Chapter 33
“Is this insane?”I ask Raven.
“I am so the wrong person to ask,” she replies as she pins another flower in my hair.
There’s a light tap on the door, and Raven runs across the room to open it. In the mirror, I can see Benji step into the opening and lean against the frame. I smile at him and turn around.
He inhales sharply, then composes himself. “You look just as I pictured you would. Only I thought you’d be walking to me, not having me walk you to another man.”
“This was too much to ask. I’m so sorry, that was thoughtless of me,” I sputter.
“No, Tessie, I’m honored. I don’t like the idea of giving you away, but I’m honored you still need me around,” Benji says.
“You’re really too perfect,” I sigh.
“Obviously not,” he replies.
“I don’t know. Lydia was looking at you like you hung the moon,” I comment.
His cheeks flame red, and he looks away, but not before I catch a hint of a smile. Benji will always be a white knight, and if I read the looks they were giving each other correctly, I don’t think he will be moping after me much longer. I think she’s more than willing to do some saving of her own.
It’s late in the afternoon, and in a few minutes, the setting sun is going to be perfectly framed in the large oval window in Raven’s library, which has been converted into a chapel of sorts today. I have to hand it to Ford, he doesn’t do anything halfway.
I mentioned a passing thought that it felt like it would be so much easier if we were already married, and in less than a half an hour I found myself shopping for a dress with Raven while everyone else ran around organizing a wedding.
When Benji showed up with Tracy, Lydia, and my mom and told me Ford called him and asked how fast he could make it here, I started to sniffle. Anyone can give flowers or write a cheesy poem. It takes a pretty confident man to call an ex-fiancé and invite him to your wedding because he knows you’d want him there.
Benji hung back with us, and Kendall brought his girlfriend Gina with him, since he has a private jet at his disposal. I feel bad that Ford’s mom isn’t here, but I don’t think he’s forgiven her for my dad showing up at the restaurant even if it wasn’t her fault. For some reason, he sent her out of town for the night on some made-up emergency, so if she finds out she can’t be mad at him. Not that he’d really care if she were.
Benji manages to keep me from running straight to Ford, but barely. “I never did stand a chance, did I?” he whispers.
I look over at Lydia and see the way she’s looking at Benji. “We weren’t meant to be, but—” I nudge him to look her direction, “if you open yourself to it, I think you can find the person you were meant for all along. Maybe you and I needed to connect to bring you to someone else.”
Then I am close enough to Ford to see the love in his eyes, and he’s all I can think about. The corner of his mouth curves up, and I blush.
Every moment comes back to me. My favorite is still the night he came to my house and found me alone. That was the moment someone broke through my walls and I’ve been his ever since. I don’t need them anymore, not while I have him.
Ford is as restless for me as I am for him, so he crosses the room and meets us halfway. “I told Sin this room was ridiculously large,” he grumbles while our friends and family laugh.
“Thanks, Bennett. I’ve got her from here,” he tells Benji. There’s no malice or taunting behind it though.
“Take care of her,” Benji says quietly enough for only the three of us to hear.
“I promise,” Ford answers.
While Benji goes and sits with Lydia and Tracy, Ford walks me the rest of the way down the makeshift aisle in front of Shane.
He smiles, and I roll my eyes. This actually feels like the way this had to be done. With Raven and Sin standing next to us, and Shane, ordained by the power of the internet, Ford and I add husband and wife to the confusing list of our relationship titles. He’s been my enemy, my stepbrother, my friend, my lover, my boyfriend, and now he’s just going to be mine. That’s how we were always supposed to be.
You can’t fight fate. You can fuck it up, delay the inevitable, and draw out the conclusion, but in the end, what is meant to be will be. Ford and I were always meant to be. If only I could have trusted more, but maybe that too was always part of our story. Pluck one thread and the tapestry can unwind. Every experience brought me here, and as painful as some moments have been, they were all worth this.
“I think I can say for all of us how happy we are to finally be able to hear these words,” Shane begins, and snaps me out of my internal monologue. “Ford, you may kiss your bride.”
All awareness of there being people watching disappears when his lips meet mine. If my life were a movie, this is where the end credits would roll, because this is a moment I want to live in for a while.