Chapter 27 #2
Mom turns to me. “Abi, are you really doing this?” She looks worried. I think any mother would be, so I understand, but yeah, I am.
“I can do the whole white dress situation later at a celebration reception, okay?” I know how important those moments are to my mom, but this is my wedding and I want it like . . . this.
Dad’s always got my back, though, and truly has only ever wanted his children’s happiness to surpass his own. “Works for me. A party is cheaper than a ceremony and reception.” He wraps his arm around Mom’s waist, squeezing her hip, and she sighs.
Her nod means everything.
Vi hands me the flowers. “You are crazy as f-u-c-k,” she says, spelling out the curse word so Carly doesn’t learn bad language. Newsflash, she’s my niece and Ross’s daughter, so it’s fairly written in stone that her first words are not going to be scrapbook-worthy.
“Yep,” I agree. “Good thing I found a man who likes me like that.”
On cue, Reno walks out from the back with a guy in a leather vest. “What the hell do y’all want?” Reno barks. He definitely wasn’t expecting to find a dinner party’s worth of fancy people in his lobby.
I raise my hand to wave. “Hey, Reno!”
His gruff demeanor melts. “Well, hey there, Abi. Who you got with you tonight?”
“My family. Remember when you were distracting me and told me how you do weddings for your friends?” I bat my lashes, knowing this might take a little finesse. Maybe even more than it took to get my mom on board.
“Yeah.”
“Can you marry Lorenzo and me? Like now? And tattoo our wedding rings?”
“Uh . . .” He looks to Lorenzo, his bushy brows asking if he’s okay with that. I think if Lorenzo blinked twice in rapid succession, Reno and his buddy would probably grab Lorenzo and run out the back door with him, hostage rescue style.
Lorenzo takes my hand and nods. A smile teases at his lips. “Please. I need to . . . what’s the expression?” He searches his mind and says with a bigger smile, “Lock her down before she learns what a degenerate I am.”
Reno laughs at that.
But he’s no dummy, either. He sees my dad—hell, probably all of us—and knows money when it’s standing right in front of him. He might even know who Ross is from his early tabloid-cover days.
“Thousand bucks sound fair? For the ceremony and the tattoos?” Dad offers first.
I think Reno’s eyes are going to bug out of his head, but he blinks and rearranges his face into something closer to his usual scowl. “Yeah, I guess I could stay open a little late tonight for that. You ready now?”
We organize ourselves—Violet with Carly on her hip, Courtney, and Mom on my left, and Ross, Kaede, and Dad on Lorenzo’s right—and then we nod to Reno.
“’Kay, we’re gathered here tonight to witness these people joining together in marriage . . .”
I can’t stop the smile from getting bigger and bigger as joy fills my entire being. I’m nearly bouncing with happiness at this weirdly wonderful wedding. One I never thought I’d have, with a man I never thought I’d find.
Reno does the typical ‘do you take this man’ and ‘do you take this woman’, and Lorenzo and I both say, “I do.”
“Y’all got other stuff you wanna tell each other? Promises and vows or some shit?”
Reno is the epitome of formal, I think happily as Mom swallows loudly enough that I can hear her.
I meet Lorenzo’s eyes which are dark and crinkled at the corners from his own smile. He dips his chin, letting me go first.
I’m glad because I have a suspicion I’m going to be reduced to ugly tears when he does his. His poetry is better than mine but no more heartfelt.
“Lorenzo, I think somehow, I knew. From the first second I laid my eyes on you, I knew there was something about you. I thought you were a bad boy with a rolling pin, and that was enough to reel me in. But every moment since, you’ve shown me you’re more than that.
You risked everything to help me, gave your all to woo me, and you showed me the man you are inside.
The person not everyone gets to see. But I see the love in your heart, the strength in your soul, and I pledge myself to giving you every bit of love, honor, respect, and love that I can, from now until death and beyond. ”
Lorenzo’s throat works, and he looks up to the sky to blink back his tears before starting his own off the cuff vows.
“Mia rosa, mia amore. It seems right that we met at a wedding and now are here ourselves. Our story is a tale to tell our children in the future, a lesson in trusting fate to have plans bigger and better than anything you can dream of yourself. I pledge to always give you more smiles than tears, more happiness than sadness, and to be your partner through whatever life, or your brilliant mind, throws our way. I wish to spend the entirety of my days with you, side by side, building our forever.”
Yep, destroyed with messy tears. Ever prepared as a mom, Violet reaches in her diaper bag and hands me a burp rag. Unused, at least.
“That was real pretty,” Reno says, a little choked up himself. “Seal that shit with a kiss, lovebirds.”
I’m glad I get that much warning because Lorenzo sweeps me back, kissing me with a depth and intensity that are definitely not what you’d expect for a formal wedding kiss but are perfect in the middle of a tattoo parlor.
I kiss him back just as intensely, only stopping when Mom whispers to Courtney, “She might beat you on giving me a grandbaby, Court.”
I laugh loudly, my smile huge. “Ten minutes ago, you were all ‘absolutely not, Abigail Marie’, and now you’re all ‘give me grandkids’, Mom?”
She has the heart to look chastised, but then she shrugs. “Woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”
I might’ve gotten my kick-ass business sense from Dad, but I got my crazy from Mom. She just hides hers a lot better than I do.
“Who’s going first for the tat?” Reno asks with a loud clap of his big hands.
Lorenzo sits down in the chair first, and I sit on the far side, away from Reno’s work station.
Reno makes quick, careful work of inking black bands of varying widths around Lorenzo’s finger.
And then it’s my turn. I choose a thin, dainty band with a bow that looks like a string tied around my finger.
I will never forget this moment right here.
We take a few pictures with our phones, promising Mom that we’ll have a proper photographer at the reception.
“Anyone else want a tat? I don’t mind. Daddy paid,” Reno jokes, pointing an ink-covered finger at Dad.
“Hell, no,” Ross says.
Everyone else murmurs some version of ‘thanks, but no thanks’, and we stand, ready to leave.
Lorenzo shakes Reno’s hand, and I reach up to hug his broad shoulders. “Thank you for making tonight come true.”
“Y’all are some weird fuckers,” he replies with a shake of his head.
He’s right about that. But we’re happily in love weird fuckers, and that’s what matters.
We make our way out the door, but I glance back once more with a smile.
We did it. Lorenzo and I are married for real, the sting of my finger a good pain.
Wait, what’s Dad doing?
Oh, my God. I’m going to need to scrub that image out of my head because I just saw Dad pick up one of Reno’s business cards and shoot sexy eyes at Mom.
Ugh.
“Okay, well . . . bye!” I tell everyone, focusing on Lorenzo. “We’re off on our honeymoon . . . again. No worries, this time we’re just going home,” I joke, well aware that everyone knows what we’re going home to do.
Ross makes a gagging noise that Carly starts copying, and Vi growls at them both.
Lorenzo helps get my helmet on and then, like before, we race off into the night.
I feel free and floaty, tethered to nothing more than Lorenzo with a tiny but strong string. Not the inked one around my finger but the one from my heart to his.