I wrap one arm around her waist and press a soft kiss to her cheek. Goosebumps erupt over Stella’s arm, and her cheeks bloom a rosy pink.
“Maybe,” Scott says, “you’re still seeing little Stella and Roman, kids.”
Rebecca laughs softly. “Maybe. Brice always said Stella wasn’t allowed to date until she’d moved out on her own.”
Stella sniffs beside me. She’s gone quiet.
“Well,” Rebecca says after a moment. “I’m seeing it now.” Her eyes brim with happy tears. “We love you, Roman. We’ve missed you. We couldn’t pick anyone better for our daughter.”
My heart patters with the love and grace they freely offer after my very long absence. “Thanks, Mrs. E.”
“I’ll call later,” Rebecca says, “and we can talk reception.”
“Real soon!” Stella barks. “As soon as Roman’s busy season lets up. Okay, gotta go! Thanks. Bye. Bye!” She taps ‘end call’ and leans back into the cupboard, her breath haggard and short. “That was close.”
“You say that as if we just dodged a tornado.”
Her eyes flutter, and she releases one sighing breath. “We did. The whole reason that worked is because my parents have always been half in love with you since you were a child.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“By the way,” she says, disregarding my comment, “your season is never letting up, got it? You will be busy until the end of time. There will never betimefor a reception.”
Twelve
I tapthe steering wheel of my car with both my pointer fingers—a crazy rhythm that’s too fast to go along with the song on the radio. “You need your passport.”
“I know.” Stella sits in my passenger seat, her hands folded in her lap. “You seem nervous.”
“I’ve never been married before,” I say, because Iamnervous. I’ve also never committed fraud before.
“Second thoughts?” she says. Her contacts are in, and her pretty green eyes are relentless. She won’t stop looking at me.
“Of course not. I want to do this.”
“Ball and chain,” she says, and I think she’s trying to tease me.
“I’ll take it.”
Her cheeks go rosy with my words, and I wonder what she’s thinking. Or if I embarrassed her. She always embarrassed easily as a kid. But Stella Everly is far from a child now. She’s a woman—every inch of her.
And if I’m lucky, maybe because his sister happens to bein the car with me, that lightning bolt that Brice is sending down from heaven will miss me. Any time I looked at Stella like a girl and not a little sister, I was slugged—hard. As well as being told to never ever look at his baby sister again.
Brice never held it against me. But I was warned—painfully so. I was eighteen and Stella was fifteen. She was a kid. Brice was right. She just happened to be a kid growing into herself that year.
We drive the rest of the way in quiet, walking up the courthouse steps without a word to one another.
I have everything mapped out, and I’m anxious—more anxious than my Red Tail tryout, more anxious than when I asked Coach about my cabin, and more anxious than the start of any game.
“This way,” I say. While I’ve never been inside this Reno, Nevada, courthouse, I downloaded a map last night. I know where I’m going, and I know what each of us needs to get that license. We don’t need an appointment, but the internet said it would take fifteen to twenty minutes to obtain one. Our appointment to be wed, just down the hall, is thirty minutes later.
I don’t sit in the license bureau office. I pace, sign, and hand the woman at the desk my credit card. Eighty-five dollars and one John Hancock, and I am ready to break the law.
“Do you want to look over my paperwork?” Stella asks. “You could check out my information.” But why would I? How would I know any of her details better than her?
I shake my head. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
She huffs. “I tried,” she mutters to herself.
