“I didn’t understand love then,” he says. “Love is daisies and mushy cards, sure, but it’s so much more than that. It’s trusting another person to hold your heart in their hands without breaking it. It’s camping trips and dance parties and fun times, but it’s also the sad stuff. It’s the knowledge that sharing the heartache makes it easier to bear. It’s knowing someone else has your back no matter what. In good times and bad times and?—”
“—in sickness and health?” I raise an eyebrow at him. “This is sounding like marriage vows.”
“That’s what I want, Sarah.” His hand trembles around mine, or maybe that’s me. “I don’t want a marriage on paper. I don’t want legal contracts and handshake agreements. I want it all. I want the whole messy, heartbreaking, heartwarming ball of goop. And I want it with you.”
Fuck it. Now I’m crying.
I start to dash the tears from my face with the back of my hand, but Ian whips out a blue plaid handkerchief.
“What, you didn’t have Lisa make you replicas of those hideous paisley handkerchiefs you had in college?” I tease as I wipe the tears from my face.
He grins and squeezes my hands. “I’m okay with a fresh start on some things,” he says. “The way I love you now is better than the way I loved you then, so my handkerchiefs can improve, too.”
“That is quite possibly the weirdest way anyone has ever professed love,” I say. “But I love you, too, Ian. So much.”
A grin spreads across his face and he drops my hands to pull me into his arms. The hug is fierce and so exuberant he nearly squeezes the breath out of me. “I love you,” he says into my hair. “I love you, Sarah.”
The words themselves are nice, but it’s the emotion behind them that chokes me up again. It’s like someone pulled the cork out of Ian’s champagne bottle, and all this beautiful, fizzy emotion has come bubbling out.
I love it.
And I love him, in case that wasn’t obvious.
I wriggle free from the hug so I can look up at him. His green eyes glitter with emotion, and it’s like we’re finally on the same page after all these years.
“I’m ready, you’re ready,” I tell him, and I hope he understands I don’t mean dinner. “Let’s do this.”
He smiles and brushes the hair off my forehead. “Where should we start?”
I glance at the ramen on the milk crate and smile. “Dinner. More kissing. Marriage. Maybe a cat. Not necessarily in that order.”
“Sign me up for all of it,” he says, and lowers his mouth to mine.
Epilogue
Ian
“Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here today to join this man and this woman together in holy matrimony.”
My mother winks at me, and I hold my breath, along with both of Sarah’s hands. My heart feels full enough to burst, and I’m not sure I can make it through this ceremony without jumping on a chair and beating my chest like a fucking madman.
I’m marrying the best woman in the whole damn world.
Smiling like she just read my thoughts, Sarah winks at me, then turns back to my mom.
“Those might be the traditional opening lines for a wedding,” my mother continues. “But everything else about Ian and Sarah’s story is completely unique. Just like they are.”
Yep, that’s right. My mother is marrying us. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but it’s actually the coolest idea ever. My mother—the most romantic person I know—getting licensed as an officiant to bind me together with the woman of my dreams.
That woman smiles at me now with flowers in her hair and a look that says she’s as giddy as I am to be here. The weather is perfect here at the Central Oregon reindeer ranch where we decided to hold our ceremony. Sunlight glints off the snowcapped mountains on the horizon, and the breeze is warm and perfumed with sage and juniper. I know the scenery is beautiful, but I don’t care.
The most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen is standing here holding my hands and watching me with so much love in her expression that I practically melt with it. I gaze into those clear blue eyes and know I’ve found what I’ve been searching for my whole life, even if I never knew it. Sarah, the woman I was made to love. We look at each other like we’re the only two people in the world.
But there are actually two hundred people here at this wedding, including my colleagues at Wyeth Airways. Dana Peschka and her husband watch from the third row, while Walter and Trevor Williams beam at us from the other side of the aisle. There are no sides at this wedding. Just togetherness and celebration and love. Lots and lots of love.
I sound like a cheesy Hallmark card or one of those romantic comedy movies Sarah loves, but it’s fucking true and I don’t care who knows.
Sarah squeezes my hands, and I feel that chest-thumping urge washing over me again. God, she’s beautiful. Her dress is lacy and white, but not one of those big Cinderella numbers with the long caboose. It’s floaty around her ankles, but short enough to show off the sparkly beaded flip-flops that Junie made for her.
