Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
My rendition of Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” is a hit.
Shawn and Ellen Finn dance alone while surrounded by several generations of family, very few of them dry-eyed.
When the band throws a few upbeat Irish songs they played at the pub into the set, Shawn and Seamus are standing by the stage, singing along.
Bellamy requests another Joel hit, “You May Be Right,” and whips a laughing Seamus around on the dance floor before pulling him close and playfully grabbing his ass.
They’re joined by Owen Finn and his husband Jeremy, Senator Stephen and his wife Natasha, and Shawn and Ellen’s only daughter Jennifer, who is splitting her time between her two very attentive partners.
After several requests, including one from Jake and another from the actual band—who’d been practicing all day yesterday without me—I sing “Pink Pony Club” and nearly bring the lodge down.
Every woman in the family gets on the dance floor for that one, including the teenage Penny and my gang’s favorite ex-bartender Fiona, who is definitely pregnant again, both trying to mimic my dance moves while giggling together like best friends.
There’s so much love in the room, it’s choking me.
I haven’t seen Michael for hours, though his dessert towers were set up at the table and promptly dismantled in less than fifteen minutes after the special couple got their sample. The Finns are a shameless and ravenous horde and I hope someone saved a few for me.
I’m never left alone. Whenever the band takes a break, Bex, Val and Connor are right there, making sure I’ve eaten, handing me water and praising my performance while still teasing me mercilessly. I couldn’t have gotten through this day without them.
“You’re so good at this, you could have been a wedding singer,” Bex says with a playful grin. “Instead, you tossed it all away to teach history.”
“Clearly, I’ve wasted my life.” I watch the crowd mill around in groups, talking and hugging and chasing after the younger children.
I see the bearded man I once thought Michael might be dating standing with a few of his brothers.
He’s holding someone’s baby in his arms while a redheaded boy that could be in my class in a few years leans against him, obviously tired.
James. That’s the man’s name. He looks a little like Brady.
Better than I would have expected after the stories I’d heard.
“I have missed singing,” I find myself telling them. “And performing. I’ve been thinking I might need to do something about that. Maybe I can put a school band together or something.”
“Mighty Win, the sequel?” Connor asks before nodding enthusiastically at the idea. “My assistant coach actually plays a mean bass guitar. And the band director plays the keyboard and drums. He was in a blues band until last year.”
“How do you know that when I don’t?” I ask in disbelief.
“I’m easygoing Coach Lafferty.” He smiles and shrugs. “People tell me things.”
“I think you should do it,” Val adds his two cents, more relaxed than I’ve seen him in a while, in spite of the fact that Kate Finn is on the other side of the large room.
“Maybe I will.”
“Does that mean you’re coming back after your break?”
I hesitate, because I’m not sure yet, and I don’t want to lie to Connor.
“He’s still got six months left,” Bex says protectively. “There’s no hurry.”
My roommate puts his arm around my shoulders. “You’re right. Forget I asked.”
I blink in surprise. Is he actually mellowing about my decision? Or is this Veronica’s influence already at work? “Where’s your date?”
“Working. She gets a break in five minutes or so, though, so sing something romantic. I want to ask her to dance.”
“Are you sure?” Val asks dubiously, making me laugh.
“Don’t worry. Conman has the slow dance down. I taught it to him myself. It’s his white-man boogie that could still use a little work.”
The guitar player heads back up to the stage as our break ends, and that’s when I see him. Michael. He’s talking by the door with Bellamy and Ken and looking directly at me. From this distance I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“The band break is going to be extended for another minute or two,” Seamus says into the microphone, an apologetic smile on his face. “I’m not doing another toast, I swear.”
“Good. You’ve made us cry enough for one evening,” Kate calls out, and I can’t help but agree with her. Seamus Finn is the king of heartwarming speeches.
Connor leans down to whisper in my ear, “Your guy is glaring at me. Did you tell him I didn’t mean the Liam Neeson thing?”
“I told him you hit me.”
“You told him that?” he asks loudly, his eyes wide. “I was six, man. And you were gluing glitter to everything back then. It got in my pants . Not on my pants. In them .”
Someone at a nearby table bursts out laughing, and it starts a chain reaction as I grin up at him. “We’re always going to remember this moment, Connor. The moment when you were at a Finn anniversary party, talking about your glitter penis.”
“Okay, I can tell everybody is having a good time,” Seamus interrupts the new wave of laughter, “and that’s what this weekend was supposed to be about right?
Before we all got snowed in together? It’s fitting in a way.
In any long-term relationship, after you fall together, you stay together.
No matter what kind of obstacles other people—or Mother Nature—put in front of you. ”
“Hear, hear!” Shawn Finn raises his pint and kisses his tired but joyful wife on her cheek.
“I thought you weren’t doing any more toasts, damn it,” someone—it sounds like Natasha Finn—shouts.
Seamus grins. “That wasn’t a toast. I’m just up here to introduce someone else who’d like to say a few words.”
Val stills beside me and I place an excited hand on his arm. We both know what’s about to happen now.
“Now he’s glaring at Val,” Connor mutters under his breath.
“Most of us met Ken a little over seven years ago. My brother Stephen’s wife, of course, has known him a lot longer. In fact, she was the one who introduced Brady to Ken for the first time, under circumstances we’ve all agreed to never mention again in mixed company.”
“You all signed paperwork,” Stephen reminds them lazily.
Connor gives me a wide-eyed look and I shrug, unwilling to spoil the surprise for him.
“A lot has changed since then. Our family has grown. New partners. New babies and new friends to share our lives with. And most of us have believed for years that it’s all because of our resident matchmaker. But maybe we were wrong, since Ken told me a few hours ago that it absolutely wasn’t true.”
The crowd is now a sea of confused frowns. And I’m biting my nails to keep from clapping or shouting or ruining the moment.
Seamus smiles. “Come on up here and explain it to them, Tanaka.”
When I glance toward Ken, Michael is still staring at me, but he’s moved a little closer to the door.
If he wants to talk in private, he’s not the only one.
I need to apologize. To tell him why I reacted so badly and ask for another chance.
But I can’t leave just yet. Not after Bex had shown me the video and I knew what was about to happen.
It was less than a minute long. In the recording, he and Brady were holding up a marriage license so the camera could zoom in to verify its authenticity, and then it pulled back so Ken could look deeply into the camera and whisper, “I am the night.”
I can’t believe they got him to say the Batman catchphrase on camera. Or that they left the lodge for a few hours and got married while everyone in Brady’s family was right here. Completely oblivious.
“Thank you, Shawn and Ellen, for letting me speak tonight,” Ken starts smoothly, drawing my attention.
“I have something I need to say to your nephew in front of all the people that love him.” He takes Brady’s hand and my vision gets instantly blurry.
“Before I met you, I spent most of my time in the dark. It was my job to be there. To see into those dark corners where people hide things they don’t want anyone else to know about.
It left a mark on me. I don’t think I realized the extent of it, until you came along and made me want to fight for something instead of against it.
I had people I protected, but you gave me a family to love.
I was Uncle Necky. I was Batman. I was yours.
” He takes a shaky breath and Brady steps closer, as if to shield him from his own emotions.
“Even after all these years together, I still only want to be yours. Tied and bound to you in every way possible. I lost the plot for a while. But you’ve always been my light, Brady Finn.
I swear I’ll never lose sight of that again. ”
Ken looks out at the family, at us, with such fierce adoration on his face my heart stutters.
“I know you’ve all been waiting for a while, but tonight, I wanted to officially invite all of you to my wedding to Brady, exactly four months from today.
A summer destination wedding. Location TBD, but I’m voting for an island. ”
The dining hall erupts with stomping and whistling and shouts of “Finally!” and “About time!”
Ken holds up his hand. “I’m almost done.
This morning, I told Shawn about our plans.
I also told him that I couldn’t wait another minute to make things legal, even if it meant getting married before the wedding and on his anniversary.
He agreed and gave us his blessing, so we went down the mountain to find a justice of the peace to do the deed before lunch. ”
“Wait, are you saying you’re already married?” someone shouts in confusion.
Ken nods. “Bellamy’s brother reminded me about the state of the world we’re living in today, and we didn’t want to wait. But there is no way I’m not making a huge spectacle out of finally marrying the love of my life.”