CHAPTER 23
Nina
The wedding ceremony is simple. We do it in the MFD garages.
The oil-slick cement is transformed by the new florist from Harleysville, whose last name is also Dean (no relation), into a magical fairyland.
Flowered arches, urns of roses, and likely every pink or white bloom in the entire state of North Carolina, or maybe even the Eastern Seaboard, set the stage around an enormous pink rug with a white runner.
The mayor hears our vows. It’s all like a dream, and I’m so high, I can’t even see the ground.
After Sampson slips a diamond eternity band on my finger, after I slip a plain gold one on his, after we kiss and seal our vows, we move on to our reception.
Which is held in the middle of the road.
Mossburg has shut down Main Street and lined the entire downtown with half-tents, also decorated with twinkly fairy lights and flowers.
All the restaurants have contributed food, and my idea for a simple ceremony has become a town-wide festival instead.
Children run wild. Adults sway to the music of a few volunteer bands.
People dance, sing, drink, eat, and are generally merry.
It’s the most perfect blending of humanity I’ve ever seen.
And it’s not for me. It’s for Sampson, a being who is barely human, and yet, I wasn’t wrong when I said that he’s the most human of us all.
There’s so much love for him in this town, so much respect, that it bleeds into other old enmities and heals them, like the pair of feuding neighbors who now sit with their heads together in quiet conversation, or the current school bully who finds himself wielding a rope so two adorable girls can jump.
Mrs. Baggins and her husband come up to congratulate us. The small woman gives me a hug and whispers in my ear. “I knew you were the one for Sam. I told him I had a girl for him that loved jelly donuts, but I didn’t even have to introduce you. Fate did that for me.”
Sampson glances at me. There’s fire in his eyes every time he looks at me. But that’s okay. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
I went up in flames the first time I saw my giant.
And nothing is going to douse them again.