Chapter 16 #2
And there was Nate, standing behind a table with several laptops in front of him.
Tamara’s heart beat double time as she watched him work.
He looked so handsome and so serious. It melted her a little.
There would be many other computers backing all this up, but Tamara knew Nate well enough to know that he’d insist on manning the tech feed himself.
He would want to feel the atmosphere and perfectly capture the pure essence of the wedding in the video.
She knew he wouldn’t budge, waiting for the moment when it all went live.
Tamara walked over to him. She could practically feel how pleased he was that everything was working. He moved deftly, making small adjustments to the cameras and the program that would carry the feed.
After her phone call with her mom, there was so much Tamara wanted to say to him, so many emotions she wanted to try to put into words.
But the last thing she wanted to do was distract Nate just as he was about to have his big moment.
Nate deserved to shine, but she still needed to do something to make it clear exactly how she felt about him.
The ceremony was minutes away. Tamara stepped next to Nate, folding her hand into his. At the contact, he turned toward her, and a giant smile spread over his features. Just then, Tamara realized she didn’t need to say anything. Nate already knew what was inside her heart. She smiled back.
She wanted to do more than smile, though, so she did, distraction or not.
She kissed Nate, soft and sweet, lingering with her lips on his, wanting to make it clear that this was about more than just needing him in that moment.
It was about love. Nate kissed her back just as delicately, matching her perfectly, and Tamara wished it could last forever.
Even when they did pull apart, she kept her hand in his.
She didn’t care who else was watching. No, that wasn’t exactly right—she wanted them to watch.
She wanted her friends to see, and to understand, exactly how much love there was between her and Nate.
When she finally went to take her seat for the ceremony, she looked around, checking her friends one by one. Liz, Meg, Kate, Jenn, and Daniel all seemed to be pretty busy with their respective jobs, but there was one thing they all had in common.
They were smiling.
As Nate got back to work, the kiss was enough to send his head reeling, especially since it had been in front of so many of their friends.
Nate glimpsed them now, looking over at him with varying degrees of surprise.
But it seemed like a happy surprise—not shock—and that mattered more than Nate had realized.
This was his family, as much as his real one, and maybe there was a lesson there too.
This family all seemed to have the knack of finding the right person in the end, whatever it took.
He forced himself to pay attention to the wedding, although banishing thoughts of Tamara completely was impossible.
He needed to concentrate, but not as much as he might have feared.
The code he’d written for the linkup was robust enough to cope, and if he had to juggle things a little to handle the massive upsurge of traffic once people worked out what was going on, that was no big deal.
Zach had been as good as his word, turning over server after server to the task.
Nate imagined it was probably messing up someone’s online gaming somewhere.
Mostly, Nate’s job was editing the camera feeds together on the fly, making sure that the world got the best possible view of the proceedings.
That was a little tricky, since Nate wanted to train every camera in the place on Tamara and show the world that the most gorgeous, amazing woman was sitting a few feet away.
But of course, they were here to celebrate the beautiful love between Zach and Yuriko, and Nate wanted to do his best to capture it.
The others had done such an amazing job of putting this wedding together.
It was full of thoughtful details—the small kanji characters, all saying love, that Meg had worked into the edges of the tablecloths, how Jenn had managed to create a combination of savory pastries and sashimi that blended East and West perfectly, and the way Liz had written the ceremony to fit the couple like a glove…
Nate aimed the cameras at the bride and groom, both looking perfect in their positions at the front.
It helped that Yuriko was beautiful, and her dress was stunning, and Zach looked like the leading man in a movie.
And sure, he had money and success and was used to standing up in front of full boardrooms and persuading executives to go his way.
But it was more than that—much more. What made him look perfect was the fact he was so obviously in love.
Zach positively shone with it, and Nate began to wonder if he himself looked the same way.
Then he glanced around at his friends, and he didn’t have to wonder anymore.
The way they were looking back at him told him they knew exactly how in love he was.
He suspected they’d known for a while now.
As the couple said their vows, Nate made sure that the feed came from the camera closest to them, with the microphone as clear as he could get it. A quick check of his screen told him that the signal was going out clearly, with the views already up into the millions.
“Zach,” Liz asked, “do you take Yuriko to be your wife? Do you promise to love her, to put her before all others, and to cherish her always?”
“I do,” Zach replied.
“Yuriko, do you take Zach to be your husband? Do you promise to love him, to put him before all others, and to cherish him always?”
“I do,” Yuriko said.
They exchanged rings, and Liz pronounced them husband and wife, telling Zach he could kiss his bride.
They kissed with the kind of passion that conveyed just how much they’d been waiting for that moment.
As the guests cheered and clapped, Nate did a slow fade of the feed to end it and then making a copy of the wedding video available on the Web.
Nate dared to breathe a sigh of relief. The wedding had gone off without a hitch.
The streaming was as seamless as he could have hoped.
He’d done it. The elation that flooded through him only added to what he was already feeling about Tamara.
As the wedding ceremony gave way to the party that followed, Nate set out to find Tamara.
Almost immediately, the happy couple was in front of him.
“We both want to thank you,” Zach said.
“We want to thank all of you,” Yuriko added, “but you particularly, Nate. I never thought that my wedding would be broadcast to the whole world. Did many people watch?”
“Millions,” Nate assured her. “I have the exact figures on my laptop if you want to see.”
Zach looked as though he might actually go to check, but Yuriko pulled him in the direction of the dance floor.
“‘Millions’ is a big enough number for me. Come on, Zach. You and I have our first dance. Thank you again, Nate. This wedding couldn’t have happened without you and everyone at Married in Malibu. ”
Of course, the moment Nate was identified as being partly responsible for livestreaming the wedding meant he had to make his way through a procession of relatives and friends of the couple, all wanting to say how wonderful it was or ask questions about the coding he used.
By the time Nate found Tamara, the first dance was almost over. That was okay. He pulled her onto the dance floor, giving her a kiss that took their breath away.
“I love you,” Nate said. He meant it just as much as the very first time he’d said it. It didn’t even matter if Tamara replied, so long as she was here, in his arms, waiting and wanting to hear it.
“I love you too,” Tamara said, gazing into his eyes. The words sounded like they came to her naturally now, and Nate could hear the certainty in them.
“We seem to spend a lot of our time out on dance floors,” Tamara said with a laugh.
“First, the song launch, then my brother’s wedding… and now, today. I think it’s our happy place. Any regrets?” Nate asked.
“Only that I didn’t say it sooner,” Tamara said.
Nate shook his head. “I’ve only ever wanted you to be ready.”
“Well,” Tamara assured him, wrapping her arms around his neck, “I’m ready now.”
She kissed him again, and this time they were able to explore each other’s mouths slowly, lingering with tenderness as a slow song played.
Nate was sure that their friends would be watching again, but he figured, Let them watch.
There were some things that were worth a little embarrassment.
And then he realized he didn’t feel embarrassed at all.
He would have shouted his love for Tamara to the whole world if he could.
That gave him an idea, so he pulled Tamara in the direction of his laptop. A few presses of the keys was all it took to get the program running again, and after that, it was just a question of stepping into the spot the cameras were trained on.
“What are you doing?” Tamara asked.
“Letting the world know how I feel,” Nate said, now audible on computers around the world. “I can turn the cameras off if you like.”
“Don’t you dare,” Tamara said.
This kiss was even better than the last.
“I’ve just had a thought,” Tamara said with a laugh. “I told my mother to watch the livestream today.”
“Worried?” Nate said.
Tamara shook her head. “Not with you here.”
“I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” Nate said.
But those words, meaningful as they were, didn’t capture exactly what he wanted her to know.
He wanted to wake up beside Tamara every day.
He wanted to be the one to make her coffee in the morning.
He wanted to share all the small things that probably only they would find funny.
He wanted to be there for her during the hard times too.
Although, with Tamara there beside him, it was difficult for Nate to imagine how times could ever be truly hard again.
“That’s lucky,” Tamara said. “Because I want to spend the rest of mine with you. Just you, me, and Fifi.”
Their friends couldn’t hold back any longer, practically mobbing the two of them out there on the dance floor. Liz was there first, looking worryingly stern.
“Nate, did you just broadcast the two of you kissing to the whole world?”
“Yes,” Nate said. “Yes, I did.”
Liz’s frown gave way to a smile. “Good. About time.”
The others seemed just as happy for them. Travis shook Nate’s hand.
“So this is what you were talking about,” Travis said.
“Of course it was,” Daniel said, snapping a picture of the pair of them.
Even Zach and Yuriko came over to see what the fuss was about.
“Sorry,” Nate said as he tried to explain. “I feel as though we’re hijacking your wedding.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zach said. “I think the man who sent our wedding out to the world and the woman who found the best coffee I’ve ever tasted get a little leeway.”
“And besides,” Yuriko added, “it’s good to see other people as happy as we are on our wedding day. We know what it’s like to be this in love. We’re not about to be upset if other people are too.”
“Love makes all of us better,” Zach said.
Nate had to agree. Loving Tamara had certainly made him better. It had shown him that the love he’d always thought was impossible was out there. It had shown him how much more complete life was when there was someone in it as wonderful, as perfect, as Tamara.
It was a while before the party started to wind down, and it was only when Liz pretty much ordered him and Tamara out of the building that they finally made their way to the exit, hand in hand.
“This is nice,” Nate said. “Finally some time to ourselves.”
“I agree. Let’s go home,” Tamara said, adding, “It’s just going to be you, me, and Fifi.”
Nate started to laugh, putting an arm around Tamara, “We’re really going to have to talk about that name.”