30. Becca
THIRTY
BECCA
I gasp when I walk out onto my gravel drive.
“It’s street legal?”
Tyler chuckles. “I tried, anyway. Your chariot awaits.”
I cut my eyes up to him. “Did you wash it after,” I wag my eyebrows, “you know.”
Tyler’s cheeks are red through his cute little blonde beard, a little more grown in this week than his usual strictly-stubble look. “It’s clean,” he says. “Vacuumed it and everything.”
“The hood? Probably should have used Windex to make sure you got all the little swimmers.” I’m having the most magnificent time giving him some shit, and it’s a delight to watch him squirm.
The victory is mine because his dimple shows up just a second before he breaks into a full laugh. “You never change.”
“Is there something about being reliable in wedding vows? I can put that in mine. I promise to be reliably entertaining.”
He grins. “You don’t have to promise that. I’m getting that whether I like it or not.”
We’re at the passenger door and Tyler opens it for me, offering a hand to help me in.
When he gets in on his side, I pout at him. “Ellie gets a forehead kiss after you buckle her in.”
Tyler blinks several times. “You can buckle yourself in.”
“Yes, and? I deserve a reward for that.”
Tyler turns the ignition and buckles his seatbelt. He twists and puts his hand behind my seat before he backs up to the turnaround spot in my driveway. “Are forehead kisses part of husbandly duties?”
“Yes,” I huff. “Among other things.”
He moves his hand from behind my seat and shifts the car into drive, but before he goes on, his hand cups my head. Those deep eyes drink me in until he leans over and strains to kiss my forehead.
I hum and kick my feet to his deep chuckle. “How do you have so much joy?”
“Doesn’t take much to make me happy. In fact—” I dig in my purse and get out two sticks of bubblegum, “sometimes it’s just this simple.” I unwrap both pieces. “You want one?”
Tyler shakes his head, so I put both in my mouth and start working them up for bubbles.
“So,” I say when we’re out the road a bit, “are all your wedding day dreams coming true?”
Tyler doesn’t answer, but he spends a few moments taking his eyes off the road and putting them squarely on me.
Tyler’s the silent, brooding type, but he also doesn’t say shit he doesn’t mean. So I take him seriously when he answers my question.
“I guess they are.”
“Aren’t you all dolled up?” Ernest croons when Tyler and I walk into his room at Creek Shores. “And you brought reinforcements.”
I make a shushing motion. “We’re taking you on a field trip.”
“You and Mr. Meat and Potatoes?” Ernest tips his head at Tyler.
“Hi. I’m Tyler. Becca’s, um . . . we met on the phone last night.” Tyler sticks his hand out and Ernest gives it a fishy shake.
“I know what you are,” Ernest says. “Where are you taking me?”
The nerves start to set in and I hold my wrist in front of me. “Um, well? To the courthouse. We’re getting married today and we’d love to have you there with us.”
Ernest cackles and shakes his head. “It wouldn’t be your wedding day if there wasn’t some law breaking involved.”
I wink at him. “How cool is your nurse today, would you say?”
“I’ve saved up some brownie points. Let’s at least leave her a note, though.”
My eyes feel hot when my mom walks my way with her hands full of soft pink and white cosmos, flanked by baby’s breath and tied with a ribbon.
“Mom, these are perfect. Thank you.”
When I step in to hug her, I smell her “going out” perfume. “I had to race home to get them, but it was worth it.” She holds me back by my arms. “Almost like you told me to plant them this year for a reason, huh?”
I laugh and blush, but there’s no way I could have seen this coming when I gave her those cosmos seeds in April. I just thought they’d look good in a vase in her kitchen. “I guess it all worked out!”
We wander to where Mamaw is talking to Ernest, looking at Tyler standing across the courthouse hall. Ernest takes my hand and wiggles it. “You sure about him?”
My throat feels tight, but I shake his hand back. “Sure as I can be.”
“He’s lucky,” he says with a wink. “He’s getting our dollbaby.”
“Quit with that or you’ll mess up my makeup again.” I pat under my eyes.
“Why again?” Dusty asks, thumbing over his shoulder. “That asshole make you cry?”
I laugh and wave him off. “No, but I lost it thinking about y’all not being here for our big day. That’s why Ty called you in a panic.”
Dusty chuckles. “He really can’t stand someone being in discomfort.”
I quirk a brow at him. “I’ve never really known him to be like that.”
“Well, for someone he loves.” Dusty gestures at me. “He loves you. He doesn’t want you to be upset.”
“Yeah,” I say, but I get a frog in my throat. “Yes. Yes, he does. And I love him too.”
Well, that marks the first time I had to say I loved Tyler when that is quite the patent lie.
Luckily, Tyler’s parents come in toting Ellie, who wears a pretty, sparkly silver dress and squeals upon sight of us. “Miss Becca! Daddy! Uncle Dusty!” She starts looking around. “Everybody’s here!”
We laugh and Tyler takes her from his mom. “We’re all here, shug.”
I walk their way. “Everybody’s here. Should we get going? Let everybody get back to work?”
Tyler and I got here first and filled out all our paperwork, then waited for everyone we called to show up. A camera flashes next to me and I find Jake sheepishly lowering a Polaroid camera.
“Sorry, I gave Darcy the real camera,” he says. “This thing’s kinda loud.”
“What is that?” Ellie asks, looking curiously at Jake.
Jake starts to explain the camera and how it prints pictures right away to Ellie’s amazement, and Tyler gives me a look to get my attention.
“I’m glad we called everybody,” he says.
“Me too. Thank you.”
“You want a picture for your room?” Jake asks Ellie. “You three squish together.”
I put my arm around Tyler and lean into Ellie. “Cheese!”
Tyler and I kiss Ellie on each cheek, and Jake hands Ellie the picture. “Wave it around and it’ll show up faster.”
“Ready?” Tyler asks breathlessly.
“Ready.”
Darcy pulls me aside. “You don’t have to take it, but I brought something for you to borrow. If you want. No pressure.”
She pulls a white box out of the tote bag on her shoulder and opens the lid. She looks at me with a grimace.
“Oh, Darce.”
It’s her wedding veil.
“If you have another one or don’t want one, I totally get it. I’ve got a handkerchief with blue stitching down in here too.”
“Something borrowed, something blue,” I say, touching the gauzey veil.
“I can be something old,” Ernest says from next to me, and we crack up.
“She has to be wearing it,” Darcy laughs.
“Don’t tell nobody, but my socks are pretty dang old,” I chuckle, kicking up one of my white cowboy boots. “And my ring is new. Put on the veil for me?” I turn and lean back so Darcy can put the comb wherever it needs to go in my hair. Then I take the handkerchief and stick it in my cleavage.
I turn to face Darcy and her eyes are wet. “You look beautiful, Becca.”
I hug her and hold on an extra beat. “I hate that it’s fake,” I whisper in her ear.
I feel her nod against my shoulder. “Look around, babe. I think it’s pretty real.”
Nausea roils in my stomach as I consider the irony. For the most part, I’m getting the wedding of my dreams, but there’s that little detail that the person I’m marrying doesn’t particularly love me.
But I look at the little girl in his arms and remember the stakes. This is for us. For her. For him. For me. And there’s something lovely about that too.
Darcy holds both my hands and swings them between us. “Love it like it’s real.”
We tell everyone to go in, but hang back with Ernest, Dustin, and Ellie.
We stand at the back of the courtroom, and Tyler walks ahead of me, Ellie clinging to him like she’s shy. He kisses her cheek, hands her off to her papaw, and turns to wait for me and my boys. Darcy and Jake snap pictures, while Dusty is on my left and Ernest on my right.
Tyler’s Adam’s apple bobs, the muscles in his jaw straining and his breathing heavy. He bites his bottom lip like he’s about to cry, and the only person he’s looking at is me. I try to issue a reassuring smile, but there’s a pinch behind my eyes that makes it falter.
I will not cry twice in a single day when I haven’t cried in years.
When we make it to where Tyler stands with the judge, my heart races like I just ran up here rather than slowly walked. Dustin hugs Tyler and Ernest shakes his hand. Then Tyler slips his arm around my waist and kisses my temple.
“You’re gorgeous,” he whispers, and my heart skips, somewhere in my throat now rather than my chest. “I like the veil.”
“You probably think it’s stupid,” I joke.
Our pinkies brush while we try to figure out how to be, but Tyler’s fingers thread between mine with a squeeze. “Never. Gorgeous.”
I giggle nervously and look at the judge in front of us, a guy I know I’ve seen before in my time in this town. “Did you two want to say your vows or have me read them?”
Tyler and I exchange a look and unanimously say, “Read them.”
It’s a blur. Our hands join and we face each other.
We’re here of our own free will.
We understand that marriage is founded on mutual respect and affection, and I do genuinely feel that with Tyler now. It’s new and tentative, but I think the days of him hating me are behind us.
And affection, well, something happened on the hood of his LeBaron.
We vow to love, honor, and cherish each other.
His ring slips onto my finger, and mine onto his.
His smile as it’s declared that we are married will leave an echo inside me for the rest of my days.
And our former lives apart become one life together with one tip-toed, tightly-clutched, fervently-delivered kiss.