Chapter 37
NATE
Two days later, after two sleepless nights hunched over my laptop with Kate beside me, we’d finally signed off on the last of the acquisition paperwork just after dawn this morning. I wasn’t sure either of us had even processed the fact that it was finally done.
We’d just sort of stopped when Will had told us to go home, and for once, I had actually listened. I’d slept maybe an hour. Kate probably hadn’t slept at all yet and now here we were. It felt like a fucking dream.
I pushed open a heavy service door and led her through the tunnel, out onto Wrigley Field. The sudden openness made the whole place feel bigger than it ever did during a game. Without the crowds and the noise, the stadium felt almost sacred.
The stands stretched up in quiet rows of empty seats around us, the massive scoreboard looming dark and still above center field. Even the lights seemed softer without thousands of people underneath them.
Kate slowed beside me as her heels sank slightly into the grass. “Okay. This is actually kind of amazing.”
I folded my arms, watching her turn in a slow circle. Her sweater shifted in the breeze and her curls moved freely around her shoulders, completely untamed for once. She’d given up on trying to make them behave more and more often since Saturday, and I’d been quietly grateful ever since.
Will cleared his throat from somewhere behind us. “Not to rush anyone, but this might be the strangest workday of my entire career.”
I glanced back at him, standing near the edge of the infield dirt with his hands in his pockets, looking deeply uncomfortable. Despite my exhaustion and our situation, I grinned. “What, witnessing an emergency wedding isn’t part of your job description? We should have HR look into that.”
Next to him, a lawyer flipped through a thin binder with professional indifference, his Cubs jersey stretched slightly over his stomach. He’d managed to get certified to be our officiant, but I’d only really cared about the location. The law firm we’d been a client of for ages arranged the rest.
Kate turned back to look at me, her eyes bright with disbelief and exhaustion. “This is the tackiest thing I’ve ever done.”
Will snorted and I didn’t even try to hide my smile. “You’re welcome.”
Her mouth twitched. “I mean, honestly. A shotgun wedding on a baseball field? What are we, secretly from Texas?”
“Unless you’ve got something to tell me, it’s not a shotgun wedding,” I said. “It’s strategic.”
“Strategic,” she repeated flatly. “Now that’s romantic.”
“Nothing says corporate synergy like lawful matrimony,” Will muttered.
Kate laughed, the sound carrying in the open space as we moved closer to the infield.
I stopped a few feet in front of her, suddenly aware of how real this was about to become.
Two nights ago, we’d been buried in spreadsheets and contracts.
Just yesterday, we’d still technically been only two people trying to figure out what we were to each other.
Now, we were standing here, about to get married because time had run out and the world wouldn’t wait for us to catch our breath.
She folded her arms loosely, looking up at the stands again before her gaze drifted back to mine. “So this is where you always imagined getting married, huh?”
“Yeah.” I looked into her eyes, watching a stray red curl float on the breeze for a fraction of a second. “I know it probably seems childish. I kind of thought I’d change my mind eventually myself, but it just never happened.”
Baseball was one of the only things in my life that had ever been simple, and although I hadn’t said that part out loud, her eyes softened a little. Like she knew anyway.
But then I noticed the hat she was wearing again and pointed at it. “That’s disrespectful.”
She innocently touched the brim of her New York Yankees cap. “What, this?”
“Yes, that.”
“It’s a classic,” she said.
“It’s a crime is what it is.”
“I’m not taking sides,” Will said mildly. “But it does feel intentional.”
Kate grinned. “Thank you, Will.”
“This is Chicago Cubs territory,” I said. “Show some respect.”
“I am respecting it,” she said lightly. “By improving it.”
I wouldn’t even justify that with a response, so I just stared at her instead and she stared right back. Then we were both laughing, the tension cracking just enough to let us have just one damn moment of something actually resembling happiness on our wedding day.
God, she looks beautiful. Just real. Tired, slightly windblown, and entirely herself, and despite everything, she was here. Still choosing this. Still choosing me.
Five years of emails. Three years of constant fighting.
Weeks of pretending. Days of unraveling.
Somehow it’d all led her here, to this moment on this field, standing in front of me wearing the wrong team’s hat, about to say I do.
The lawyer cleared his throat politely, drawing my attention away from her.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he said. “We should really get this show on the road, though. Before they realize there’s a Yankees fan getting married on our field.”
My heart rate spiked as Kate and I both turned to face him. He flipped a page in his binder, his tone remarkably similar to one usually reserved for municipal paperwork when he finally got started. “We’ll keep this brief.”
“Please do,” Kate said. “I have emails waiting and I’d like to sleep again at some point this century.”
“You’re getting married,” I said. “Try to live in the moment.”
She shot me a look. “I am living in the moment. This moment just happens to be inconvenient. Do you have any idea how far behind I am on all my other work?”
Will made a choking sound that might have been a laugh. Honestly, though, it looked like he was having the time of his life. I should’ve expected that.
Every time Kate opened her mouth, his expression brightened a little more, like he was thoroughly enjoying having scored a front-row seat to what he thought was sure to be a disaster. The lawyer cleared his throat and launched into it, the words he said blurring together a little.
Kate shifted her weight beside me, her shoulder brushing mine. Even through layers of clothing, the contact was still distracting enough that I had to force myself to focus on the lawyer’s voice instead of her warmth.
“Do you—” he began.
“Yes,” Kate said.
He blinked hard, clearly surprised. “Ma’am, I haven’t—”
“Yes,” she repeated. “Whatever it is. Yes.”
Will outright laughed and the lawyer sighed but made a small note on his paper. Like he could just blow past it because it wasn’t the strangest thing he’d heard from a client today, which honestly concerned me a little.
When it was my turn, I didn’t hesitate either, but at least I let him finish his question before I gave my answer. “Yes.”
Kate glanced at me and I inhaled sharply when her gaze met mine, realizing this was the first time I was looking at her as my wife. At least the word had come out confidently, even if it had felt like my world had tilted on its axis when I’d said it.
Either way, the lawyer nodded briskly, apparently satisfied, and said a few final words that sounded official enough to count. Then he gestured between us. “You may kiss the bride.”
Kate snorted quietly under her breath, like this was the most ridiculous thing ever, but she turned to face me anyway. I went in for a quick kiss, not planning on turning it into anything dramatic, but as soon as my lips touched hers, everything else fell away.
The field, the paperwork, the pressure, and even the noise in my head. For just that one moment, there was nothing other than Kate, my wife.
Shit, that really is going to take some getting used to.
I stepped back before I could linger too long and turned toward the small folding table they’d set up with the paperwork. If I didn’t keep moving, I’d start thinking, and thinking would be dangerous right now, so I just picked up the pen and signed my name.
It looked surreal on the page, that one word I’d now suddenly added to my very identity. Married.
Meanwhile, Kate was already talking to the lawyer again behind me. “I still think I deserve a hot dog.”
“I said I’d consider it,” he replied.
“You promised.”
He frowned. “I did not promise.”
“Okay, you implied with great enthusiasm that you’d buy me a hot dog if I didn’t make this difficult for any of you.”
I shook my head slightly as I finished signing and chuckled under my breath, sliding the certificate back across the table. The lawyer took it carefully and passed it over to Kate with a pointed look on his face.
“Let’s talk about that hot dog after you put some ink on this paper.”
Leaving her to bicker about her right to a snack, I turned around to see Will watching me, but he wasn’t smiling anymore. Instead, he lifted his eyebrows slightly and tipped his head toward the outfield in a silent question.
A request to talk, I suspected. I walked over, curious about what was going on, but my brother didn’t say a word until we were far enough away that Kate’s voice had faded into the background. He glanced back once, like he was making sure we were out of earshot. Then he looked at me again.
“Congratulations,” he said.
“Thanks, but you didn’t call me over here for that, so what’s this about?”
His gaze moved from one of my eyes to the other, his expression completely serious now. “Have you taken care of the Emma thing? Please tell me you took care of it before you got married.”
My heart tripped over itself and I opened my mouth to answer, but I had no idea what to say. How was I supposed to explain that the woman I’d spent five years falling in love with was the woman I’d just married? That the problem had solved itself in the most chaotic way possible?
Before I could figure out where to even begin, Kate’s voice carried across the field as she walked toward us, one hand holding the brim of her cap against the breeze. “Nate?”
Will glanced at her, then back at me. Something unreadable flickered across his face. Then he clapped me on the shoulder. “It’s okay. We’ll talk later. Bye, Kate.”
He gave her a quick hug, then waved at us as he left, heading back toward the tunnel with his hands in his pockets.
Kate watched him go with mild confusion furrowing her brow before she turned back toward me. “What was that all about?”
“Nothing particularly important right now,” I said, but even as the words came out, I wasn’t entirely certain they were true.
Will knew about Emma. He knew how messed up I’d been before I’d known Emma and Kate were the same person, and I suddenly couldn’t help wondering if telling him the truth back then had just become a complication I hadn’t seen coming.