Chapter 26 An Unhinged Wedding #3
More photos lined the makeshift, table-cloth walls showing our journey back to each other, and I took them in one by one.
When we reached the end of the tunnel, one last pink tablecloth, a different shade than the rest, and for reasons I didn’t quite understand, covered with images of cartoon archeologist, Dora the Explorer, hung ahead of us, blocking the way.
Daddy turned to me and smiled. “You ready for this, kiddo?”
I reached up and dabbed my eyes, my hands shaking in front of me.
“He did all of this? For me?” When the heck could he have?
We’d spent the entire week together at work.
Our nights were shared. He left at 11:59 on the dot the night before, just to avoid seeing me after midnight.
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where he found the time to do all of this. “It must’ve taken all night.”
Daddy hugged me so tightly it felt like he might just crack a rib, and it was like he was trying to squeeze every bit love he had into me.
Like he was making up for Momma not being there.
Making up for the way she’d thrown me away when I chose Kent over her.
That was fine, though. Daddy was all the family I ever needed.
“He loves you, Son. It’s your day, of course he was going to make it perfect for you.
” He pulled the final plastic barrier open, and my breath hitched in my chest. I swallowed, and drank in the scenery in front of me.
The endless tunnel had led us to the back doors of the stockroom that opened to the loading dock. Turning to the left, the ramp leading up the loading dock was lined with more gardenias, and a trail of tea candles that had all blown out thanks to the slanted angle he’d placed them at.
Then … I saw him.
Kent Fox was a vision. A gemstone sparkling in sunlight.
From his angle at the top of the ramp, it was like he was standing in the space where the sky hugged the earth, and it almost appeared as if the sun itself was kissing his heels.
Like God Him(or Her)self was shining down, celebrating right along with us.
He looked beautiful. His hair was combed to the side like a film star from the 1950s.
He’d straightened his usual assortment of curly chaos, and had used quite a bit of product to hold it in place.
I made the conscious decision not to scold him for his hair gel usage, even though he’d unleashed holy Hell on me for doing the same every morning.
The peppering of freckles that traveled the distance between his cheekbones looked more prominent than ever against the contrast of his cream-colored skin.
His tux, standard black, made him look like someone from a Bond film, and more than anything, I wanted to be his Bond Boy.
He wore a carnation-pink cummerbund, but that wasn’t all.
Kent had taken his trusty bedazzler to the fabric, and had created a work of art with gemstones.
Around his waist, this man … this perfect, beautiful, ridiculous, little man had bedazzled a measuring cup with white rhinestones.
There were yellow gems I could only assume were meant to symbolize the tequila that led him back to me, last year.
On the right side, a two-liter bottle, with black stones filling it, symbolizing my drink of choice, Diet Coke.
Our eyes met, and he stared at me for a moment, as if he were drinking me in.
Then he closed his eyes, his smile widening, and he …
exhaled. He took a long, leisurely gulp of air, and then he made his way to me.
He was going completely off script, and I didn’t give a good gosh dang.
His smile was wide, and right then, as he barreled toward me with all the grace of a runaway pallet jack, I knew that smile was for me and me alone.
And then he was jumping. Lunging forward, into my arms, wrapping himself around me, kicking his sun-kissed heels in the air with force. My face pressed into his neck, and then I breathed him in.
“Sorry,” he said, realizing that he’d just done a five-yard sprint just to reach me. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” His fingers dug deeper into my back, through the fabric of my tux. “I ruined your moment, but I don’t—I couldn’t wait. You look so fucking beautiful, Gray.”
I pulled away, smiling like I held the world in my hands.
Then I realized, I did. I was holding him, because somewhere along the way, his legs had hooked around my back, and he clung to me like a capuchin monkey, planting a trail of delicate kisses up my neck, and along my jawline.
I patted his butt once, and he followed my lead, unlooping his legs from around me and begrudgingly moving back to the ground.
He turned to my father and the tears that were pooling in his eyes started to pour when he read the pin Daddy had on his lapel.
I went to my gay son’s wedding, and all I got was the best dang son-in-law a father could ask for.
It was a rather large pin.
“Oh my God, Marty.” He covered his face with his hands and fell against Daddy’s chest, taking a moment soak up the love my father was pouring out.
“It’s just—I didn’t think…” Kent pulled away and took a step back.
Wiping his eyes, he stared at my father with a look of awe, like he’d just completely reshaped his world.
Daddy shook his head. “No, Son. No more ‘Marty.’ When Gray proposed, you made me a promise. You remember that promise?” Kent nodded, his jaw trembling. “Dad. From here on out, I’m Dad, that’s what you said. I’m holding you to that, kiddo.”
Daddy leaned down, kissing Kent’s forehead before turning and doing the same with me.
As we made our way up the terribly short ramp, Kent’s mother, Caterina stood at the top of the small platform. She wore a carnation pink gown with an unnecessary amount of ruffles around the edges. When we made it to the top of the dock, we were greeted with a lackluster sight indeed.
No one had come.
I knew that homosexuality was frowned upon in the evangelical community, but those seats were meant for our family.
For our friends. A group of people I’d known all my life, who I loved to the moon and back.
I knew that they had their reservations—that our beliefs didn’t entirely align—but those people were mine.
I was theirs, and they were mine. We were family, and family was supposed to show up.
Seeing forty empty chairs felt like someone had punched me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me.
I squeezed Kent’s hand, and he leaned against me, kissing my shoulder.
“The people that matter came, baby. The people that mean the most to us,” he said.
Daddy handed me a handkerchief, and I used it to dab my eyes. Caterina, who had been standing at Ken’s side, leaned forward and kissed my forehead.
“I don’t understand. They said they were coming.
” I turned and stared at Kent, squeezing his hand again, needing him to reassure me.
“They did. You were there. They … they didn’t have to lie.
I would’ve understood. It still would have hurt like heck, but I would’ve understood.
” I stared out at the empty seats, and I just about broke right then and there. “They didn’t have to lie.”
Kent cupped my face with his hands and pulled me to him, pressing his forehead against mine. The look of pure passion that poured from his eyes left me speechless.
“Then fuck them, Grayson. Fuck every one of them. This is ours. You and me.”
The whimpers that left me weren’t anything to be proud of. They were small, pathetic little sounds. Cries of abandonment. Flutterings of rejection that swam through me, right down into my very soul.
“You’re marrying me today, Gray. This is ours. Don’t you dare let them take that away from—"
Before he could finish pulling the tears out of me with his wonderful words, a loud horn blared in the distance, playing out an off-key, instrumental version of “Macarena.” Los Del Rio most certainly wouldn’t approve, but to heck with them. They weren’t invited anyway.
I must have spotted it at the same time Kent did, because we both let out a gasp.
There, pulling into the back parking lot of the Pick-n-Save, was Rhonda Macknemera and, as Kent called it, her glorious red beehive.
She was driving a small, clunker, charter bus with a hand-painted sign on the side that read, HALF-PINT & TWO-LITER, FTW, whatever the heck that meant.
There was even a mural painted on the side depicting …
“Oh my Gosh, Kent. That’s just about the most sacrilegious thing I’ve ever seen. We can’t have her driving around town in that thing.”
On the mural, there was a man facing away from us.
Ahead of him, a raging blue sea, parted right down the middle.
In the center of that parted ocean, there was a painstakingly accurate depiction of Kent Fox holding two stone tablets, like Moses, but cuter.
The man staring away from us must’ve been me, judging by the unnecessarily detailed bald spot at his crown.
I wore a hot-pink robe and, like Kent, I held two stone tablets.
“You do realize Moses only had two of those, right?”
He scowled at me. “Oh, okay. Because you were there? Were you out there with good ol’ Mose? Did you watch him split the sea?”
“Well—” I attempted.
“Exactly. Now I want you to shut the fuck up,” he leaned forward, nuzzling my nape with his nose. “And marry the hell out of me, Gray Collins.”
I brought my lips to his ear, letting my tongue flicker against his lobe. “Gonna marry you so hard, Half-pint.”
The bus door opened and Rhonda shoved past Mr. Parkins, an eighty-year-old man with a walker. She offered him no assistance or apologies during—or after—his face-first introduction to the paved parking lot.