Chapter 38
Jeremiah
The botanical gardens at Piedmont Park looked like something out of a fairy tale, which was probably exactly what Mateo had been hoping for.
The unseasonably warm early-winter afternoon had painted everything in golden light that filtered through the canopy of ancient oak trees, their leaves creating a natural cathedral overhead.
By some miracle of nature—or a zealous gardening team—azaleas bloomed in brilliant clusters of pink and white along the winding pathways, while beds of tulips and daffodils created splashes of color against the emerald backdrop of perfectly manicured lawns.
The ceremony site itself was nestled in a natural clearing where dogwood trees formed an archway so perfect it looked like it had been designed by a romantic novelist. White wooden chairs were arranged in neat rows on either side of a petal-strewn aisle, each one adorned with simple bouquets of white roses and baby’s breath tied with cream-colored ribbon that fluttered gently in the warm breeze.
At the front, a rustic wooden altar Shane probably crafted himself had been decorated with cascading arrangements of spring flowers—tulips, daffodils, and cherry blossoms that seemed to glow in the dappled sunlight.
Hurricane lanterns hung from shepherd’s hooks placed strategically about, ready to provide romantic lighting as the afternoon faded into evening.
The whole effect was understated elegance with a touch of whimsy, exactly the kind of setting that would make two overly practical men feel comfortable saying the most impractical, beautiful words in the English language to each other.
“This is so pretty!” Debbie gasped as we made our way along the garden path, her hand firmly clasped in mine while Theo walked beside us, looking handsome enough in his navy suit to make me forget my own nerves.
Almost.
“It really is,” I agreed, though my attention was more focused on the clusters of people already gathering nearby.
Familiar faces mixed with others I didn’t recognize—family members and friends from different parts of Shane’s and Mateo’s lives, all converging to witness something I was still having trouble wrapping my head around.
Two of our best friends were getting married.
And I was here with my boyfriend and his daughter—our daughter, she would correct me every time I got that wrong—as part of their chosen family.
The thought should have been purely happy, but there was a flutter of anxiety in my chest that I couldn’t quite shake. This would be the first time we met everyone together, the first time I’d have to navigate introducing them as . . . what, exactly?
My boyfriend and his kid?
My family?
The word still felt too big, too new, even after everything we’d been through with the adoption hearing a couple of weeks earlier.
“Willie Wee, you’re doing the face thing,” Debbie announced, peering up at me with the kind of perception that five-year-olds wielded like a superpower.
“What face thing?”
“The worried face. Like when you’re trying to figure out if Cuddles is going to be nice or bitey. Oh, it’s like when Daddy’s hands get all twitchy, too. You both have your funny things. Are all big people silly like you two?”
Theo chuckled beside me. “She’s right. You look like you’re about to face down a golden retriever demon dragon with nothing but a shrimp fork.”
“I’m fine,” I said, then immediately realized how unconvincing it sounded. “It’s just . . . meeting the whole gang at once. It’s a lot.”
Theo stopped walking and turned to face me, his expression softening. “Hey, you. These are your friends. They love you . . . and anyone who doesn’t immediately fall in love with this little monster”—he gestured to Debbie, who preened at being called a monster—“clearly has questionable judgment.”
Before I could respond, a familiar voice cut through the garden air with all the subtlety of a foghorn.
“Well, would you look at what the cat dragged in!”
We turned to find Mrs. Henderson approaching, resplendent in what could only be described as tactical tartan—a dress that somehow managed to incorporate three different plaid patterns without actually causing retinal damage.
Her silver hair was arranged in an elaborate updo that defied both gravity and good sense, and she carried herself with the bearing of someone who knew she was the most interesting person at any gathering, even someone else’s wedding.
“Mrs. H,” I said, stepping forward to give her a careful hug. “You look . . . wow.”
“Don’t you ‘wow’ me, young man. I look fucking spectacular, and we both know it.” She pulled back to study me with sharp eyes that missed nothing. “And this must be the famous librarian I’ve heard so much about.”
She turned her attention to Theo, who had gone slightly pale at her approach. He’d met Mrs. H when they did their shenanigan planning, but no amount of preparation could ready someone for the full Henderson experience.
“Mrs. Henderson,” he said, extending his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so many stories—”
“Oh, have you now?” She ignored his outstretched hand and pulled him into a hug that looked like it might crack ribs.
“Well, let me tell you something, Theodore. Any man who can put up with this overgrown golden retriever”—she jerked her thumb in my direction—“and still look at him like he hung the moon is all right in my book.”
“I don’t look at him like—” I started to protest.
“You absolutely do,” Theo and Mrs. H said in unison, which made Debbie dissolve into giggles.
Mrs. H’s attention shifted to Debbie with the laser focus of someone who’d spotted fresh prey. “And this must be the fearsome dragon princess.”
“I’m Debbie,” Debbie said, suddenly shy in the face of Mrs. H’s overwhelming presence, ducking behind Theo’s legs while peering around them to see what the new old lady might do. “Are you a real Scottish person?”
“Real as they come, wee one. Want to hear my battle cry?”
“Mrs. H, please don’t—” I began, but it was too late.
She let out a sound that was part war whoop, part banshee wail, and entirely inappropriate for a wedding garden—or any garden, any setting whatsoever, even a battlefield.
Several nearby guests turned to stare, while Debbie stepped out from behind Theo’s legs and clapped with delight.
“Teach me! Teach me!” she demanded.
“Later, little princess. Right now we need to find your da—your Willie Wee and your daddy some seats before all the good ones are taken.”
I caught the way she’d almost said “daddies” and felt my chest warm. Mrs. H might be chaos incarnate, but she had good instincts about people and the spirit of an angel.
“Jer! Over here!”
I turned to see Sisi waving from a cluster of white chairs near the middle section, looking elegant in a deep green dress that brought out her eyes.
Mike stood beside her, handsome in his dark suit and clearly trying to manage his excitement, while Omar lounged nearby looking like he’d stepped out of a British royal-watch magazine.
Two other men I didn’t recognize sat nearby, chatting with Omar and occasionally laughing at some joke one of them told.
“The gang’s all here,” I murmured, and this time the nervous flutter in my chest was matched by genuine warmth.
As we made our way over, Debbie skipping between Theo and me, I watched my friends’ faces light up at our approach.
Sisi immediately swooped down to Debbie’s level, reaching out for a good tickle followed by a tight hug around her neck.
Mike immediately asked Theo about his work, and Omar made some comment about my tie that was probably meant to be insulting but came out strangely fond.
“Oh, everyone,” Sisi called above all the conversations, motioning toward the two strangers. “This is Patrick. He’s a reporter for the AJC. And the Jolly Green Giant next to him is his husband, Dane. He’s a fireman who knows how to use his hose better than any man—”
“Hey!” Matty, appearing out of thin air in a puff of glittery gay smoke, protested. “I’m a mighty fine hose wielder, thank you very much.”
Mrs. H cackled. “In my day—”
“Hoses were illegal,” Matty finished for her. “We know. The seventieth century wasn’t kind.”
That earned him a swat as everyone laughed at the pair.
I took it all in. The flowers, the gardens with their romantic paths and trickling stream, Theo and Debbie beside me. Then I glanced from one face to the next, from one friend to the next, and realized something:
This is what family looks like.
It wasn’t just the people you were born to, but the ones who chose to show up, who made space for you and the people you love, who celebrated your happiness like it was their own.
Because it is.
“Where’s Elliot?” Sisi asked, looking around for the group’s other jolly giant.
“Getting Shane ready,” Mike said with a grin. “Apparently our groom is having a minor panic attack about his bow tie or shoes or . . . who knows. Shane never wears anything but jeans, so this whole day is a challenge.”
“And Mateo?”
“Pacing behind the dogwoods like a caged tiger,” Omar answered. “I’ve never seen him this nervous. It’s actually quite endearing.”
The musicians—a string quartet that looked like they took their work very seriously—began playing something soft and romantic as more guests filed in and took their seats. The anticipation in the air was palpable, that special energy that only weddings seemed to generate.
“This is really happening,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
“Hard to believe, right?” Sisi said, settling into the chair beside me while Theo helped Debbie into the seat between us. “Mateo finally found someone who could understand him through his Italian accent, and Shane found a guy who appreciates his stony, non-verbal personality.”
“They’re perfect for each other,” Mike added. “Even when they’re driving us all crazy.”
“Even when they’re driving each other crazy,” Sisi quipped.
The music shifted, becoming more formal, and a hush fell over the gathered crowd. The officiant—a friend of Shane’s who’d apparently gotten ordained online specifically for this occasion—took his place beneath the dogwood arch.
Then Mateo appeared.
He looked nervous as hell but stunningly handsome in his perfectly fitted tux, his dark hair behaving for once and his face lit with the kind of smile that made it impossible to not smile back.
He walked to his position with the measured steps of a man heading toward the electric chair, and I felt a surge of pride for my friend who’d found his person.
The music swelled, and Shane emerged from behind the trees looking like he’d rather be anywhere else but somehow managing to appear dignified in his discomfort.
His normally steady hands were visibly shaking, and there was a flush across his cheekbones that suggested he was fighting every instinct to flee.
But when his eyes found Mateo’s across the gathered crowd, everything changed.
His nervousness melted away, replaced by something so pure and focused it made my throat tight. He walked down that makeshift aisle like he was heading home.
Beside me, I heard Theo’s quiet intake of breath, and when I glanced over, he was wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.
“You okay?” I whispered.
“Just . . . look at them. They’re so happy.”
And he was right.
As Shane reached the front and took his place beside Mateo, both men were grinning like idiots, their earlier nerves forgotten in the face of this moment they’d been building toward for what felt like a lifetime.
The officiant began the ceremony with words about love and commitment and choosing each other every day, but I found myself only half listening, too caught up in watching my friends and thinking about the journey that had brought them here.
Mateo—who’d spent years convinced he was too much for anyone to handle permanently—standing beside someone who thought his intensity, his competitive nature, his single-minded focus was perfect.
And Shane—who’d kept people at arm’s length his entire adult life, avoiding the world in his shop, as though interacting might infect him with some incurable disease—promising to let someone in completely.
Somehow, impossibly, I was here to witness it, flanked by my own small family and surrounded by the people who’d become something like home for me, too.
When the officiant asked if anyone had objections, Mrs. H loudly declared, “If anyone speaks up, I’ll show them my sgian-dubh,” which I was pretty sure was some kind of Scottish knife threat that made several guests look around nervously.
Everyone tittered, but no one objected.
How could they, when it was so obvious that these two belonged together?
“By the power vested in me by the great state of Georgia and the internet that brought us all together,” the officiant announced with a grin, “I now pronounce you married. You may kiss your husband.”
The kiss was soft and sweet and perfect, and when they broke apart, both men—even the stony Shane—were crying happy tears that set off a chain reaction through the entire gathering.
As the newly married couple made their way back down the aisle, stopping to hug family and accept congratulations, Debbie tugged on my sleeve.
“Willie Wee, are you and Daddy going to get married, too?”
The question, asked with the casual curiosity of a five-year-old, sent heat flooding through my face.
Across the aisle, Mrs. H cackled with obvious delight.
“Maybe someday, princess,” I managed. “It takes a long time for daddies to make a decision that big.”
“I hope so,” she said, settling back in her chair with satisfaction. “I want to be the flower girl . . . and I want there to be dragons.”
Theo was laughing softly beside me, his hand finding mine as we stood to follow the crowd toward the reception area.
“Dragons might be negotiable,” he said quietly, his fingers threading through mine.
As we walked through the garden, surrounded by friends and family and the warm buzz of celebration, I realized that Mrs. Chen had been right about something.
When you find something good, you hold on to it.
And what we had—messy and complicated and absolutely perfect—was definitely worth holding on to.
Even if it did eventually involve dragons.