second before squeezing her tighter.

Cassie was everywhere. Sometimes beside me. Sometimes beside Robbie. Sometimes across the reception talking to her parents or laughing with Caroline.

Eventually, the crowd began thinning. Older relatives disappeared first. Then families with children. The music kept playing, but the enormous reception slowly became something smaller and more intimate as the night stretched on. The fairy lights seemed brighter after midnight. Or maybe everything else was simply darker. By then I was exhausted. Completely, wonderfully exhausted. I stood with Robbie near the edge of the dance floor, tucked beneath his arm while we watched the last clusters of our friends dancing and talking beneath the lights.

My cheek rested against his chest. His fingers moved absently along my bare shoulder. I looked down at our hands. Two rings on mine. One on his.

Four years ago, on this exact date, I'd found Robbie again. I couldn't have known where that night would lead us. I couldn't have known about the bookstore or the house or Lady. I couldn't have known about his knee, teaching, coaching, Cassie or any of the thousand other things that had shaped us between then and now. I couldn't have known that four years later I would be standing beneath fairy lights in a dirty wedding dress with sore feet, leaning against my husband while the people we loved celebrated around us.

Maybe that was the point. Our lives hadn't gone according to plan. Thank God for that. Robbie looked down at me. I smiled up at him and rose onto my toes. He met me halfway. I kissed my husband beneath the lights as the last hours of our wedding night slipped away around us.

Tomorrow could have everything that came next. Tonight, I just wanted this. And for once, there was nowhere else either of us needed to be.