Epilogue
TWO YEARS LATER
The Las Vegas sun was relentless. Allie squinted as their tour van left the hotel’s underground parking garage. She fumbled in her bag for her sunglasses and put them on, sighing with relief. Ryan maneuvered their tour van onto the Strip and glanced quickly over to her, smiling as he caught her eye.
“Vegas in August is no joke.” He leaned forward slightly to increase the power of the air conditioning that was already blowing at them, hardly making a dent in the blazing afternoon heat.
Allie nodded, settling comfortably back into the passenger seat, watching the overwhelming architecture tower on all sides of them. There was no choice but to drive slowly; the streets were crowded with cars and tourists, everyone moving sluggishly through the heat.
They had been on tour all summer, which was when the podcast production schedule tended to slow down and summer students were available to fill temporary positions at the studio. Ryan still loved his job, and Allie didn’t want him to quit, even as Lake Fever—their two-person band—started to gain momentum. Their first album, picked up by an indie label on the strength of Allie’s past with the Jetskis, had done respectably well on vinyl and through streaming services. Allie’s heartbreak anthem, “Monster,” now fleshed out with Ryan’s subtle drums and harmonies, had been selected as the background music for a particularly notable scene in a popular TV drama. They had now almost finished enough new songs to record again, with a bigger budget this time. The recording sessions were booked in New York over the winter.
Allie watched the strange sights of Vegas pass by her window. She’d been relieved to discover that she still loved touring and was always excited to hit the road, especially now that she had Ryan with her. His steady mood and general kindness made spending long days and nights with him an actual treat. She couldn’t imagine a better life for herself.
They had six more shows left on the tour and they’d be back home. Ryan would go back to his day job, and Allie would put the finishing touches on the new songs, sketching out her ideas for the recording setup in between random shifts at the café. That life wasn’t bad, either. As much as she loved the road, she also didn’t feel sad about going home again.
But before they played any more shows and before they returned to Brooklyn, they had something important to do.
Ryan looked at her as they stopped to allow a flock of tourists in matching visors to cross the street in front of the van.
“You still want to marry me?” His eyes were sparkling with excitement.
“Yep.” Allie’s heart fluttered. She grinned at him. “You still want to marry me?”
“More than just about anything on earth.”
When Ryan had proposed at the beginning of the tour, she’d felt a kind of calm certainty that she hadn’t expected to feel in that moment. She’d thought the prospect of spending the rest of her life with someone would leave her rattled and nervous. But she didn’t feel any of that. She’d already decided that she wanted to spend the rest of her days with the loyal and sweet man who backed her up on the drums every night and shared driving duties and made sure that she ate something other than french fries every day. Not having strong feelings about conventional matrimony either way, she hadn’t been sitting around waiting for him to ask. But then he had. It mattered to him; his traditional side wanted to make it official.
They’d gotten their marriage license after their show the previous night. The marriage office was open twenty-four hours a day. They were by far the most sober people in line at 2 a.m.
“Okay, this is it!” Ryan steered the van sharply into a parking lot. “Can you text the video conference link to everyone?”
Allie giggled as she pulled out her phone, already imagining their friends’ reactions. “They’re gonna kill us.”
Ryan laughed. “They can’t kill us long distance. They’ll have to wait until we get home.”
He steered the car into a parking space and hopped out, smoothing the dark-blue pants he’d bought the day before at a weird mall near their hotel. He’d chosen a vest instead of a jacket, because of the heat, and a shirt patterned with tiny flowers. Allie thought it was adorable, and Ryan thought it might not show the sweat. His bow tie was forest green.
Allie had combed the same strange, crowded mall for something she wanted to wear and had been overjoyed to discover a quirky, punky shop tucked away by the food court that seemed to specialize in dresses that were new but looked old. The one she chose was light blue with a full skirt and crinoline. She’d sprung for some platform heels in a similar color, wanting to reduce the height difference between herself and her groom, at least for the sake of the wedding photos.
She and Ryan walked into the main office to let the chapel attendants know they’d arrived. Souvenir Elvis wigs hung on a rack to the left of the smiling older woman behind the counter.
Allie’s phone buzzed in the pocket of her dress. The text was from Ren. “WTF is this shady link? Is this really you? Have you been kidnapped and someone is trying to scam me with your phone?”
“It’s really me,” she texted back. “And it’s a normal video call link. Just click it at 4 p.m. like I said. And make sure Anisha is with you.”
“As long as it’s not a scam,” Ren texted back. And then added, “We miss you both BTW.” Three heart emojis followed.
“Yep. They’re gonna kill us,” Allie muttered under her breath.
She was the most nervous about reaching Mindy, since Paris was nine hours ahead of them. The chances of Mindy being awake at 1 a.m. were strong, but Allie was still flooded with relief when her aunt texted back. “Just getting in from dinner/drinks. Was going to bed. But I’ll join your call thing if you need me.”
Allie and Ryan had ten minutes to collect themselves at the back of the tiny chapel. Ryan took her hand and leaned in to kiss her.
“I’m glad they can all watch it live. But I just want you to know that all that really matters to me today is you and me. We could get married on Mars and I wouldn’t care, as long as I was with you.”
Allie put her arms around him and squeezed. “Probably hard to find an Elvis impersonator on Mars, though.”
As if on cue, their Elvis—his real name was Brian, they’d learned from the chatty lady at the booking desk—slid into the chapel and took up his place at the front.
“Allison Andrews and Ryan Abernathy?” Brian/Elvis called out. Allie and Ryan nodded. “You got a device? For video?” Allie nodded and looked down at her phone to log on to the video call. She checked the time: 3:57 p.m. Everyone else would be logging on any minute now. She set the phone on a shelf beside a miniature golden bust of Elvis and a pink ceramic flamingo, and angled it toward Elvis. She and Ryan watched as their friends appeared square by square, like a motley Brady Bunch.
First, Mindy’s face popped into the frame, the cluttered kitchen of her Paris flat behind her. Allie noted that her aunt looked relaxed, possibly even buzzed from the no-doubt plentiful wine at the dinner she’d just returned from. She’d been in Paris for more than a year and showed no signs of wanting to leave. The city suited her, and she always seemed to be aglow with the pleasures of her foreign retirement. Anisha and Ren appeared next, waving frantically from their spots behind the counter. Ren walked with their phone over to the table where, to Allie’s delight, George was seated, having his tea. She waved at him and felt a tug of joy and envy as she watched Anisha and Ren slide in beside him on the bench, all three of them smiling. She missed them all. A third square flickered, and Jessi’s face appeared, frowning in concentration as she adjusted the camera, then backing up to allow Jasmine, Emily, Akira and Farah to fill the frame. The five of them called out a jumble of greetings.
One minute later, a fourth square appeared, at first showing only a large ice cream shop menu, but after a moment, Rachel’s face appeared and broke into a smile when she caught sight of Ryan. Allie heard him exhale. Rachel was quieter and less animated than the rest of their oddball found family, but she was there, and she was grinning at her brother and his bride.
Emily was the one who spat out the questions everyone was thinking. “Hi, Allie! What’s the surprise? What’s going on? Where are you?”
“Just hang on a minute, friend.” Allie laughed. “It will be clear in a minute.” She backed away from the camera, allowing them a full view of Elvis. She nodded to the officiant and stepped closer to Ryan, sliding her hand into his. He looked down at her with shining eyes.
“Ready?” He squeezed her hand.
“Ready.” She squeezed back.
Ryan took a deep breath. “Here we go.”
Elvis began to sing “Love Me Tender.” Allie looped her arm through Ryan’s, and they walked forward. She could hear her friends hooting through the tinny phone speaker as they came into view and everyone figured out what was happening.
She took a moment to look around, to appreciate this unconventional wedding, with no in-person guests, with Brian the Elvis Impersonator singing along to an instrumental track he was playing on YouTube on a laptop hidden in one of the empty, scratched wooden pews. All the chaos and unpredictability of the situation didn’t matter. Ryan was right. They could have been getting married on Mars and she wouldn’t have cared. All that mattered was that he was there beside her, holding her hand.
She couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.