Chapter 6
6
Mia
“What do you mean you assumed I was getting a boob job?!” I stared down at the bowling ball sized cups on the dress I was supposed to wear in… shit. Forty-five minutes. We had to get on the road to make it to the venue on time and I had no dress to wear because of the woman babbling down the phone line.
“I’m so sorry about the mistake. If you bring the dress back I can alter it and have it ready by Tuesday.”
“I’m getting married this afternoon.”
My face flushed with frustrated heat, my eyesight blurring. Why was everything going wrong? Did the universe not want Oscar and me to be married? Well, fuck that. Come hell or high water, he was mine and we were going to make today happen. I took a breath, gearing up to take all my worries out on the woman who couldn’t tell the difference between a C and a G… and let it back out again as Tia planted herself in front of me and held out a demanding hand. Without argument, I gave her the phone and watched as she ended the call. No goodbye. Nothing.
“You don’t need that stress in your life. You can deal with a refund tomorrow. Right now, we need to find something you’d be comfortable to wear down the aisle. Don’t you have a ton of costumes from your performances?”
I led her to our spare room, where the walk-in closet was entirely dedicated to my old costumes from burlesque shows over the years. She quickly found a mermaid dress that I dismissed because the velcro fixings had failed the one time I wore it onstage. Next was a silver flapper dress that I agreed to put in the maybe pile. It was close to white, but now that the perfect white dress idea had been ruined, I found the idea was less than appealing. From deep in the back reaches of the closet Tia gasped and appeared a moment later holding a bright red sequined dress.
“This is the one.”
“Isn’t red supposed to be a harlot color or something? Are you trying to drop hints here?”
The flat look she gave me warmed my heart. This family was exactly the people Luca and I deserved after our shitty upbringing. They didn’t slut shame or try to put us down. They lifted everyone up because that’s who they were.
“This is a bombshell dress, and I can’t think of anything better to remind my brother what a lucky son of a bitch he is to have you walking down the aisle to him.”
She held out the dress I’d bought a couple of years earlier to cosplay Jessica Rabbit for a Halloween party and, after only a slight hesitation, I accepted it.
She gave me space to change into the dress and when I joined them all in the kitchen, it was to a raucous round of applause.
“Tell your brother the wedding’s off. She’s coming home with me.” Mateo elbowed Tia before flinching away from Luca’s slap to the back of his head.
“Time to go. Mia, you look beautiful, sweetheart,” Mrs. Cavanaugh said, ushering us all toward the front door. She squeezed my shoulder on her way past and I smiled as her cinnamon and clove scent drifted around me like a hug.
“It’s time to make you my daughter in law.”
My eyes blurred with tears I willed not to fall, worried Tia’s work on my makeup would be ruined.
“Thank you,” I whispered, looking past her to where Luca looked on with a small smile tilting his lips.
As we headed toward the cars in the driveway, my phone pinged in my hand. I scanned the text from Violet quickly, then checked again.
“Violet says Cam texted her a change of venue.” Despite my confusion, I gave the new address to Oscar’s mom and sister, who were traveling separately in their car then had Luca put in the same address for us.
“Shotgun!” Mateo shouted, moving to cut me off, but a warning look from Luca was all it took for him to cut the jokes and slide into the back while I took the front passenger seat and tried to call Oscar’s cell. After a couple of rings, the call dumped to voicemail and I hung up without leaving a message. He was so paranoid about the ‘no contact’ tradition, I half wondered if he was avoiding my calls. I dismissed the thought almost immediately. Oscar was reliable, and I knew if he thought I needed him, he’d be there no matter what.
As I sat and tried to calm my nerves, the landscape flicked past the window in flashes of green interspersed with the occasional red brick or weatherboard siding of houses. I imagined owning one of those properties we passed. Could picture Oscar steering a ride-on mower while I drank iced tea and watched from a porch swing. Maybe one day there would be kids running around too.
Or maybe Oscar would be drafted to somewhere cold, and we’d have to get used to hot cocoa and shoveling snow for months of the year.
There was a time when those imagined futures full of domesticity would have made me break out in hives. The thought of a normal relationship without abuse or substances had been a pipe dream that I never believed until him.
Oscar barged into my world and flipped it upside down just by being the man he is. Unapologetically genuine.
The knots in my stomach lessened and my heart rate slowed as the reality of my situation hit me. I got to keep the best thing that ever happened to me, and in just a few minutes, I’d be standing in front of everyone we love to make it official.
“Are we far off?” I asked, craning my head to check the map. Luca grunted, flicking on his turn signal and slowing to take a corner onto a dirt road.
“We’re here,” he said, rolling slowly along until a sweet cottage came into view.
On the front porch, clasping and unclasping her hands as though she weren’t sure what to do with them, stood Violet. The second we rolled to a stop and stepped out of the car she rushed toward us.
“Thank god, you made it. Everyone’s waiting down in the garden. Are you ready?”
I had no idea where we were, or why we’d moved the ceremony here, but if it was time to see Oscar, there was only one answer.
“Yes.”
We moved as a group around the house and through the most beautiful garden full of flowers and fruit trees and stopped beside a large hedge.
“Everyone’s waiting on the other side so stay here and wait for the signal.”
Tia, Mrs Cavanaugh, and Mateo each gave me a hug and wish for luck and went to find their seats while Violet started down the aisle as my maid of honor.
The smooth twang of an acoustic guitar broke through the chatter of voices and Luca crooked his elbow for me to take.
“If you need to escape, let me know and we’ll be in Mexico by morning.”
I huffed a laugh that was a little more choked than expected and wrapped my hand around his arm. As the lyrics started to Train’s Marry Me , we stepped out from behind the bush to see rows of fold out chairs had been arranged either side of a strip of grass to create a makeshift aisle. Every face was turned toward me, and the warmth and love I felt from our friends and family almost made me stumble.
“Breathe,” Luca mumbled, tightening his arm to remind me he was there.
Breathe. It seemed like too simple an instruction when we were in the middle of such a life-changing event. Life-affirming , I corrected as my eyes locked on the one person I missed more than anything after only a few hours of separation. He wore a button down that was a little too short in the torso so that the tails stuck out over the top of blue jeans. His tie was bright red and slightly skewed and I almost laughed at how neither of us wore traditional wedding day clothing. His hands were fisted by his sides, as though he were willing himself to keep still, to not reach for me. But his eyes…
Tears shone in eyes that were so firmly fixed on me, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he forgot we weren’t alone. The love I saw there carried me down the aisle more surely than my feet.
His sandy hair flopped across his forehead as he swiped a hand down his face, but even the tears didn’t dim his smile.
As we stopped in front of him, Luca offered his hand and they shook before he turned and cupped my shoulders. Pressing a gentle kiss to my cheek, he gave me a final squeeze before stepping away.
“Hi,” Oscar said, as soon as I caught his eyes.
“Hi,” I said, my cheeks already starting to ache with the smile that stretched my face.
The celebrant stepped forward and began his opening address, but I couldn’t have repeated a word he said. I was lost in the vivid green eyes of the man who was becoming my husband.
“Do you, Oscar Cavanaugh, take Mia Maddren to be your wedded wife? To have and to hold. In sickness and in health, so long as you both shall live?”
A fine tremor passed through Oscar’s hands where they held mine. His excited energy was at a level he visibly struggled to contain as he cleared his throat and said “I do.”
The celebrant then asked me the same question, and I felt the answer in every fiber of my being as I said those two little words.
“You may now kiss the bride.” A cheer went up through the crowd. Oscar leaned close and took my lips in a soft, barely there kiss that held so much love and affection, I felt it all the way down to the bottom of my soul.
“Hello, Wife,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine.
“Hello hus?—”
Before I could finish the greeting, the heavens opened up with a downpour that had our attendees scrambling for handbags and jackets in a rush toward the shelter of the house.
A laugh burst out of me. It was freedom and happiness and absolute acceptance of the absurdity of the day.
Oscar gaped at the sky as rain flowed over his face in runnels.
“Of course,” he laughed, dropping his eyes to me.
I pushed a piece of wet hair off my forehead, grinning like a mad woman and happier than I’d ever been in my life.
“Dance with me.”
Without question, he wrapped me in his arms and swayed us to a beat only we could hear.
“Always.”