Chapter 38 Tessa
Chapter thirty-eight
Tessa
The words hang in the air between us.
I choose you.
My breath catches.
George is watching me like he's handed me a live grenade. He's very still, very alert, committed to the action but not entirely sure he hasn't made a catastrophic miscalculation.
His hands are slightly unsteady at his sides.
That's the thing that gets me. He didn't engineer this moment. He didn't stress-test it or build in contingencies.
I take one breath. And then I take a step toward him.
His eyes track the movement like he's afraid he's misreading it, like he might have to revise his interpretation at any moment. I don't make him.
The distance between us closes, and I notice, absurdly, that he still has a small crease on his collar from where he'd been tugging at it during the ceremony.
I close the last of the space between us and kiss him.
For a second, it feels like stepping off something. Like there should be a drop, a consequence, a moment where I reconsider.
There isn’t.
He goes still for half a heartbeat and then he’s there, fully. His restraint is gone. Like he is finally letting go of it.
His hand comes up to the side of my face.
Behind us, the reception murmurs.
A low whistle cuts through the room, followed by a theatrical slow clap that could only belong to Daniel. I pull back just enough to breathe, my forehead still nearly touching George's, his thumb still resting at my cheekbone. He lets out a short, undone sound that is almost a laugh.
"Hi," he says.
It is possibly the least adequate thing anyone has ever said. It is also, somehow, perfect.
"Hi," I say back, and I'm smiling before I can stop it, which is a sensation I've been actively resisting for the better part of a month.
The room is starting to stir around us. I can feel it. Eleanor, near the centerpiece of white dahlias, makes absolutely no effort whatsoever to appear casual. Her whole face is glowing.
I take his hand, fingers threading through his, and feel him squeeze back like punctuation.
"Come on," I say.
He blinks at me. He's still slightly recalibrating, still wearing that stunned, endearing expression I have absolutely no professional category for.
His gaze drifts toward the side exit with a hopefulness so transparent it's almost touching.
He wants a hallway. Five minutes. Somewhere that isn't a room full of people who are already forming opinions and will absolutely be sharing them later.
Too bad that is not my plan. I tug him forward into the room.
"Where are we going?" he asks.
"Back to your speech," I tell him.
He stares at me. The look is pure incredulity, the kind that involves a brief, silent negotiation with the universe. I tug him forward before he can open that negotiation out loud.
We step back into the reception together, and the room's attention snaps toward us like a compass needle finding north. Their attention is instant, unanimous, and slightly hungry.
I squeeze his hand.
The warmth of his palm against mine is steadier than I expected. He's nervous, I can feel the faint tension in his grip, but he's not running. George moves toward the microphone stand with the careful deliberateness of a man reconstructing his composure in real time, and I admire the effort, I do.
And then I step forward and take the microphone first.
His hand hangs in the air for one beat, empty, surprised. A ripple of delighted laughter moves through the room and I catch his expression shifting from stunned to fondness.
The microphone is heavier than it looks. I adjust my grip and resist the urge to clear my throat in that way that announces to everyone that you're buying time.
"I spend a lot of time thinking about compatibility," I begin, and my voice comes out steadier than I have any right to expect given the last four minutes of my life. "Timing, alignment, the eighteen-point framework I made George sit through on Tuesday that he will never get back."
Another ripple of laughter. George makes a small sound beside me, something between protest and affection. The two have been getting harder to distinguish.
"But watching Eleanor and Daniel—" I gesture toward them, and Eleanor's face does something complicated and luminous, like sunlight hitting water, "—I remembered something I haven't been able to quantify."
The room settles into quiet. The good kind of quiet.
The kind where people have stopped checking their phones, where glasses are set down and conversations are let go.
I can smell the warm scent of candle wax and someone's tuberose perfume, and underneath it all, faintly, something that I've already started to associate with standing next to George.
"Love isn't clean," I say. "It isn't a spreadsheet. It isn't the version where everything lines up and nobody has to risk anything."
I glance at him just for a second, I can't help it.
He is watching me with an expression I don't have a professional category for and am rapidly developing one.
"It works because you choose each other," I continue, turning back to the room, keeping my voice even. "Again and again. Even when it's inconvenient. Especially then."
I let the silence hold for exactly one breath. Then I lift my glass.
"To Eleanor and Daniel. Congratulations."
The room erupts in applause, a cheer from somewhere near the back, the bright sound of glasses lifting. Eleanor is crying, Daniel's arm already around her shoulders. I turn to George and hold out the microphone.
"Here you go," I say. "You can finish your toast now."
He takes it, fingers brushing mine in the handoff, and for a moment neither of us moves. Neither of us quite lets go. Then he turns to face the room with a small, composed breath, and the guests settle again, willing to follow wherever this evening decides to take them.
"To my little sister," George says, his voice finding its footing, "and her new husband."
He pauses. The corner of his mouth lifts.
"And to love," he adds. "Apparently."
The applause rises again, warm and full, and I stay beside him as it does. His shoulder is close enough to mine that I can feel the faint heat of it. I want five minutes alone with him.
Though if I'm being honest with myself, which I am increasingly committed to trying, we're probably not going to spend those five minutes talking.