Or she's hungry.
Maybe we’ll never know.
But either way, we're home.
28
SYSTEM RESTORE
Two weekslater
LUKE
It's 2:47 PM on Saturday, December 14th, and I'm standing in the Cascade View Inn's newly renovated bridal suite, watching Callum adjust his bow tie for the fifteenth time while trying not to think about what Sage looks like in the dress she's wearing today.
Two weeks have changed so damn much.
Two weeks of figuring out how to merge lives, manage a goat, and navigate a relationship that started with fraud and somehow evolved into something real.
Two weeks of waking up next to auburn hair and impossibly soft skin and a woman who sleep-talks about spreadsheets.
Best two weeks of my life.
“Aye, lad.While ye stop smiling like that?”Callum questions in a particularly Scottish brogue, still fighting with his tie."It's unseemly."
"Like what?"
"Like you've been getting laid regularly by someone who adores you."Grayson appears in the doorway, already holding champagne despite the ceremony not starting for two hours."It's disgusting.We're supposed to be cynical bastards together."
"You're married," I point out.
“Didn’t change my cynicism.Now I’m just cynical about everything except love."He hands Callum the champagne."Liquid courage.Karina's little cousins are terrifying."
“Killian should be the one terrified,” Connor mutters, emerging from the bathroom in a cloud of cologne.“Half the single women here already clocked him during rehearsal.The man’s two weeks officially divorced and radiating ‘please wreck me’ energy.”
“He’s refusing to dance with anyone under thirty-five,” Alex adds, not looking up from his phone.“Claims he’s allergic to ‘influencer energy.’”
"He's lurking by the espresso bar like a villain in a noir film," Grayson says."I give it thirty minutes before someone throws themselves at him or he ends up accidentally engaged."
“He needs to get laid,” Callum mutters.“Like...properly.With someone who doesn’t use the phrase ‘alpha vibes’ unironically.”
“Maybe tonight,” I say.“Stranger things have happened at this inn.”
“Exactly.Now, what are we going to do about those tiny tyrants with flower baskets?”Grayson shudders."They've already critiqued my boutonniere three times."
Alex enters, phone pressed to his ear, gesturing wildly."No, Mac, we cannot add a pasta station an hour before—yes, I know Nonna Flora offered—Mac, the inn has a kitchen the size of a?—"
He stops, notices us watching.
"Everything pure barry, mate?”Callum asks.
“Yeah, sure.Just that, uh, Mac's gone full Italian grandmother.She's trying to supplement the catering because she's worried people will starve."He returns to the phone."Honey, it's a four-course meal.No one's starving."
Outside, the ceremony lawn has been reimagined into a winter dreamscape.
A heated transparent tent rises over the aisle like a crystal cathedral, draped in floor-to-ceiling garlands of fresh pine, eucalyptus, and roses so rare they had to be flown in from Ecuador and sprayed with misted gold.
Ice sculptures shaped like thistles (a nod to Callum’s Scottish roots) frame the entrance, while a twelve-piece string ensemble warms up beneath a chandelier made entirely of hanging crystals and fairy lights.
