Epilogue #3
“If we ever make it to the hotel. You know you can’t stay home tonight, right? Why haven’t you packed your stuff yet?”
“I still have to make sure Dani is okay—”
“Parker!” I watch my bride-to-be burst through the diner doors, shouting anxiously for me. Instinctively, I spring out of the Jeep to meet her. She latches onto my forearm with a death grip, her bottom lip trembling.
My heart is in my throat. “What is it?”
“M-Marisa just called,” she sputters. “They lost Aaron!”
“Sorry, false alarm,” Marisa giggles as she hands me a feather wand. “Hey, who needs the fire department when you’ve got this guy?”
I push a shroud of leaves blocking my view and spot a ball of gray fur nestled on top of a branch. Aaron Purr is just out of reach, in a tree in front of the Silverpine Inn. I wave the teaser toy to get his attention. He blinks his round, golden eyes at me, uninterested.
“The only task I gave you before the wedding was to look after Aaron,” scolds Dani next to me. “I can’t believe you let him get out.”
“I took my eyes off him for a second!”
With a yawn, Aaron finally starts to inch toward me. I grab him as soon as he’s close enough and scoop him into my arms. Dani is wearing the expression of a mother whose son has returned from war as I pass him along to her.
“Hey buddy, you gave Mommy and Daddy a scare,” I say as I scratch his head.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at your hotel?” Marisa asks me.
“I’ll go after this,” I tell her. “Why is everyone so concerned about what bed we sleep in tonight? Bunch of perverts.”
“If you have time to spare, I can bleach your hair before the ceremony.”
“Actually, I need your help,” Dani says to Marisa. Her frown hasn’t let up yet, something I’ve been all too aware of. “Can we go up to your room?”
I move to follow them into the building, but Marisa stops me at the doors. Aaron Purr meows at me from her arms.
“Ah-ah. Maid-of-honor duties.”
Dani left Marisa’s room without much to say during the ride home. I check her face every few seconds, but her expression only grows more and more solemn. It makes my gut tense with worry. Is all the pre-ceremony pressure taking its toll on her?
Even when we arrive at my bedroom—hers, for tonight—she still doesn’t utter a peep.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m just tired.”
“Almost convincing, if you weren’t talking to me.” I take a long look at her as I tuck her hair behind her ears. “What is it, baby?”
She finally relents with a sigh. “The slideshow.”
“I put it on a USB and gave it to Nathan already.”
“No, it’s not that.” Dani pauses, eyes darting from mine. My gut is in all kinds of knots now. “They don’t have any photos of us together for a whole seven-year span. I thought I could slip something in at the last minute, so I asked Marisa if I could borrow her Photoshop skills.”
I so badly want to breathe a sigh of relief, but the tension on Dani’s face only deepens, so I take a different approach. “Was she able to whip something up?”
“Yes.” She pouts. “Not her best work.”
Dani takes a seat at the foot of the bed and beckons me over, then pulls up an email on her phone. As soon as the photo buffers, my hand flies over my mouth.
Don’t laugh, Parker. My jaw tenses. I press the corners of my lips.
I know that Dani’s friend Marisa is a professional graphic designer. A fairly good one, at that. I can see it in the seamless blending of two superimposed images and the shadow adjustments that add depth to her creation. So, I’m aware this isn’t a matter of skill.
But before me is painfully contrived attempt at merging Dani’s and my college graduation photos.
Somehow, Dani had managed to find shots where we’re posing close enough to trees, and that gave her a foundation to work on.
From there, Marisa had expertly concocted some kind of enchanted, sprite-filled forest of luscious shrubbery and speckled toadstools.
A whimsical, fabricated memory of Dani and me celebrating our milestone with all our fairy friends.
“Oh, wow,” I say stiffly, brow twitching. “You know, I remember taking this photo. Wasn’t this where you unlocked your wizard magic for the first time—”
“This isn’t a joke, Parker!” Dani groans and tosses her phone aside.
“Everyone’s speech is going to mention how we went from childhood friends to husband and wife, but once the slideshow plays, there’s going to be a blaringly obvious gap in the years.
It’ll be a reminder to everyone that we weren’t friends. ”
I can see on her face that she’s crushed.
It makes my chest ache for my adorably sentimental fiancée.
If I could turn back time, I’d give her an album full of happy memories.
But I can’t, and that’s okay. Because everything we’ve built together in the last three years is far more important than any of the time we lost.
“Come here.” I tug her close and hug her tight. She’s tense in my arms, and I want nothing more than to melt her worry away. “How long is the slideshow again?”
“Ten minutes, thirty-two seconds.”
“And how much of that is everything after high school?”
“Like, four minutes?”
“So, in those four minutes, we have the engagement photos, our trips to London and Mount Bromo, family barbecues, and any impossibly cute selfies. That seven-year span would’ve realistically been around a minute, give or take.
So, sixty seconds, in a ten-minute slideshow, during a five-hour reception, on day one of our lives as husband and wife.
” She’s watching me attentively, and I take the opportunity to press a kiss to her cheek.
“In the grand scheme of things, what’s one minute to a lifetime of being married to my best friend? ”
She’s silent for a beat, and then I feel her ease against my chest. “How do you always know what to say?”
“It’s simple math,” I shrug. “You’re the smart one.”
I know I’ve done well because Dani rewards me by peppering kisses all over my face. Something I’ve learned about having Dani Tsai as my girl is that she’s prone to these little explosions of affection. I think it’s called cute aggression.
“I love you,” she says, her smile returning.
“I love you too, Dani.”
There was a time I almost lost my shot at this.
In all honesty, I’m actually relieved the seven-year gap isn’t in the slideshow.
I don’t like to remember it. Back then, it felt a lot like living on autopilot.
I was emotionally checked out after my football career came to a premature end.
I enjoyed my work and directed all my energy there instead.
But at some point, even the shine of the all-star games and celebrity events faded.
Everything around me was in dull, muted grays.
When I ran into Dani in New York, I was able to see in color again.
I didn’t know it was possible to feel things with the intensity of the sun until it was happening to me.
Nights at my hotel when I was always one breathy moment away from letting myself slip and say too much.
All the times we were apart, and I’d stalk her Instagram waiting for her to post (she never did).
I wanted all of Dani: her highs, lows, and especially the ordinary middles.
If you ask me when this desire began, I probably couldn’t tell you.
I think I was born with it in my composition.
I think that part of me has always belonged to her.
I want to stay a little longer, but a passing glimpse at my watch reminds me I should be leaving for the hotel. Just when I’m about to tell her goodnight, Dani slides onto my lap and dips her mouth below my jaw, landing soft kisses along my neck.
I freeze with my hands on her waist.
“Now?” I ask carefully. “We’re not supposed to, you know, before the wedding.”
“Why? Because some puritans decided centuries ago that a god would curse us if we saw each other naked before our vows?”
“I happen to recall a time when it was forbidden for us to have sex in this house.” I tilt my head. “With our parents downstairs.”
“What prude came up with that?”
“You, Dani. That was your ground rule.”
At this, she fixes me with a look that’s meant to shush me. Her catlike eyes are searing into mine as a hand slips under my waistband. I instantly react with a twitch from inside my pants. “They’ll never hear us. They’ve got the karaoke machine on.”
As I give serious consideration to what’s about to happen, a laugh rises in my throat. I’ve known her all my life, but every day with Dani, in all her beautiful, complex designs, feels brand new. Once again, I snapshot the moment, saving it close to my heart. I just keep falling in love.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m just happy.” I can’t think of what else to say. She’s always been better at words. “You do that to me.”
At least it makes her blush. “Go lock the door, Parker.”
I kiss her on the forehead and do as my wife tells me.