The Runaway Groom

Thirteen minutes before “I do,” I ran.
Not because of cold feet. Because four weeks earlier, a security guard caught me before I fell into a fountain—and I’d been falling ever since.

Vance Kessler is rough where I’m polished. Blunt where I’m careful. He didn’t want a runaway groom crashing in his apartment, fighting him over thermostat settings, and refusing to leave.
But he hid me anyway. Stood between me and my family. Made me feel like more than a last name for the first time in my life.

Now we’re sharing a cramped one bedroom, pretending we don’t notice every accidental touch, every lingering look, every moment the air between us gets too heavy to breathe.

We’re just waiting for the storm to pass.
But some storms bring you exactly where you need to be.