“To us. ‘Til death do us part, baby,” he said with his signature boyish smile. In that moment, he stared at me like I was his favorite person in the whole world and there was nowhere else he’d rather be. I took a mental picture because I never wanted to forget it.
We kept eye contact as we downed the shots, and the bar-goers behind us erupted in cheers.
Someone cued up Ray LaMontagne’s “You are the Best Thing” on the bar jukebox, and everyone cheered us on to dance.
Nick grabbed my hand and made a big show of bowing in front of me to ask me to dance. I happily obliged and hopped off the barstool to stand on the sticky, hardwood floor. He pulled me close with an arm behind my back and held my other hand, and we old-school-slow-danced while he sang the words quietly to me. During the chorus, he spun me out and then back into him, and the crowd went wild. Every couple of minutes, someone yelled, “Twirl!” and his face would break into a huge smile and he’d do it again.
At the end of the song, he dipped me low, making me feel like I was doing a layback, and he planted a kiss on my lips before bringing me back up.
It was the best night of my life.
_____
“You think we should tell anyone?” he asked as we stumbled home together holding a complimentary bottle of wine from the bar to congratulate us on our marriage.
“I’m not sure,” I giggled. “I kinda like it being our secret.”
“You wanna keep me a secret, Smol?” He made a show of flexing his bicep– the one that had my name on it. “I’ll tell the world!” he shouted in the empty street.
I wrapped my arms underneath his light jacket and around his waist as we walked.
“No, you know what I mean,” I laughed. “I’m eighteen. I’m not sure how thrilled my parents will be.”
He shrugged and looked down at me. “Eighteen, exactly, babe. They don’t get a say.”
He stopped suddenly and traced my neck with his fingers. Now drunk, the touch felt extremely intimate. So intimate that it sent a zing through my entire body down to my toes.
“How about when you graduate, I get you a big, big ring and we do it up for the world? We’ll have a huge ceremony, and you’ll get to wear one of those poofy dresses if you want? But it’ll have to be on… what day is it today? October 12th? And we’ll have to have our first dance to the same song.”
I nodded, feeling a giddy bubble of excitement in my chest and leaned forward to kiss his beautiful neck.
“God, baby.” He lightly walked me backwards to push me up against the brick wall of his… our… apartment building. “It’ll just be a renewal of vows… but that can stay between us,” he said breathlessly as I continued to work on his neck. “Sound good?”
I loved when he made future plans for us. I loved him more than life. I looped my arms around his neck. “Sounds perfect, babe.”
He claimed my mouth with a drunk kiss then, and I was glad to be hanging on to him… because my knees went weak when he kissed me hungrily like that. It felt otherworldly, and I never wanted it to end.
When he pulled back, he shook his head out and put a hand through his hair.
“Oh my God,” he said, shocked. “We gotta tell Griffy boy! He’s the best man!”
27. Griff
“We got married!”
I pulled my phone back a little because they practically screamed it, but hearing their happy voices made me smile.
“Damn, for real?” I asked. A little part of me still felt a bit jealous of Nick… but I tried to stomp that out. They were married now. They were end-game.
“Yes! We ran to like ten different churches asking for someone, anyone, who could marry us,” Sav explained. Her voice sounded a little loopy, like she was drunk, and I chuckled.
“But we found one. Told ya, babe. Knew we could do it,” Nick said more to her than me.
“What spurred this on?” I leaned forward to close the textbook on my desk in front of me and moved to plop onto my bed. As a sophomore, I was finally getting into my major classes… and as much as it made me feel like a nerd, I had to admit that I really enjoyed them. I was working toward a kinesiology undergrad degree with plans to apply to physical therapy programs after I graduated… Well, unless hockey workedout…
“Sav moved in with me, but she didn’t feel comfortable living in sin,” he said exaggeratedly. “And I didn’t feel like wasting anymore time. We knew we were gonna do it eventually, so why stress?”
“Happy for you two love birds. Do I have to send a gift?”
