Chapter 51 #2
Mama held me just as tightly. For a few seconds, the bar and the Bourbon Kings and every threat waiting outside New Orleans disappeared.
I remembered my father, the stories I’d spent years laughing at, and a seventeen-year-old girl sitting in Rosewood who had looked at me once and changed every fucking plan I’d ever made.
When Mama stepped back, she patted my cheek. “Your daddy would be proud of you.”
“That’s debatable.”
“For the woman, Jasper. I didn’t say all the other foolishness.”
There she was.
I kissed her forehead.
Behind us, Gator made a gagging sound.
Mama turned.
He immediately became interested in a chair.
The next hour belonged entirely to the women.
I had thought Gator ran the Bourbon Bar.
That illusion died quickly.
Aunt Marabella directed the Bourbon Kings to rearrange furniture with a grandbaby in each arm, while my mama held the third, until the front half of the room resembled something that could reasonably host a wedding if everyone agreed not to examine the liquor bottles too closely.
Mama somehow produced flowers in quantities that made me wonder if she’d robbed a florist on the way over.
White roses, magnolia leaves, greenery, and smaller blooms I couldn’t identify appeared across tables and along the bar while Devlyn directed Bourbon Kings with such obvious delight that I suspected she’d been waiting months for someone else to seize control of her husband’s kingdom.
Gator objected twice.
The first time, Marabella told him to move a table.
The second time, she asked whether he wanted her to remind everyone how long he wet the bed.
There was no third objection.
The priest remained remarkably calm through all of it.
Father Benoit had known my family longer than I’d been alive and had probably seen enough La Croix weddings to understand that asking too many questions only delayed the inevitable.
When I asked Mama how the hell she’d convinced him to come on an hour’s notice, she looked offended.
“I didn’t convince him. I told him.”
Father Benoit lifted his coffee from across the room. “That is accurate.”
I laughed.
Mama pointed at me. “You think that’s funny, but I brought him because I know you. If I’d left you boys responsible for finding somebody to perform this wedding, Wade would’ve dragged in a bartender with an internet certificate and called it legal.”
Gator looked up from the tablecloth he was being forced to straighten. “I know a guy.”
“Exactly.”
By then, the Bourbon Bar was full.
Not with the people I’d expected to be present when I someday got married, mostly because until yesterday I hadn’t expected someday to be this fucking evening.
Bourbon Kings moved through the room carrying chairs, food, flowers, and bottles.
Devlyn had music playing softly somewhere behind the bar.
Aunt Marabella kept finding tasks for any man foolish enough to stand still.
It was loud.
Disorganized.
Completely fucking insane.
It felt like family.
Then Fiona came downstairs.
Every thought left my head.
The dress was simple. Soft ivory, falling around her body without too much lace or glitter to hide the woman wearing it. It came to her ankles, leaving a pair of shoes visible that I suspected Mama had also somehow produced from whatever magical Southern mother emergency supply she traveled with.
Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, and she carried a small bouquet of white flowers and greenery.
But none of that was what got me.
It was her face.
Fiona looked happy.
Not the fragile smile she’d given me after the parking lot. Not the exhausted one from our ride south. This one reached all the way into her eyes as she came down the stairs with Devlyn and Aunt Marabella behind her.
Mama stood beside me and sighed.
“I see it now.”
I couldn’t look away from Fiona. “See what?”
“Why you didn’t stand a chance.”
I smiled.
“Never had one.”
Fiona reached the bottom step, and for a second, she just stood there while the Bourbon Bar went strangely quiet around us.
Then she looked at me.
Everything I had imagined about this moment over the last year had been wrong.
I’d pictured Nebraska once or twice, some distant day after she finished college, maybe that imaginary house already built. I’d pictured my brothers there. King bitching about having to wear something decent. C.C. insulting my clothes. Mama crying whether she admitted it or not.
I had never pictured a Bourbon Bar wedding thrown together in a few hours because the world had gotten too fucking dangerous for patience.
And I wouldn’t have changed a goddamn thing.
I crossed the room to meet Fiona before anybody could tell me I was supposed to wait for her to come to me.
Her smile widened.
“You look beautiful.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Not even a little.”
She glanced around the bar. “Your mother is terrifying.”
“Now you understand me.”
“She’s wonderful.”
That was considerably more alarming.
I leaned closer. “Careful. She hears that and you’ll never get rid of her.”
Fiona’s eyes softened. “Maybe I don’t want to.”
Something tightened in my chest.
I kissed her forehead because if I kissed her mouth, Father Benoit might have to wait until I remembered why everyone was standing around us.
Mama cleared her throat anyway.
“Jasper.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Get where you belong.”
Fiona laughed as I let her hand remain in mine and moved with her to stand in front of Father Benoit.
There weren’t rows of chairs or a proper aisle. Half the Bourbon Kings were still standing around the bar, and I was pretty sure Worm had a whiskey glass tucked behind his back because Mama had already threatened anybody who started drinking before the vows were finished.
Gator stood closest to me.
Devlyn stood beside Fiona.
Mama and Aunt Marabella stood together near the front, both looking entirely too proud of the chaos they’d created in less time than most people took to make brunch reservations.
Father Benoit looked between Fiona and me.
“Before we begin, I want to make certain both of you understand the commitment you are making today.”
I almost told him my family had spent my entire life making sure I understood it.
Instead, I looked at Fiona.
She was watching me.
No uncertainty.
No fear.
I squeezed her fingers.
Father Benoit spoke about marriage, love, faith, and choosing each other through whatever came next.
I heard most of it. Probably. The problem was, Fiona kept looking at me like I was something she had chosen instead of something fate had dropped into her lap, and after a while, the priest’s voice became background to the fact that she was standing there.
Mine.
Not because of a curse.
Not because I decided it a year ago.
Because she had said yes.
When Father Benoit asked for the rings, Mama stepped forward and placed my father’s ring into Fiona’s palm.
Fiona looked down at it.
Then at me.
I saw the question before she asked.
“It was my dad’s.”
Her fingers closed carefully around the gold.
Mama answered the rest. “Been in our family for generations.”
Fiona’s eyes immediately filled.
“Oh no,” I murmured. “Don’t do that. You start, Mama starts, then Aunt Marabella starts, and the whole damn bar floods.”
Aunt Marabella sniffed loudly. “Hush, boy.”
Fiona laughed, her eyes still bright with unshed tears, and I decided that sound belonged in every important moment I had left.
Father Benoit continued.
I barely remembered repeating the words after him because I meant them before he gave them to me. Protect her. Honor her. Stand beside her. Choose her.
There was nothing in those vows I hadn’t already promised myself.
Fiona’s voice shook slightly when she repeated hers, but her hand stayed steady in mine.
Father Benoit smiled once we finished.
Then he looked around the Bourbon Bar.
“If anyone present knows of any reason these two should not be joined in marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Gator muttered, “Well, shit.”
The front door slammed open hard enough to rattle the glass.
Every head in the bar turned.
Granny Martha Steiner stood in the doorway.
Behind her, packed across the sidewalk and spilling toward the street, was what looked like the entire fucking Sons of Hell Motorcycle Club.
Brothers.
Old ladies.
Kids.
All of them.
Granny’s eyes found me.
“Oh fuck.”