Epilogue
RUSTIN, ALABAMA
Baker is wearing her favorite threadbare pajama shirt. It’s the first thing Hannah notices when she opens her eyes that morning, her mind still foggy with sleep, her body disoriented in the strange room.
“Time is it?” Hannah grumbles, reaching for her phone.
“Time for us to get married,” Baker says, opening the curtains with a flourish.
Hannah shields herself from the blinding sunlight. It takes a second for Baker’s words to catch up to her, and then—
“Oh my god.” Hannah bolts up in bed, her mind finally registering the present moment.
She looks around the hotel room, her eyes landing on their neatly hung cocktail dresses from the night before, the collection of extra gift bags they brought in case they somehow miscounted the guests on Baker’s precisely colored spreadsheet, and the discarded French fries that Hannah insisted on ordering after one too many old-fashioneds with Joanie.
“Oh my god!” Hannah says again, starting to vibrate with excitement. “We’re getting married today!”
Baker laughs brightly. “Yes, we’re getting married today.” She comes to sit on the bed, her long legs splayed out casually like it’s a standard Saturday morning at home. She is almost impossibly relaxed, which was not something Hannah expected from her today. “And guess what I got you?”
She darts a look at the nightstand, and when Hannah looks over, she finds the best surprise: an extra-large iced latte from her favorite local coffee shop, Mr. Gene’s Beans.
“Oh my god,” Hannah says again, because apparently that is all she is capable of saying today. “You are the best fiancée-slash-soon-to-be-wife ever.”
“I really, really am,” Baker agrees.
“Other than me.”
“We’ll see.”
“Okay, hold on,” Hannah says around her coffee straw. Now that she’s flooded with adrenaline, her mouth is about to start going a mile a minute. “Did you go out wearing that?”
Baker glances at her tattered T-shirt, then gives Hannah a skeptical look. “Did you want me to wear my wedding dress?”
“Shut up,” Hannah laughs, smacking her arm playfully. “I just meant—you know—that shirt is really thin.”
“Yes, very breathable,” Baker says with a straight face.
“It doesn’t leave much to the imagination.”
“So you’ve told me.”
“There’s a hole right there near your—”
“Mm-hmm, I know.”
Hannah grabs for her again, digging into the ticklish spot in Baker’s side. “Are you telling me that after all these years of waiting for you to put a bra on just to walk to the damn mailbox, that today of all days you’ve decided to let the girls hang loose?”
Baker snorts. “I don’t put a bra on to walk to the mailbox.”
“You totally do. And when you walk the dog. And last week when you refilled the bird feeder—”
“Why am I marrying you, again?”
“For my looks.”
Baker rolls her eyes theatrically, but she leans forward and burrows into Hannah’s side, wrapping an arm across her torso. “You are so”—she plants a kiss on Hannah’s neck—“annoying.”
“Thank you,” Hannah says, taking a loud slurp from her latte.
“To answer your question, I didn’t go anywhere in my pajamas. I sent Louisa instead.”
Hannah laughs at the unexpected explanation. “You sent Louisa?”
“One text and a Venmo, that’s all it took.”
“You took advantage of a poor college freshman,” Hannah says, pretending to shake her head. “Tsk, tsk.”
“Babe, that kid was chomping at the bit to be involved in your wedding, even if it was just on a coffee run.”
“Wow, you’re not usually one to have people do your bidding. Getting married has really changed you.”
Baker doesn’t take the bait. “I wanted to be here when you woke up,” she says simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Hannah tries to tamp down her smile, but she can’t help it: After all these years, Baker still finds new ways to make her heart skip. She tangles their fingers together, playing with Baker’s diamond ring like it’s a fidget toy.
“Are you excited?”
Baker laughs into Hannah’s shoulder. “Of course I’m excited.”
Hannah narrows her eyes. “Yeah, but I bet the thing you’re most looking forward to is getting back in your pajamas later.”
Baker makes a faux-guilty expression and starts to whistle innocently.
Hannah can only laugh, because her fiancée—soon to be wife—might be good at faking the whole extroversion thing, but Hannah knows in her bones that Baker can’t wait to plop her ass on their couch tomorrow night and watch Love Is Blind with a cold piece of wedding cake.
They’ve spent the better part of a year shaping their dream wedding, curating every small detail that reflects their love story.
Sunflower centerpieces. Praline-filled beignets to be served at the end of the night.
A vintage Mustang convertible to whisk them away with a JUST MARRIED sign affixed to the bumper (which they will come to discover, two days later, has been vandalized by Joanie with a subtitle that reads FUCKING FINALLY).
They have taken pains to make sure their vendors are not only safe, but affirming of their love: The photographer from Auburn who shot their friends Brooke and Maria’s wedding; the bakery owner who told them proudly about her nonbinary child; the on-site coordinator, Kathy, who gifted them a rainbow rosary when she heard they grew up Catholic.
They have fretted and dithered over every aspect, from the farm-to-table dinner spread—which Hannah can already hear her old boss, Hatch, grumping about later, making some smart remark that he’s allergic to the very word crudité—to the playlist, which they’ve stacked with everything from oldies from their parents’ generation to contemporary queer artists that will send their friends rushing to the dance floor.
In just a few more hours, they’ll be dressed in white and on their way to Lake Ferry Gardens, where they will stand beneath a canopy of luminous autumn trees and take this final leap of faith together.
Hannah wants to stay in this cocoon for just another five minutes, soaking in the anticipation of their wedding day, but Baker has never been one to take her time in the morning.
She kisses Hannah in a perfunctory way that means Let’s get going, and soon they’re both out of bed and putzing around the room, gathering what they need before they leave to meet the hair and makeup artists (alliteratively named Jas and Jen, and whom Hannah would bet her life are also members of the family).
Joanie, Hannah’s maid of honor, has been tasked with guarding her wedding dress, which she has insistently nicknamed Adrienne for no reason whatsoever.
Baker’s dress, meanwhile, is under the watchful eye of her mother, who had protested that it was against tradition for Baker and Hannah to share a room the night before the wedding.
“But you’re not supposed to see the bride before her wedding day!” she had fussed, nearly hysterical.
“Which bride?” Baker had retorted, which shut her mom right up.
Baker runs the shower, steaming up the bathroom while she gathers her razor and her fancy salon shampoo.
And for just a moment, Hannah lingers by the closet and watches her the same way she used to as a teenager, delighting in every small movement Baker makes, from the way she shakes her hair loose to the precise amount of toothpaste she squeezes from the tube.
“I see you, you know,” Baker says, mouth twitching as she glances at Hannah’s reflection in the mirror.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’ve never been a smooth operator.”
“Psshhh,” Hannah says, crossing her arms. “What, I’m not allowed to check you out on our wedding day?”
Baker rolls her eyes, tugging her socks off. “You’re going to be late for Joanie.”
“Joanie can wait.”
“I’m getting in the shower.”
“I can see that.”
Baker comes toward her, knotting her hands into Hannah’s sleep shirt. She kisses her quickly, routinely, like she’s been doing it her whole life, which she practically has. “Go,” she orders, swatting Hannah’s butt. “Don’t keep the hair and makeup people waiting.”
Hannah kisses her back. For some reason, a lump has settled into her throat.
She assumed she would cry at some point today, but she didn’t think it would happen so early or during such a mundane, ordinary moment.
She looks at Baker, this successful, self-possessed, gorgeous woman who owns a partnership stake in Rustin’s best veterinary practice, who splits the mortgage with Hannah every month, who keeps their bookshelves organized alphabetically and whips up a batch of cookies when Hannah has a rough day and curls up in bed next to Hannah every night, kissing her and whispering “I love you” just before she drifts off to sleep.
And how did they get here, and how has their love grown into something so beautifully routine, and how have they created this life together that once felt so miraculous and out of reach?
Baker pulls her T-shirt and sweatpants off, revealing the body of a thirty-two-year-old woman with curves and scars and stretch marks that Hannah loves with every fiber of her being.
This is her best friend, the person she knows more intimately than any other human on earth, and today Hannah is going to marry her.
“Go on,” Baker tells her, nodding toward the door. She gestures at her own naked body. “I promise you, this isn’t going anywhere.”
Hannah smiles. “I’ll see you at the altar?” she asks, and it’s a different altar than she imagined when she was young, but it’s an altar all the same.
Baker winks. “I’ll be the other girl in the white dress.”