"Oh lord," I shook my head, imagining a young Tristan sitting in front of his television jerking off.
His laughs died down as we walked into the reception hall, stopping right at the entrance. His pretty face was flushed from amusement. "If I had to choose between saving you or her, I'd choose you."
"Oh, thank you so much, Mag," I slapped his chest with the back of my hand, rolling my eyes at the same time. "Such an honor."
He grinned in amusement, stooping his head low so that we were eye to eye. "I love you so much, you know that?" He kissed my lips chastely. "I'll always choose you."
"Oh yeah?" I asked him in a teasing voice, nuzzling my forehead to the smooth edge of his jaw.
"Yeah," he snickered, pressing his dry lips to mine. "You're the best thing in my life."
Josh walked past us right then, fanning his eyes and letting out an exasperated sigh. "Get a room."
Pressing up onto the tips of my toes, I kissed the man in front of me one more time, mouths closed and warm on each other. Despite how much I enjoyed having his tongue battling mine, there was something so intimate and sweet about the slow, sensual kisses with our tongues in their respective mouths, that made my toes curl. It was gentle and loving, just like Tristan. "We should go inside before they come embarrass us," I warned him, pulling away to tug on his hand.
He nodded, following behind me with a sly smile.
The next two hours went by in hyper speed. There was a toast by Zoey, in which she drunkenly blurted out, "To Calum and Nicole Burro." Three-fourths of the audience, including Calum's family, were well aware of everything so it wasn't a big deal, but the others who didn't know just looked on in confusion and chalked it up to Zoey blabbering because she was wasted.
Tristan followed up with another toast, thankfully a sober one. "As many of you know, Calum and I have been friends almost our entire lives. We met in second grade when he tried to save me from getting beaten up for my lunch money by a fifth grader but instead got both of us beat up. We spent the next four years getting both of our asses kicked because neither one of us seemed to take into consideration that if only one of us got beaten up, the other could still buy lunch to share.
Even after Calum started getting a lot bigger in middle school and I wasn't, he made sure no one picked on me. He could've left me to fend for myself but he didn't. As we've gotten older, but not necessarily much wiser, we've kept that mentality between the two of us. Our friendship turned into something different, and Cal became the brother I never had. Wherever one of us went the other one followed and now, I'm glad that he's found someone else in his life to watch over and protect. Someone a lot better looking than I am, who can talk him out of doing stupid stuff instead of egging him on," it was then that I stopped paying attention because he started wiping at his eyes, smiling in the direction of his best friend.
Was it wrong that I wanted to mount him when he was in tears? Maybe, but I was so zoned out and focused on his facial expressions that I couldn't listen to the rest of his speech until he'd taken his seat next to mine afterward.
"You are so sweet," I leaned into his ear, whispering. Sliding my hand across my lap and onto his, I squeezed the firm muscles of his thigh. "You should cry tears of joy more often."
Tristan laughed, the smooth sound ringing in my ears while he put his hand over mine. "What my Kitty wants, my Kitty gets," he teased with my dad's nickname for me. Immediately after meeting Frank, he'd added that name to his repertoire. Annoying, but typical.
I rolled my eyes and bumped my shoulder against his.
The remainder of the reception was spent between the dance floor and the table where the cake was. Josh and I did everything from the running man to the sprinkler around Nicole in her beautiful cream wedding dress. The bitch knew better than to even think about putting on a white dress. I think she had a fear of getting struck by lightning if she did it, since God knows there wasn't any part of that girl that could've been considered even marginally virginal. Tristan stayed seated, moving between the table Calum's family sat at and ours on the occasion that I sat down to take a quick water break between songs.
"Having fun?" he asked coming up to me while I sat at the table for a moment.
I nodded and smiled because I was having a really good time. I was with the people I loved the most, besides my dad of course, and it was impossible to not soak in the abundance of joy and excitement that Nikki and Calum were radiating. "Are you?"
"Oh yeah, I'm having a blast sitting over there watching Cal's cousins drool over you," he chuckled.
I turned around to look in the direction where Calum's loud ass family was sitting and pretended to squint. "Was it the cute ones?"
Tristan laughed and pinched my ass. "Yeah, they're just your type. Kyle’s hitting forty and Stephen is close to your dad's age."
"Shut up," I snorted, turning back to face him.
He was grinning down at me for a moment before wrapping his arms around me, pulling me into him. I took a long and deep inhale against his chest, taking in the faint smell of his cologne. His nose brushed against the top of my hair, which was now a sweaty and more than likely, stinky mess. "You smell like oranges and salt."
"Salt has a smell?"
His answer was interrupted by the sudden stop in music through the hall. Calum and Nikki were standing in the middle of the floor, looking all too eager to get out of there and braid each other's privates together. "We're leaving!" Nicole announced, making her way toward the table where her dad and aunts were sitting. I pulled away from Tristan, squeezed his wrist, and then made my way over to Zoey and Josh who were waiting patiently to say their goodbyes to Nikki.
Zoey looped her arm through mine, resting her head on my shoulder. "I'm so happy that it makes me sad," she admitted.
Josh looked over at me from his spot on the other side of Zoey with wide eyes. We were both all too familiar with the random, senseless shit that came out of her mouth when she drank. Trading smirks with each other, we waited another two minutes before Nikki made her way to us while hiking up her dress. Nicole Jonasson, the Ball Buster of Seattle, was glass-eyed and beaming. It was kind of scary, like the calm before the storm, but I pushed the thought of my head.
"I'll call you guys as soon as I get back," she told us. They were leaving on a red-eye to Hawaii for their honeymoon.
We all nodded in synchronization, maybe doubting the strength in our voices as a whole but I'd never know for sure. "Have fun, I love you, Nik," I broke the silence, extending my arms out so that the giant of a woman could give me a hug. She squeezed me so tight my boobs started hurting and repeated my words to me.
