Chapter 27 #2
Rusty nods. "I got ordained online a couple years ago when my buddy Dean needed someone for his beach wedding. Been the unofficial Key Largo wedding guy ever since." His eyes crinkle. "Never thought I'd be doing this one, though. I’m honored."
He looks between us. Clears his throat.
"All right. This is simple, because that's what my man wanted." His gaze settles on Nick. "Nick, you can start. Say what you need to say."
Nick takes both my hands. The sunset blazes behind him, gilding his edges in gold, and the sight of him nearly makes me weep on the spot.
"Avery."
Just my name. But the way he says it. Like it's a prayer he's been holding in his mouth all day, waiting for the moment to release it.
"Before you, I didn't know what I was living for. I had money. Power. Control over everything in my world. Or so I thought." His grip on my hands tightens. "And then I found you. I didn’t go about it the way I should’ve, the way you deserved, but somehow, we’ve ended up here.
Together. You entered my life and you saw through every wall I'd built.
You saw me. The real me. The broken parts and the sharp edges and all the darkness I thought would drive you away. "
His voice roughens. The composed mask slipping, revealing the raw underneath.
"But you stayed. You stayed, and you loved me anyway, and you gave me something I never thought I'd have—a future worth wanting. A home that isn't a place, but a person."
He squeezes my hands.
"I can't promise I'll be a perfect husband. But I can promise I'll be yours. Every day. Through every storm and every day in between. Whatever our life brings, I will always choose you. I’ll protect you. I will love you until there's no breath left in my body. And long after that, too."
His thumb traces my knuckles. The same idle, anchoring gesture he's made a thousand times, but today it means something so much deeper.
"You're my forever, Avery. There is no version of my life without you in it. That’s my vow to you today. I am yours."
Rusty glances at me. His eyes aren’t completely dry either. “Avery, your turn.”
I have to swallow twice before I can speak. My tears have spilled over the edges of my eyes to roll down my cheeks and off my chin.
"Oh, Nick." A wet, overwhelmed laugh escapes me. "I wasn't expecting this. I don't have any vows prepared."
He shakes his head, calm and sure, as though he knew I'd say exactly this.
"That's okay. This is better. Just tell me how you feel."
I inhale a steadying breath and look down at our joined hands, where his scarred right hand is wrapped around my smaller one, the engagement ring on my left hand catching the last of the light.
Emotion threatens to dissolve me, but I meet Nick’s eyes and I let everything in my heart lift to the surface.
"I think back on how we met, on everything we’ve been through.
Neither one of us was looking to be rescued.
We were so used to surviving alone, I don’t think we knew any other way.
But then we found each other. You showed me that I could be strong and soft at the same time.
That I could let someone in without losing myself.
That love doesn't have to be safe to be worth it. "
His gaze holds mine, solemn, tender, fierce all at once.
"I see you, Nick. All of you. The parts you hide from the rest of the world and the parts you're still learning to show me.
I choose all of it." I squeeze his hands.
"The life we're building together—everything ahead of us, everything we have yet to learn—I want every single moment of it. With you. Only with you."
The words come easier now, carried by something deeper than thought. I wish I knew how to express the true depth of what he means to me, but I’m not even sure those words exist.
"You're my always, Nick. My only. I was yours from the moment I met you. And I will be yours forever. That’s my vow to you."
His jaw clenches, and I can feel him struggling to hold back the emotion that’s swelling inside him. He gives me a loving smile, then glances to Rusty.
“Do you have the rings, Nick?”
Nodding, he reaches into his pants pocket. Two simple gold bands rest in his palm. The contrast with the elaborate diamond on my finger is striking. These are something different. Honest in a way that glitter never can be.
"I wanted something that was just ours," he says quietly. "Something that means this moment."
My smile is watery. “They’re perfect.”
He slides the smaller band onto my finger, above the engagement ring. Then I take the other band. His left hand is steady as I slide it on, down to the base of his finger, and the sight of gold against his skin does something to me that I wasn't prepared for.
Today he's mine. Legally, irrevocably. The ring on his hand says so. The whole world will eventually know it, but right now, in this moment, that truth belongs only to us.
Rusty clears his throat. "By the power vested in me by the internet and the great state of Florida, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Nick, you may kiss your bride."
He hardly waits for permission. His hands frame my face, his fingers sliding into my hair, tilting my mouth to his.
The kiss starts gentle, then it deepens.
Nick’s arms wrap around me and pull me against him, our kiss tasting like salt from my tears and the sea air and the promise of everything we've fought to reach.
I fist my hands in his linen shirt and kiss him back with everything I have—every moment of struggle, every wall that came crumbling down between us, every incredible night I've fallen asleep with his heartbeat under my ear and the realization that I was finally, completely home.
We're married.
We separate, but only barely. His forehead rests against mine. My hands are still fisted in his shirt. Neither of us moves.
Behind us, I'm vaguely aware of Rusty retreating toward the helm, giving us the bow, the sunset, the silence. He disappears the way he's done all day, his quiet, generous act of friendship that helped make everything possible.
The sun is slipping below the horizon now. The sky has deepened into amber and violet, the first stars emerging like pinpricks of light through dark silk.
I look down at our hands, now resting on the bow’s rail.
"We're really married." My voice sounds full of wonder, half-disbelieving. As though my saying it aloud is the only way to make it real.
Nick’s answering smile is soft, private, the one he only ever gives me. "We're married, Mrs. Baine."
“Oh, I like the sound of that. My husband.”
I turn toward him and kiss him again, slower this time, savoring every point of contact. His hands on my face, my palms against his chest, the press of his body solid and warm and permanent against mine.
He reaches out to touch the pearls at my throat, his finger tracing the unbroken line of the infinity symbol that joins them. “I love you, wife.”
We stand there as the last light fades and the stars multiply above us, wrapped in each other, the Icarus rocking gently beneath our feet.
His arms wrap around me. Solid. Sure.
Home.