Epilogue
One Month Later (Seriously)
I can’t believe these devious little scabs,” Leo says, taking the courthouse steps two at a time, his coat fluttering cinematically around his heels. “During the day! A weekday! Some of us have jobs!”
“You never seem to work at yours,” Sloane points out. The accusation comes with the signature breathlessness of trying to speak outside during a prairie freeze.
“Seriously, though, I had to get a sub at the last minute,” complains Joey. Not that he minds missing this afternoon, secretly. His students are doing the Second Industrial Revolution right now and he hates having to spell laissez-faire in front of an audience.
“First they didn’t invite us,” Alessandro complains. “And now I’m on call in an hour, which means that Bram and Maddie need to be quick about it all.”
“Isn’t quick about it all the heart and soul of a courthouse wedding? Of their very relationship?” Leo asks, yanking the courthouse door open. “I can’t believe we’re here. I can’t believe someone we know is getting married at a courthouse like French people do.”
Sloane’s phone rings and she crosses her arms over her chest the moment she hears the voice on the other side.
“Yes, I am participating in the charity date auction this year. No, I will not be attending as Lucien’s plus one despite what his RSVP card might say.
”* With a roll of her eyes, she ends the call and rejoins the group.
“Did you ask if they’ll have the deviled eggs again?” Joey whispers into her ear.*
Sara is standing just inside the doors with Asher and all three kids.
“We’re going to be flower girls,” Letty announces to the Andromeda Club before anyone else has a chance to speak, and in concurrence, Berry holds up a basket filled with what looks like an assortment of petals, leaves, and snipped herbs from Bram’s greenhouse.
Joey sees a few plastic-wrapped logs of string cheese peeking out from under the mess of random flora and gives Berry an approving nod. Game recognizes game.
Meanwhile, Sara is staring at them with dark-eyed horror while Asher is quietly cracking up behind her.
“Bram is going to be so pissed,” Asher chokes out between laughs. “Oh my god.”
Sara lifts her hands. “How did you even—it’s supposed to be a secret ceremony, a private thing, family only—”
“First, how dare you imply the Andromeda Club isn’t family,” Leo prosecutes, “and second, if it was supposed to be secret, then why did he have it written down on his desk planner where anyone who’d let themselves into his office and sat at his desk could see it?”
“Why were you looking at his desk planner?”
Leo gives her a look that says please, we have real things to discuss. “You may as well tell us where to go now. We’re not missing noble Dr. Loe dirty up all his laudable ethics because someone finally wore red lipstick in front of him. Shall we?”
Sara glances at her fiancé—who is still laughing too hard to help—and sighs. “Fine. Fuck. Fine. This way.”
As a herd, they tromp their way through the marble-floored courthouse until they come to a room with a closed door.
They crowd inside—Leo bickering with Sara, Fern trying to remind the twins not to throw their petals until everyone is back outside—and find Bram and Maddie handing clipboards to a court employee as a very, very short judge waits behind the podium.
Bram and Maddie turn as a unit, and Bram’s ears go bright red above his suit.
He stands up and strides down the courtroom to the other Andromedas, meeting Leo in the middle of the aisle.
“No,” Bram says. “Under no circumstances. This is supposed to be private.”
“I’m private,” whines Leo.
“Nope.”
“And Sara gets to be here,” Leo says with a pout.
“And Asher. And Fern. Fern’s supposed to be in school, Bram.
Just like your twins. Are you saying that you care more about destroying the intellectual flowering of young minds than you care about your friends?
Your very oldest friends?” He gestures back at the Andromeda Club, all of whom immediately strike poses of wounded, wide-eyed fellowship.
Joey tries to beam memories of roller-skating parties and square cafeteria pizza slices directly into Bram’s brain.
Maddie has come up beside Bram and laces her arm through his.
She’s wearing a short, sheer white dress of pleated tulle with a slip underneath and a thick black velvet ribbon that ties at the back in a dramatic bow and cascades into a train against legs clad in sheer black tights with seams up the back.
In her short black wedding veil, dotted with pearls, and crimson smile, standing beside Bram with his tweedy suit and well-loved brogues, they couldn’t look more different.
“I like that they’re here,” she tells Bram, still smiling at the Andromedas. “It means they love you.”
“Their love is like a mint plant!” Bram hisses, and anyone who knows Bram knows that is not a compliment.
They all try harder to have big, sad eyes at him, especially Leo, and Leo’s big eyes could make the pope himself consider sola scriptura for a hot minute.* They’re going to win. They know it.
Bram’s narrowed gaze takes them in, and then finally, with a huge sigh, he says, “Fine.”
“We’re here because we love you!” says Leo, and the others chime in to agree, except for Joey, who’s already started to cry. He always cries at weddings.
He’s silenced his phone, but it buzzes in his pocket as Bram and Maddie make their way to the front, where the tiny, wrinkled judge awaits them. Joey discreetly pulls it out and sees a text that makes his blood run cold.
Riley: They said I’m measuring too big at my checkup, and so they took me back for an unplanned ultrasound
Riley: It’s twins
Twins???
Oh fuck, oh fuck, he is so cooked, what the fuck. He doesn’t think Bram even has a second stuffed weasel to practice on. Oh no. Oh god.
Before the podium, Maddie and Bram are listening to the judge, staring at each other with undisguised excitement and love, and then they start repeating their vows, pledging care and fidelity and respect, deciding to start a lifetime of devotion right now.
Everyone cheers and whistles when they kiss—except for the twins, who make blech faces—and even though Joey is in a fog of panic, he whistles the loudest.
And then they spill outside, the twins throw handfuls of hellebore petals and oregano, and Bram and Maddie kiss another time, just for the hell of it.
Bram is grinning at all of them now, clearly having remembered that they were his very best friends in the whole world, and in the frigid air, with his red-lipped bride under his arm on the courthouse steps, he says, “It’s too bad Cole McKenney isn’t here. ”
Next to him, Leo screams.
And somehow it’s decided that the twins will go with Fern and everyone else will go to The Dry Bean for wedding shots, except for Joey, who is going home to Riley to process the twin thing together.
“Best Day Ever?” he asks Bram before he goes to find his car in the blue-skied cold.
Bram smiles at him, a wide, handsome smile, and he pulls Maddie even closer to dip her in front of the courthouse.
“Best Day Ever.”*