Chapter 30 #3
"Not the whole time. Your mother called while you were in the shower at the hotel.
Told me the plan. Swore me to secrecy." He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch gentle.
"I thought about warning you. But then I realized you'd stress about it the entire trip, and I wanted you to actually enjoy Quebec. "
"So you let me walk into an ambush."
"I let you walk into a surprise reception thrown by people who love you and wanted to celebrate us." He pauses, his thumb brushing my cheekbone. “Big difference.”
I want to argue, but he's right.
I look around the room again—at all these people who showed up on New Year's Eve to celebrate a marriage that started as a drunken mistake and somehow became the most real thing in my life.
"Okay," I say finally. "This is actually really sweet."
"It is."
"But I'm still wearing jeans to my own wedding reception."
"You look perfect."
"I look like I just got off a plane from hell."
"You look like my wife. That's all that matters."
Before I can respond, Amelia appears with champagne glasses again. "Speech time! Victor, you're up!"
"I'm what?"
"Speech! You have to give a speech! You're the groom!" She's practically bouncing, her red dress swishing with the movement.
"I didn't prepare a speech."
"Neither did Harper, but she's doing one too! Come on!" She physically pushes us toward the front of the room, where everyone is gathering, and suddenly everyone's looking at us expectantly, glasses raised, smiles wide.
Victor looks at me. I look at Victor.
"You go first," I say.
"Absolutely not. Ladies first."
"That's sexist."
"That's chivalrous."
"It's cowardly."
"It's smart.”
Roman starts a chant: "Speech! Speech! Speech!"
Everyone joins in, the voices rising, filling the room, and I realize there's no getting out of this.
"Fine." I raise my glass, and the room goes quiet. The sudden silence is almost louder than the noise was. "Um. Hi. So, this is unexpected."
Laughter ripples through the crowd, warm and affectionate.
“Nearly three months ago, I got on a plane to Vegas for my sister's bachelorette party.
I was freshly divorced, professionally adrift, and pretty sure my life had peaked at twenty-five.
" I glance at Victor, whose gray eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that makes my chest tight.
"And then I met this guy. This impossibly handsome, grumpy as hell, control-freak CEO who somehow saw something in me that I'd stopped seeing in myself. "
Victor's watching me with an expression that makes my heart do a full-twisting layout beneath my breast.
"We got married by accident. We became friends by necessity. We fell in love by—" I stop, my throat suddenly tight. "By not being able to help it. And now here we are. Married for real. On purpose. With all of you as witnesses to this absolute chaos we call a relationship."
I raise my glass higher. "So thank you. For being here. For celebrating us. For loving us even when we're disasters. To family—blood, chosen, and the cats in tuxedos who tolerate us."
"To family!" everyone echoes, glasses raising.
Victor takes over smoothly, his hand finding mine.
"I'm not good at speeches. I'm better at spreadsheets and acquisitions and pretending I don't have feelings.
" He pauses, and there's a ripple of laughter.
"But Harper changed that. She made me want things I'd convinced myself I didn't need.
Things like home, and family, and a wife who spills beverages on me with alarming frequency. "
I laugh, and so does everyone else.
"So thank you all for coming. For celebrating with us. For accepting that the Ice Prince finally melted." He looks at me, his gray eyes soft in the candlelight. "And for accepting her, even though she has terrible taste in men."
"Hey!"
He kisses my temple, his lips warm against my skin. "To Harper. The only person who could make me host parties, cook on camera, and voluntarily spend time with large groups of people. I love you.”
We kiss, and the room erupts in cheers and applause and the sound of glasses clinking, and for a moment, everything is perfect.
Then I hear it.
A crash. A yowl. The distinct sound of something toppling.
I turn just in time to see Rasputin—having apparently escaped his carrier—leap onto the gift table with the grace of a drunken gymnast.
His tiny tuxedo makes the movement look even more absurd. He lands on top of a wrapped box, which tilts, which knocks over a candle, which rolls directly into the crocheted congratulations blanket Margot and Amelia made.
The blanket—covered in pixelated hearts and the words "PLAYER 1 & PLAYER 2" in bright colors—immediately catches fire.
"FIRE!" someone yells.
Everyone starts moving at once.
Dad grabs a pitcher of water from the drinks table—ice cubes flying everywhere, water sloshing. Mom starts beating the flames with a dish towel, the terry cloth making a whump-whump sound against the table.
Christian appears with a fire extinguisher from God knows where—does my parents' house have fire extinguishers? Where was it?—and puts out the fire with a whoosh of white foam that covers everything in a three-foot radius.
The chemical smell of the fire extinguisher fills the room, sharp and acrid, cutting through the smell of flowers and food.
Rasputin, completely unconcerned with the chaos he's created, sits on top of the cake table, one paw raised, licking it. His tuxedo is slightly askew now, the bow tie crooked, giving him an even more villainous appearance.
The room goes silent.
The blanket is ruined—a charred, foam-covered mess that's dripping water and chemicals onto Mom's hardwood floor. The gift table is slightly singed. There's foam on at least three presents.
The candle that started it all is on its side, wax pooled on the white tablecloth.
Then Babushka starts laughing. "Is perfect! Wedding reception with excitement! Very American! Very dramatic!"
And just like that, everyone else starts laughing too.
"Well," Victor says, pulling me against him, his arm solid around my waist, his body warm. "That's one way to make the evening memorable."
"Should we be concerned that a cat in a tuxedo just committed arson at our wedding reception?"
"Probably. But I'm choosing to find it endearing." He kisses the top of my head, his lips warm against my hair. "Besides, now we have a story."
I laugh, burying my face in his chest. Under my cheek, I can feel his heartbeat, steady and strong.
"I love you," I say. "Even though you didn't warn me about the surprise reception."
"I love you too. Even though you insisted on commercial flights."
"Never again."
"Never again," he agrees, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
Around us, the party continues.
Someone turns the music back up. The champagne keeps flowing. The grandmothers cluster around the food table, arguing about something in rapid Italian, their hands moving in elaborate gestures.
Someone starts cutting the cake—carefully, avoiding the section where Rasputin is still perched like a furry gargoyle.
My sisters are already taking photos of the burnt blanket, probably for future blackmail purposes.
Dad's telling the fire extinguisher story to anyone who will listen, embellishing more with each retelling.
And Victor and I stand there in the middle of the chaos—in my parents' house in Queens, surrounded by everyone we love.
"So," I say, looking up at him. "This is our life now."
"Apparently."
"Surprise wedding receptions. Cats committing arson. Flying commercial and immediately regretting it."
"Don't forget the beverage incidents."
"The pattern is undeniable at this point."
"Three liquids and counting." His smile is soft, genuine, the one he only gives me. "What's next? Wine at a state dinner? Soup at a charity gala?"
"Don't give me ideas." I pull back to look at him. “But to be fair, I wouldn't change a single thing."
His smile widens. "Neither would I."
We kiss again, and this time, when everyone cheers, I don't even care that Rasputin chooses that exact moment to knock over another candle.
Dad catches it this time.
We're learning.
And somewhere in the chaos and the laughter and the love, I realize that this—all of this—is exactly what happily ever after looks like.
Messy. Sticky. Sometimes flammable.
And full of people and cats and near-disasters and joy.
Perfect.