Chapter 8 #2
The week before, Diane had insisted on hosting what she called a proper engagement supper at her own kitchen table, just the five of them, Sloane, Draven, Hugh, Renee, and Diane herself, crowded around a table meant for four, passing dishes hand to hand while Diane peppered Draven with questions about flower arrangements and seating charts that he answered with far more patience than Sloane expected from a man who ran an entire company by delegation.
“You’re really going to let her plan the whole thing herself,” Hugh said to Draven quietly, watching Diane sketch a rough seating diagram on a napkin while Renee leaned over her shoulder making unhelpful suggestions.
“She’s been waiting longer than I have, probably.
” Draven watched Diane with open fondness, something easy and settled in his posture that hadn’t always been there around family gatherings before Sloane.
“Let her have this part. I’ve taken enough decisions out of both their hands already this year. ”
* * *
They held it at the Bibb County Public Library downtown, the old reading room with its tall arched windows and dark wood shelves that Sloane had spent half her childhood curled up in, escaping into stacks of borrowed novels on slow Macon afternoons while Diane graded papers at a nearby table.
The head librarian, a woman who’d known Sloane since she was nine years old and still remembered her by name, had cleared the room for the afternoon and helped arrange folding chairs between the shelves, a simple arch of white flowers set up near the circulation desk where the late sun came slanting gold through the high windows.
On the morning of the wedding, Sloane sat at her mother’s old vanity while Renee worked her braids into an elegant updo, weaving small white flowers through the strands, both of them quiet for once, the nervous energy of the morning settling into something gentler.
“You okay?” Renee asked, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
“I keep waiting to feel the way I felt the last time.” Sloane admitted it slowly, watching her own reflection.
“The nerves before. The dread, almost, like something was about to go wrong even though everything seemed fine.” She paused.
“It isn’t there. I keep checking for it and it just isn’t there. ”
“Good.” Renee’s hands stilled briefly on her shoulders, meeting her eyes in the mirror with real seriousness. “It shouldn’t be there. This isn’t that day, Sloane. This isn’t even close.”
“I know.” She let out a slow breath, something settling fully into place in her chest. “I think I actually know that now.”
* * *
Diane sat in the front row once the ceremony began, a single folded handkerchief already pressed to her mouth, her eyes bright and wet from the moment the small string quartet began to play, tucked into the corner near the reference section.
She’d insisted on that detail herself, three musicians from the local community college, friends of a former student who’d gone on to study music after Diane spent an entire semester convincing her she had the talent for it.
Sloane walked down the narrow aisle between the shelves alone, no father to take her arm, but steady in a way she hadn’t expected to feel given everything that walk usually carried for her.
She’d worn a simple dress, ivory and unembellished, nothing close to the elaborate gown that had hung untouched in a closet for months after the wedding that never happened.
This dress had been chosen for comfort over performance, soft fabric draped easily over the curve of her stomach, her braids pulled back loose with a single white flower tucked behind one ear.
The smell of old paper and well-worn bindings hung familiar in the air the whole way down, the same smell she’d associated with safety since she was a child.
Draven watched her the entire way down the aisle, his expression unguarded in a way she’d rarely seen him allow in front of other people, something raw and certain settling over his features the closer she got.
When she finally reached him, he took both her hands without waiting for any cue from the officiant, his thumb brushing once over her knuckles like he needed the contact to fully believe she was actually there.
“You look exactly like the woman from that rooftop,” he murmured, low enough that only she could hear it. “Except happier.”
“I am happier,” she whispered back. “Considerably.”
The ceremony itself was short, simple, neither of them interested in long speeches or elaborate readings, just plain vows exchanged under the high windows while Diane wept openly in the front row and Renee sniffled beside her, occasionally swatting at Hugh when he teased his brother under his breath about getting through his vows without choking up.
Draven did choke up anyway, once, his voice catching on the line about showing up every single day for the rest of both their lives, and Sloane reached up without thinking to brush her thumb along his jaw, steadying him the same way he’d steadied her so many times over the past several months.