Epilogue
EV
“You look so beautiful.”
I doubted I did when I was blinking as fast as I could to avoid making a mess of the makeup Vi had spent hours putting on me.
My mother had wanted to hire a famous makeup artist to come.
She’d also wanted to snatch a contract with one of the big national magazines for all things gossip to cover the wedding.
I’d refused the latter on the basis that I would not be the face of pinkwashing the monarchy, and the former on my trust issues.
My mother had tried to gift me coupons for renowned makeup artists before, or to surprise me with them before attending one of the galas I could not excuse myself out of, and they never worked out.
They were nice, sure. They either didn’t see my vision or I couldn’t explain it to them.
Whatever it was, Vi got it, and I’d been growing closer to her over the last year, since she’d finally moved in permanently—her, Dixie, and Dixie’s sister, Lola.
The latter was another reason I was spending more of my allocated monthly budget, but the tax accountant hadn’t had any follow-up questions about giving money to a local NGO for disabled rights, thank fuck.
“Thanks, mom.”
“Do you remember the story of how I named you?”
“I’m trying not to get emotional here.”
My mother laughed. I didn’t always understand her sense of humor, but she’d always had some sixth sense when it came to mine, even when I’d been at my most rebellious.
I still had plenty of thoughts about her naming me after the largest mountain range.
Visualizing her as the more daring younger version of herself she’d been, climbing the mountain only a few months before finding out she was pregnant with me, was something, but it had been a lot of pressure to live up to it.
Lots of being forced into the spotlight just based on the unusual name that no government worker should have allowed in the registers.
I was so glad none of the people I considered family called me Everest.
“I was only going to say you look as majestic as the mountain.”
“Before or after all the rich people dropped all their shit there?”
“Everest!”
I chuckled.
Everyone but her.
Things weren’t perfect, but today wasn’t the day to get mad about any of it.
Today was the day to give myself another cursory look in the mirror and head to the backyard where a—possibly bribed—public worker was waiting to officiate the wedding.
The wedding.
It was wild.
Truthfully, neither Santos nor I really cared about it. Marriage was an antiquated institution, but my family came with rules, and a wedding had been part of it the second my mother realized we were more than childhood best friends.
I’d been terrified it would be embarrassing when her gaze started to stay on us for longer than a few seconds at a time.
In the end, she’d just gone to Santos, told him that she knew, and that he had one year to propose to me, and another year to get married if he wanted to become an official part of the family.
I would never take that implied promise away from him, so here we were, one year after said veiled promise slash threat, getting married in the backyard of the villa.
I did love the suit I was wearing. A white corset over a lace shirt and silk pants, a chiffon cape cinched at the waist, emulating the puffy skirt every princess lover dreamed of wearing. This was just a slightly more salacious version of the ideal.
So, I was excited about wearing this eight-thousand-euro suit slash gown, and I was excited about seeing Santos down the aisle.
My mother had spared no expense, which meant the yard was now complete with one of those arches that looked like a bush full of flowers I should know more about, given all the gardeners I was in charge of.
Sadly, I hadn’t grown much in that area, but most days, I believed it was all right. Well, not all right, but not something I was going to spend a lot of thought on.
No, I was just going to focus on Santos.
Santos, my best friend turned the kid I experimented with in school, turned the love of my life, standing against one side of the arch, Carlos next to him.
Unlike him, Santos wasn’t wearing a military uniform or any of the few medals I knew he had.
My father had tried to talk him into it, but that wasn’t my fiancé.
It took a longer time in therapy than he’d expected, given he still had monthly appointments with Victoria, but he had learned to accept that his time in the military didn’t have to follow him in the standard paths.
He didn’t have to find pride in it if he didn’t want to, and if it wasn’t going to bring him anything positive, it was perfectly acceptable that he stood there in a simple black tuxedo, his bouncy curls only a few inches above his shoulders.
He hadn’t cut his hair once in the past two years, and I’d never seen his face shine brighter whenever he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
Sergio joked that he looked like a Nordic David Bisbal. I snickered when he did, but secretly, he had a point, bar the fact that his roots were Swiss, not Nordic, and he was ten times hotter than the Andalusian singer.
“You look gorgeous.”
The words were similar to my mother’s, but coming from him, they filled me in ways that hers didn’t.
Everyone was here.
Well, not everyone that my mother had intended to invite, but everyone who mattered, plus a few relatives and socialites that couldn’t be avoided.
They were sitting toward the back, though, the white benches in the front filled with the people who had made a home for us when we were still figuring out what that meant.
That, apparently, included Sergio with the banner he’d been threatening me with for years.
“I can use glitter because it’s an outdoors event,” he’d said.
Was that a thing?
Oh, well.
I didn’t care.
He had kept it classier than I’d thought, a simple drawing of our faces kissing and a congratulations in bubbly letters with what had to account for ten tubs of glitter in different colors.
Whoever was in charge of cleaning up after would need a hefty raise.
“Eyes on me, princess.”
“Hmm?”
Fuck.
Truth be told, when planning the wedding, I’d been more excited about the afterparty that was for the members of Plumas only. Erika had closed down the club for just the ones of us attending the wedding, and I’d been allowed a teaser of what was waiting.
Santos had discovered this, and of course, his response had been to shove a vibrating plug up my ass before Vi showed up to do my makeup. A plug he kept a discreet remote control of in his pants. One he had just activated.
I kissed him hard. It was the only way to hide the swaying forward when I lost balance, and the moan I couldn’t quite hide.
One unexpected development over these past few years was that I’d gotten extra good at hiding when someone was playing with my prostate like there were no concerns in the world, but I wasn’t perfect, and today of all days?
My indifference about marriage as a whole aside, there were all sorts of emotions tumbling around me, fluttering and creating whole hurricanes in my stomach.
Some throat clearing from the officiant that might not have been bribed enough, and laughter from the first rows forced us apart.
I bemoaned the loss—and the fact that the vibrator stayed on, when I knew he had the remote right there, and it would be very easy for him to turn it off without anyone suspecting a thing.
My gaze narrowed. “I hate you.”
He smirked while very casually tucking his hand in the pocket of his pants. The vibrations stopped right away.
He didn’t turn it on again, thank fuck, at least not while the officiant did this thing, and read through the script he had to follow.
It was only when he announced that you can kiss your groom that a subtle movement had them starting up again.
I bit my lip, my back straightening.
I was sure some of the people from the inner circle suspected, and they’d rib me about it later, but no one else would. I was anxious. Off kilter. Always had been a little bit.
“Well then,” Santos whispered, a stupid grin on his face as he pulled me close so only I could hear, “kiss me, Ever. Last I checked, there’s only one groom here, no?”
My breath hitched.
It was his words, and the plug, and the fact that we were about to be swarmed with people with their best intentions at heart, while all I wanted was to yank him to a dark room and demand that he degrade me some more.
I did kiss him, and I let him swallow my moans while he dipped me and upped the vibrations before turning them back off.
Plotting wasn’t my forte, but I was going to make him pay for this.
Not today.
Or anytime next month, after my parents surprised us with tickets for a cruise because apparently, no one listened when I said I wasn’t interested in a honeymoon.
If there were still rooms available, me, Mónica, and Tony could pool resources and make it a group thing.
The cruise was LGBTQ-themed, but I needed to disrupt all this amatonormativity somehow.
“You think it’s acceptable to make our excuses yet?”
I didn’t even check the grandfather’s clock in the main living room we’d moved the celebration to.
I just nodded and started to beeline toward my parents.
I had waited long enough, and I was not giving Santos more excuses to taunt me with what was to come, or with the damned plug.
I should’ve asked Danny to grab the remote from him.
He had surprisingly sticky fingers. He might’ve been willing to do it when León wasn’t looking.
It still took the better part of two hours until we stood parked by the club. Everyone else was going in.