Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
She sounds…ecstatic.
It was ridiculous of me to think she’d want all the trappings. This is an arrangement, and she’s always been a smart businesswoman. I’m not even upset. Not one bit.
“Let’s get hitched, baby.” I take her hand, and I’m strangely eager to get to the chapel.
Just to get a move on, I’m sure.
That has to be it.
But the velour burgundy jacket is irresistible to Elodie.
The second the officiant, a bald white guy with a pro wrestler’s physique and name, Hitch Malone, shows it to us in the foyer of the chapel, she turns to me, eyes glittering, mouth wide with excitement.
“Gage, you would look so good in this on social. So handsome,” she says, advancing toward me. “We could rub Sebastian’s face in it.”
And that’s irresistible too. “How are you even hotter when you go for revenge?”
She smiles coyly. “It’s one of my many charms.”
“There’s a dress for the lovely bride too,” Hitch adds, then swaggers to a mirrored door, swings it open, and gestures to a wardrobe full of gowns. “The missus and I stocked it with all the sizes.”
Elodie rubs her palms and marches straight over, flicking through choices, then picking. The matching dress for the bride is stunning—it’s cut short and it has all sorts of cleavage.
“Sold,” she says, then waggles her credit card and presses it into his beefy palm. “The clothing rental is on me.”
I smile privately. She did want the trappings. I was right. I pat myself virtually on the back for knowing my woman.
Not gonna lie—I’m pleased, too, that she wants some frills.
Because I do.
Ten minutes later, I’m tugging on the cuffs of my wine-colored jacket that makes me look like a lounge singer. I wait at the head of the chapel while Hitch Malone sets the rings I bought from him on a white satin pillow on the altar.
A woman with the attitude and dress of a burlesque singer fiddles with the music. She’s his wife, and her name is Matrimony Maven.
“You want ‘It Had to Be You,’ right, hun?” she calls out to me.
I picked that one, figuring it was one of Elodie’s favorites since she named a line of chocolates after the tune.
But a coil of doubt winds tighter in me. Is this tune sending the wrong message? Will she think I’m making more of this match than I should?
I wish relationships came with recipes, like cocktails. Or rules, like baseball.
But…in for a penny, in for a pound. “Yes,” I answer.
I tug on my bow tie as Matrimony Maven cues up the music and Hitch Malone pats me on the shoulder. “It’s all right, kid. I was nervous before I married Maven,” he says, nodding toward his wife. “Nerves are good. They mean this matters to you.”
“That’s not why—”
But I swallow my denial when the music begins and the door opens. Elodie strides in, and my nerves simply vanish, like smoke in the fog.
I can’t take my eyes off her. Her hair is twisted up in a clip, blonde tendrils framing her face, her cheeks rosy, her lips the color of cherries, her blue eyes bright and playful, but also…hopeful.
I think.
Or maybe I want to think it’s hope I see in the tilt of her lips, the softness of her smile, the tenderness in her eyes. The burgundy velour dress hits at her knees, accentuates her waist and full hips, and hugs the curves of her breasts. Her engagement ring from Grams shines on her right hand today. She switched it so she could put the band on her left hand. She’s still wearing her Converse, and somehow the incongruity of my dressed up woman in sneakers makes my breath catch.
And my heart beats faster.
Clutching a bouquet of yellow roses, she’s walking toward me, dipping her face, then meeting my gaze, then looking away, and holy shit, is she truly nervous? Or is that excitement?
I don’t even know. I just feel right now. I feel…tingles as she walks past empty chairs and the romantic song swells, the crooner’s lyrics filling the corners of my mind.
It must have been that something lovers call fate.
I’m not a fate guy. Don’t believe in it one bit. Not after the way my life has gone. But in this moment, I believe in something bigger than me. I believe Elodie came into my life for a reason.
The reason is the partnership, surely. That’s what I tell myself. But I can’t seem to hold that idea in my head. It falls away like sand as Elodie closes the distance between us while Maven clicks, clicks, clicks on her phone, snapping photos.
For a brief, dangerous moment, my imagination runs wild. Maybe that’s inevitable, even when you’re playing pretend. But when I’m with Elodie, I don’t feel like I’m faking a thing. With her I don’t feel like I’m constantly racing toward the future. I feel like I’m living in the moment, and each moment with her is the only place I want to be.