Chapter 46
chapter forty-six
Mateo
There were three instances in my entire life that I felt complete and utter calm. When I was seven, my father carrying me half asleep from the car and tucking me into the warmth of my bed after a whole day at Coney Island. Again in Delta, the day our helicopter went down in South America with Pike in the pilot seat, because in those final moments with my brothers around me I had accepted death.
Then this moment.
Waiting for my bride to walk down the aisle to me.
The ceremony was everything Tally had planned. Cozy yet sophisticated, elegant and effortless. The ocean was the most jaw-droppingly beautiful backdrop to the altar, and a string quartet plucked away at their instruments while everyone was buzzing in anticipation in their seats.
Pike was beside me, Angelo rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet to his right, then Wink in his perfectly tailored suit and Echo adjusting the sleeves of his jacket because there wasn’t one big enough to fit all of him just right.
“What time is it?” I murmured.
Pike flicked his wrist out to look at his watch. “Almost four.”
Any minute now.
Frankie motioned me toward him to straighten my tie and tuck my folded pocket square into the breast of my suit jacket. “So this is it, huh? You’re leaving me for real. Name off the deed, mail forwarded, separate taxes next year.”
A chuckle rolled out of me. “You’re one to talk.”
“How did this even happen?” he lamented with wide eyes and a grin. “One day it was just you and me watching Trailer Park Boys reruns on the living room couch, and now we’ve got these women spooling us around their fingers.” Pike pointed to the string quartet. “Did you ever think you’d have a cellist at your wedding?”
I smirked, looking down at the remnants of a seashell cracking under the pressure of my shoe. “I’m about as fancy as a two-dollar slice and soda deal from the corner pizzeria.”
“But you're a damn good time like one, too.”
When Pike left for Colorado with Ophelia my brain always assumed he would be back, because we were side by side for fifteen years and it was something like losing a limb. Sometimes I walked into the kitchen and expected him to be there eating a bowl of cereal, or looked out the window and imagined he’d be mowing the lawn. I missed him being there all the time, but we were both exactly where life needed us. Going in different directions was the end of an era and the start of a new one.
“Are you going to cry?” he asked.
“Are you going to throw sand in my eyes?”
“O told me if you weren’t crying on your own when you see Tally I have to.”
I leaned away from him. “I believe that.”
“Listen, if you cry it’s going to rub off on me and I’m going to start crying. It’s like when you see someone yawn and then you can’t help but yawn, too.”
“I think the more crying men around Tally, the better. She feeds off male fragility like a demon.”
Pike chuckled. “Did I ever tell you that the two of you were made for each other?”
“You didn’t have to.” I gave him the most ear-splitting grin.
The string section splintered abruptly in the middle of a Taylor Swift cover and recouped to play the recognizable sound of “My Girl” by The Temptations. All the murmuring from the people in front of me hushed to a stop and heads turned toward the top of the aisle. My spine straightened. I sucked in a deep breath and held it in my chest until the sound of my heart was thumping in my ears.
I wasn’t nervous, but there was something twisted about this level of anticipation that made my stomach feel like static.
My mom was the first person to come ambling around the corner of the trees, and I thought I had it together—I really fucking did—but that pure, proud look on her face was all it took to crack me. Goddammit, I thought I could at least hold out for Tal, but seeing Mom in that dress that was her favorite color of green, sparkling in the sun with a smile that made her eyes disappear, brought it all on like a wave. I’d never seen her in anything like it. I hadn’t even seen her wear more than a dab of lipstick all my life. I peeked over at Ang and his eyes had glossed over as well, no doubt thinking the same string of things.
Sistine came next, glowing, warm, and tropical as she found a seat opposite my mom. Camilla walked slowly behind her in a black dress, then Bella ten steps later. The rhythm of my heartbeat was erratic by the time Mia took her turn smiling down the aisle, and Ophelia was just as emotional as I was with rosy cheeks and quivering lips the second she saw me standing at the end of the long path.
O blew Pike a whisper of a kiss and lined herself up on the other side of the officiant with a giant bouquet of white flowers resting between her hands. It was like the changing of the guards. There was some silent understanding between Ophelia and me that I’d given my best friend away to her last Christmas, and she was here returning the favor with Natalia now.
“I’ll take good care of her, O,” I murmured. That was a given, but I wanted to say it out loud. She sucked in a little breath and her eyes watered some more.
“Showtime, Cap.” Pike nudged me as the guests began to stand and turn toward the open space where Tally floated into view between the palm trees.
Nothing could have properly prepared me for the moment I saw her in that white dress. She was so devastatingly beautiful that it almost brought me directly to my knees. I scrubbed my hand over my mouth and down my face, but it was fucking useless to hide my jaw falling open and the way I was damn near debilitated by her. She was my total undoing.
I blinked my eyes clear and I realized that she didn’t only look beautiful, she looked different. Her hair was chopped to her neck in soft waves that sent my eyebrows skyrocketing and my pulse racing. It was bouncy and sharp, sexy and playful. I didn’t even have time to question it, I was too busy shifting my attention from her head to her toes, taking it all in. I could spend all night admiring the details in her dress, and I would do that. I would trace every last bead with my fingertips, every single score of lace after that. There wasn’t a world where I’d let this woman in this dress go unmemorized.
Her father was at her side, offering his elbow to hold, guiding her closer and closer to me. Tally was a diamond in lace; the curves of her body were a Renaissance painting, and I was a beggar just trying to exist beside her, still not entirely sure how I ended up the man privileged enough to be her husband.
Fire caught in my heart and burned up my throat, stinging my eyes until they were blurry with tears. I had to wipe them away as fast as they were falling just to make sure I didn’t miss a second of her walking toward me.
While my eyes were transfixed on Natalia, the rest of the people were turned back around and trained on me. I could hear the sniffling under the melodic string music and say confidently that there wasn’t a dry eye in the entire house. Not my mom, or Sistine, or the bridesmaids. Not the audience of distant cousins and hopeless romantic aunts, or Natalia’s old bank coworkers, or the two women behind cameras making sure they got every single angle of the whole thing.
Pike’s hand came down on my shoulders, consoling me with a tight-gripped shake and when I looked back, all four of the most masculine, hard-souled men I’d ever known were in total fucking shambles behind me.
That picture painted a thousand words.
But Tally, God, it was no wonder we were all in tears. The way she looked was religious. Churches would erect in her image; people would pray for a woman like her. She was my angel. I held my breath until she was standing directly in front of me and then forgot how to breathe entirely when she gave her father a curt kiss on the cheek and took her place beside me right where she belonged.
One tear swelled at the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. I flexed my hands and fought every urge to swipe it away.
“You’re going to ruin your makeup,” she whispered.
My breath rushed out of me in a laugh and all the blood in my body that had stilled in those hypnotic few minutes began pumping again. For her. Always for her.
“You are so gorgeous,” I murmured back, reaching gently to tug the short strands of her freshly cut hair. I loved it. “Fun morning?”
“I’ll explain later,” she promised.
“You know how much I love our pillow talk.”
The officiant cleared his throat between us and opened a thin binder of ceremony scripts and a blush crept up Tally’s chest like she’d forgotten we weren’t the only two people there. Because it felt like we were. It always did. Even in front of a thousand sets of eyes, it was only ever us.
“Are you ready to get married?” he asked. I wanted to laugh. So ready we’d already committed to it. So ready we were two tea kettles on the verge of boiling over trying to keep our arduous secret to ourselves.
I shot her a secret wink. “What do you say, Tal?”
“Let’s do this thing.” She nodded back.
Then I married my best friend for the second time, and when it was time to kiss her I held her face and swept her off her feet because it was the most natural thing in the world to have her cradled in my arms, crushed against my lips. And if I ever had the chance I would do it again.
And again, and again, and again.