“They’re perfect for each other,” Mike added. “Even when they’re driving us all crazy.”
“Even when they’re driving each other crazy,” Sisi quipped.
The music shifted, becoming more formal, and a hush fell over the gathered crowd. The officiant—a friend of Shane’s who’d apparently gotten ordained online specifically for this occasion—took his place beneath the dogwood arch.
Then Mateo appeared.
He looked nervous as hell but stunningly handsome in his perfectly fitted tux, his dark hair behaving for once and his face lit with the kind of smile that made it impossible to not smile back. He walked to his position with the measured steps of a man heading toward the electric chair, and I felt a surge of pride for my friend who’d found his person.
The music swelled, and Shane emerged from behind the trees looking like he’d rather be anywhere else but somehow managing to appear dignified in his discomfort. His normally steady hands were visibly shaking, and there was a flush across his cheekbones that suggested he was fighting every instinct to flee.
But when his eyes found Mateo’s across the gathered crowd, everything changed.
His nervousness melted away, replaced by something so pure and focused it made my throat tight. He walked down that makeshift aisle like he was heading home.
Beside me, I heard Theo’s quiet intake of breath, and when I glanced over, he was wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.
“You okay?” I whispered.
“Just . . . look at them. They’resohappy.”
And he was right.
As Shane reached the front and took his place beside Mateo, both men were grinning like idiots, their earlier nerves forgotten in the face of this moment they’d been building toward for what felt like a lifetime.
The officiant began the ceremony with words about love and commitment and choosing each other every day, but I found myself only half listening, too caught up in watching my friends and thinking about the journey that had brought them here.
Mateo—who’d spent years convinced he was too much for anyone to handle permanently—standing beside someone who thought his intensity, his competitive nature, his single-minded focus was perfect.
And Shane—who’d kept people at arm’s length his entire adult life, avoiding the world in his shop, as though interacting might infect him with some incurable disease—promising to let someone in completely.
Somehow, impossibly, I was here to witness it, flanked by my own small family and surrounded by the people who’d become something like home for me, too.
When the officiant asked if anyone had objections, Mrs. H loudly declared, “If anyone speaks up, I’ll show them mysgian-dubh,” which I was pretty sure was some kind of Scottish knife threat that made several guests look around nervously.
Everyone tittered, but no one objected.
How could they, when it was so obvious that these two belonged together?
“By the power vested in me by the great state of Georgia and the internet that brought us all together,” the officiant announced with a grin, “I now pronounce you married. You may kiss your husband.”
The kiss was soft and sweet and perfect, and when they broke apart, both men—even the stony Shane—were crying happy tears that set off a chain reaction through the entire gathering.
As the newly married couple made their way back down the aisle, stopping to hug family and accept congratulations, Debbie tugged on my sleeve.
“Willie Wee, are you and Daddy going to get married, too?”
The question, asked with the casual curiosity of a five-year-old, sent heat flooding through my face.
Across the aisle, Mrs. H cackled with obvious delight.
“Maybe someday, princess,” I managed. “It takes a long time for daddies to make a decision that big.”
“I hope so,” she said, settling back in her chair with satisfaction. “I want to be the flower girl . . . and I want there to be dragons.”
Theo was laughing softly beside me, his hand finding mine as we stood to follow the crowd toward the reception area.
“Dragons might be negotiable,” he said quietly, his fingers threading through mine.
