Heart Improvement: A Brooklyn Heights Bachelor Romance

Chapter 34 - Scott

The soft tinkling of the harp seems incredibly loud. Other than the music, the room is dead silent. I think I can hear my own heart beating. There is no one except me, Chelsea, the officiant and, of course, the TV crew.

She looks beautiful. The dress hugs every curve of her body and I no longer need to use my imagination. I know what every inch of her skin looks like. And right now, that seems kind of tragic. I’d rather not know.

She steps up to me. The flowers are put aside. We have to hold hands and face each other. I looked over every part of her, except her eyes, while she was walking down the tiny aisle to me. Now I don’t have a choice. I have to look right at her.

I’m absolutely flabbergasted to see not only is she beaming, but her eyes are watering up. A lump starts to form in my throat and I swallow hard to try to get rid of it.

“Welcome,” the officiant says.

I guess he doesn’t need to say beloved family and friends because there aren’t any. Thank god. By the time this episode airs months from now, I’ll have explained it to my parents and they will have, hopefully, forgiven me.

The man gives a little speech about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of commitment. Chelsea reacts, but I’m sure nobody but me notices. Just a quick flash of darkness passing behind her eyes.

“Do you have the rings?”

“I do,” I say, reaching into my pocket.

“Not yet. We’re almost there.”

I wonder if they will play canned laughter when the episode airs. For her part Chelsea smiled and sniffed.

I pull out the rings. Part of the package. When we learned we were doing this, make that had to do this, they just measured our fingers. The network, or maybe the hotel, picked the rings. They just needed our sizes.

When they brought the rings to my room an hour ago, I locked myself in the bathroom for a bit. I told Gary I’d be a while, so he could take a break. Unlike the room Chelsea was getting ready in—we each got a room—there wasn’t much going on in mine. They didn’t need film of me getting my makeup.

When Gary left, I’m pretty sure he had the wrong idea about why I wanted to be alone. When I was handed the rings all the oxygen seemed to disappear from the world. The rings themselves are fine. But one of the ways I thought I’d eventually make it up to Chelsea, about the whole fake engagement, was that if we did eventually get married, picking out our wedding rings would be real. And I was planning to make the most of it.

“Scott, please place the ring on Chelsea’s finger and repeat after me.”

Act,I tell myself sternly.

I promise to love, honor and cherish her forever. For a second my heart soars. Then I remind myself about the exhilarated ‘I love you’ she shouted over the phone to, probably, Wisconsin Guy. But I keep smiling and staring into her eyes.

She’s looking right back at me and I see a slight change in her expression. I love you, I say inside my head, over and over.

I think it works, because she seems much more at ease when she says her vows, though her hand trembles slightly sliding the ring on my finger. When she promises to forsake all others, I have to hold back a snort. She notices, I know she does. I guess they’ll fix that in editing.

But then it’s done.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Shit.

I see her hesitation but our eyes lock. We have to do this.

I take her in my arms and brush my lips against hers. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s all right there, everything I want, everything I have ever wanted, and I can’t have it. Not now, not ever.

The harp music starts again. Chelsea and I jump apart. She grabs her flowers and we walk up the aisle. Gary and another guy film and a photographer furiously snaps away.

We have to take pictures. We have to drink champagne and get our picture taken toasting each other and doing the arms wrapped around each other’s drinking thing. Ditto for the eating and, unfortunately, feeding each other cake.

We laugh, we smile, we act like we are having the time of our lives. So very much in love.

It sucks.