“You stay right there.” Kandace dashes across the room to retrieve my phone from the couch.
The moment she places it in my hand, I pull up the text message from Travis.
“Oh.” I place my hand against my chest, everything inside of me going soft and mushy at the picture he’s just sent.
“That waterproof mascara is already getting a workout and the wedding hasn’t even started.”
“But look.” I turn the phone to her, showing Lucky dressed in a pair of light-colored linen shorts, suspenders over a white button-up with a matching bowtie.
“Oh, my goodness, he even has a hat,” Kandace squeals, crying now, too. “I have the most handsome Godson.” She sniffles.
Travis:Sorry about your makeup but I had to send this one to you.
He ends the message with a winky face emoji and a heart.
The phone beeps in my hand again.
Travis:Now can you please hurry up so I can make you my wife??
“So impatient,” I grumble while stifling my smile.
Today, five months after our son’s birth, Travis and I are getting married. We’ve flown our family and closest friends to the Maldives to rent out half of a beautiful beach resort.
The first thing I did this morning when I woke up was pinch myself. It took me a few moments to truly accept that while it feels like a dream, it’s also my reality. I not only have a healthy baby boy that I’m totally obsessed with, but I’m equally in love with his father, and he with me.
For a girl who spent so many years of my life believing I was unlucky, it’s as if some loving power beyond me chose to take all of the luck I thought I’d gone without, triple it, and give it to me all at once.
My heart is full to the point of bursting.
A knock at the door interrupts me from completely bawling.
“There she is,” Uncle Theo says, smiling so wide and proud that he mirrors the sun.
His smile quickly drops, however.
“What’s wrong? You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”
I laugh at the worry in his voice. And because I know that if I were to tell him right now that I didn’t want this, he would do his best to get me whatever I needed.
To believe I’d shielded myself from his love for so long saddens me.
“No.” I shake my head. “Nothing like that.”
“She’s on the verge of having a meltdown because of how happy she is,” Kandace says for me.
Uncle Theo’s face instantly turns to one of understanding, and he crosses the room to embrace me.
“I’m okay,” I say after allowing him to hold me for a minute. “Let’s have a wedding.”
That’s when the flurry of action really kicks up. Annalise, who I’ve gotten closer with over the past few months, starts ushering all of the wedding party in the direction of the door to line up for the walk down the aisle.
Annalise has been a huge help in planning this wedding and a terrific aunt, in general. While she’s not the official wedding planner, she might as well be. But that would detract from her role as one of my bridesmaids. Along with her and Travis’ younger sister, Chloe.
From the back of the line of my bridal party, I hear the music start as the glass doors part. A slight ocean breeze fills my nostrils with fresh air lightly perfumed by the floral arrangements that mimic the crown on my head.
Kandace and her husband exit first, followed by Annalise and Tristan, Chloe and one of their cousins, and finally, Uncle Theo and me.
I barely make out all of faces that swim in front of me as we start walking. My entire body trembles, not from nervousness or fear, but anticipation. Movement out of the corner of my eye captures my attention. I smile and blow a kiss at Uncle Owen, who unashamedly has tears streaming down his face.
