Page 310 of Romeo

Every thought left my head.

The dress was simple. Soft ivory, falling around her body without too much lace or glitter to hide the woman wearing it. It came to her ankles, leaving a pair of shoes visible that I suspected Mama had also somehow produced from whatever magical Southern mother emergency supply she traveled with.

Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, and she carried a small bouquet of white flowers and greenery.

But none of that was what got me.

It was her face.

Fiona looked happy.

Not the fragile smile she’d given me after the parking lot. Not the exhausted one from our ride south. This one reached all the way into her eyes as she came down the stairs with Devlyn and Aunt Marabella behind her.

Mama stood beside me and sighed.

“I see it now.”

I couldn’t look away from Fiona. “See what?”

“Why you didn’t stand a chance.”

I smiled.

“Never had one.”

Fiona reached the bottom step, and for a second, she just stood there while the Bourbon Bar went strangely quiet around us.

Then she looked at me.

Everything I had imagined about this moment over the last year had been wrong.

I’d pictured Nebraska once or twice, some distant day after she finished college, maybe that imaginary house already built. I’d pictured my brothers there. King bitching about having to wear something decent. C.C. insulting my clothes. Mama crying whether she admitted it or not.

I had never pictured a Bourbon Bar wedding thrown together in a few hours because the world had gotten too fucking dangerous for patience.

And I wouldn’t have changed a goddamn thing.

I crossed the room to meet Fiona before anybody could tell me I was supposed to wait for her to come to me.

Her smile widened.

“You look beautiful.”

“You sound surprised.”

“Not even a little.”

She glanced around the bar. “Your mother is terrifying.”

“Now you understand me.”

“She’s wonderful.”

That was considerably more alarming.

I leaned closer. “Careful. She hears that and you’ll never get rid of her.”

Fiona’s eyes softened. “Maybe I don’t want to.”