Chapter Seventeen #2
“Nobody has to, Roxanne.” He fires off three more snaps in quick succession. “Talent doesn’t wait for an invitation.”
Marley stands in front of the full-length mirror, so still she almost doesn’t look real.
She catches my eye in the reflection, and the smile that spreads across her face is equal parts excitement, nerves, and complete disbelief.
It is as though some part of her is still waiting for someone to tell her this is all an incredibly elaborate joke.
I cross the room without thinking. The second I slip my hand into hers, I feel it. She’s shaking. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for me to.
I glance down at our joined hands before looking back at her in the mirror. “So…” I tilt my head thoughtfully. “Little nervous?”
She lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “What gave it away?”
“The fact your hand feels like it’s trying to vibrate out of mine.”
She snorts. “I am not vibrating.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Marley, if I let go right now, I’m fairly confident you’d achieve flight.”
A giggle escapes Penny from somewhere behind us.
Marley rolls her eyes, but the corner of her mouth betrays her. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
She weakly smiles at me. “No,” she admits with a sigh. “I really don’t.”
I squeeze her hand before catching her smile in the mirror. “That’s better.”
She studies my reflection for a second before narrowing her eyes. “What?”
“You looked like you were about to walk into a tax audit.”
She snorts. “I’m marrying the vice president of an outlaw motorcycle club.”
I shrug like that statement doesn’t mean shit. “Exactly! This should be the easy part. The terrifying bit comes later when Deek inevitably cries harder than you do, and we have to try not to laugh.”
Penny does, however, laugh. “Oh, that’s absolutely happening.”
Marley shakes her head, earning an exasperated sigh from Ro. “Would everyone stop making the bride laugh for five minutes? I need to finish my masterpiece!”
“You know us well enough by now, Ro,” I reply, watching Ro expertly twist another curl into place. “That was never a realistic expectation.”
Ro mutters something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like, “I need stronger friends.”
Marley catches my eye again in the mirror, the corners of her mouth still twitching. “You know what’s worrying me?”
I fold my arms. “Besides legally tying yourself to Sin’s second-in-command?”
She ignores me completely. “You’ve become the organized one.”
I raise my brow. “Excuse me?”
Marley grins as if she knows she has just found the winning argument. “You made me a spreadsheet, Sage.”
“It was a wedding budget!”
“It had formulas.”
I snort out a laugh. “They were useful formulas.”
She narrows her gaze on me. “It had color coding, babe.”
I point at her reflection. “Color coding is efficient.”
Penny laughs behind us as Ro continues to curl, keeping quiet for once.
“It also had tabs.” Marley is relentless.
I nod once. “But they were beeeautiful tabs.”
Victoria looks up from the dress’ train, smiling. “I remember those tabs, they were pretty.”
Beck lowers his camera just long enough to weigh in. “Personally, I think color-coded spreadsheet tabs are a cry for help, but sure, let’s call it romaaantic.” He draws out the last word for emphasis.
“Nobody asked you either,” I tell him, though I smile at his sassy ass.
“I’m ignoring you both and staying beautiful while doing it,” he says, already lifting the camera again.
Marley lets out another laugh. “Do you know what the worst part is?”
“What?” I ask.
“You enjoyed making it.” I open my mouth to deny it, but nothing comes out. Marley gasps dramatically. “You did, you whore!”
“I…” I grimace. “I appreciated the structural integrity of it.”
“The structural…” She presses a hand to her chest. “Listen to yourself!”
“Look, it’s not my fault.”
“No?” One eyebrow lifts.
I sigh, already knowing where this conversation is heading. “I’ve spent too much time watching Ghost build spreadsheets, blame his stupid ass.”
“There it is.” Marley points triumphantly at me through the mirror. “I knew this was his fault!”
I gawk at her. “I never said it was his fault.”
“You literally just blamed him!”
I hesitate and choose my words carefully. “I said I observed him.”
“You observed him so hard you turned into him.”
Ro finally steps back from Marley’s hair, lowering her hands with a theatrical sigh. “If either of you starts flirting over Microsoft Excel on my wedding morning, I swear I’ll shave somebody’s eyebrows.”
The room erupts into laughter, and even I can’t stop it.
Marley laughs so hard she has to dab carefully beneath one eye before looking at herself in the mirror again.
“Right, now shut up about nerd shit, and have a look at what I have created,” Ro says, giving a satisfied nod. “That’s the bride I’ve been trying to find all morning.”
Marley’s smile softens. She reaches for my hand again, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you through all of this.” The teasing slips away as naturally as it arrived.
I squeeze her hand back. “You’d have managed.”
“Maybe.” She smiles at my reflection. “But it would’ve been considerably less organized.”
“That’s because chaos isn’t in your nature, but I thrive in it.”
She laughs again, shaking her head. “I love you.”
“I know.”
She nudges my shoulder. “Smartass.”
“You’ve had years to get used to it.”
“And yet somehow you keep getting worse.”
“I prefer to think of it as refining my craft.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling. A real smile. The kind that reaches her eyes.
And just like that, Ghost, the highway, and the photograph quietly drift into the background.
Today belongs to Marley.
So, I am going to focus on her, Nitro, and the fact that in a few moments, they’re going to be saying ‘I do.’
Queenie appears in the doorway clutching a tissue in one hand and the edge of the frame with the other, already crying so hard she’s forced to take a steadying breath before she can speak. “Marley, honey, it’s time.”
Ro immediately starts fussing with the front of Marley’s dress again, muttering something about one curl sitting differently from all the others while Victoria smooths imaginary wrinkles from the train for what has to be the twentieth time.
Beck abandons his camera just long enough to fuss over her veil, tugging it a fraction to the left, then back to exactly where it started, before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You look unbearably beautiful, and I’m saying that as someone with genuinely excellent taste.”
Penny quietly presses the bouquet into Marley’s hands.
Marley stares at herself in the mirror, blinking rapidly before letting out a shaky laugh. “I’m actually doing this.”
I step up beside her, adjusting one of the tiny flowers tucked into her bouquet more because I need something to do with my hands than because it needs adjusting. “I mean, you are wearing the dress. It’d be awkward to back out now.”
She laughs through the nerves. “I hate you,” she says again.
I lean in, pressing a tender kiss to her cheek. “No, you don’t.”
“No.” She reaches for my hand. “I really don’t.”
Queenie sniffles loudly behind us. “If anybody needs me…” she announces to the room, “… I’ll be over there crying with dignity.”
Ro snorts. “You’re literally crying into a centerpiece.”
“It’s my emotionally supportive centerpiece.” That finally breaks whatever tension had settled over the room.
Laughter ripples through all of us.
Even Marley.
She closes her eyes for a second before letting out one long breath. “Okay, let’s do this.”
I squeeze her hand. “No.”
She frowns at me. “No?”
I shake my head, waiting until she looks at me instead of her reflection. “You don’t have to pretend you’re not scared.”
Her shoulders sag a little. “I am.”
“I know.”
The room seems to fall away for a second.
Ro is still fussing with curls somewhere behind us. Penny is moving flowers around for what feels like the hundredth time. I can hear Queenie sniffing into another tissue.
But all I see is Marley.
My best friend.
The woman who spent so many years settling for people who made her feel small that she almost forgot what being loved properly looked like.
I squeeze her hand again. “Do you know what I saw the second I walked into this room?”
She gives me a small shake of her head. “I saw the happiest you’ve ever been.
” Her eyes immediately begin to glisten.
“You don’t have to wonder whether he loves you.
” I smile. “Have you seen that man?” A tiny laugh escapes her.
“The second you walk through that doorway, he’s going to forget every other person in this clubhouse exists. ”
“I know,” she whispers.
“I know you know.” My smile softens. “But I don’t think you’ve stopped long enough to really let yourself believe it.”
She looks down at our joined hands. “I still keep waiting for something to go wrong.”
“I get it, babe.”
She exhales. “I keep thinking somebody’s going to tell me I don’t get to have this.”
I step closer, resting my free hand against her arm.
“Then let me be the one to tell you something instead.” She lifts her eyes to mine.
“You’ve spent years fighting for everyone else.
” I glance toward the door where Nitro is waiting somewhere beyond it.
“You don’t have to fight for him.” A tear slips free.
“He already chose you. My beautiful, slightly messy, but utterly perfect friend.”
The room falls quiet.
Not because everyone stopped moving.
But because every woman in it is pretending very hard she isn’t listening.
I brush the tear from Marley’s cheek with my thumb. “So, take a breath.” I smile. “And go marry the man who’s been looking at you like you are his perfect ten since the day he picked you up in that Uber.”
Marley lets out a shaky laugh through the tears. “I hate it when you make sense.”
“I know.”
She laughs again, shaking her head. “I really do love you.”
“I know that too.”