Epilogue
SAbrINA - EIGHT YEARS LATER
“Are you sure you don’t want to spend your anniversary doing something more fun, like heading back to the poker machines?” Caden asked Jesse and Emily as we shared a cab to the Las Vegas Marriage License Bureau.
“Babe, you can play after we get back.” I patted his knee. “Don’t waste all your time there.”
“But I was on a roll,” Caden whined as he leaned his head against the window.
“You should thank us,” Emily quipped. “Now you can keep all your winnings instead of putting them back.”
“For now,” I said with a chuckle, kissing his cheek when he turned to glower at me.
We’d all managed to keep this surprise to ourselves, and I had been chill about it until we’d piled into the cab. It should’ve been anticlimactic after all this time, and I doubted he’d say no, but nerves got to me all the same, heightening every mile we drove from the lights of The Strip.
Caden and I had been living together for years, ever since Emily had given me her apartment to move in with Jesse and his niece. Friends and family would ask when we’d make it official, and we’d always blow them off without an explanation.
Truth was, we were as official as I could handle. I was still terrified of marriage, even with Caden. I’d always trusted him with everything, but holding that last and final piece of myself felt so crucial—if silly after all this time.
While Caden always insisted he was happy with the way things were as long as we were together, I’d spot a wistful gleam in his eye at the weddings we’d attend or how he always made it a point to ask Jesse about his “wife” when he referred to Emily.
He’d never push me and had always put me first. Some would say living together for so many years would make marriage a moot point, but to him, I knew it was an important one. And to me, because that one little concession would mean everything to him.
I’d never told Caden what his mother had told me, even after she’d passed away. She might not have been connected to reality when she’d said Caden had always loved me, but I believed it to be true. He’d shown me every single day. Not just when we reconnected years later, but as teenagers too.
Whenever I’d had a problem, either at home or with some stupid boy, he’d made it his mission to make it better. And he was still like that.
Being his wife wouldn’t be a concession. It would be an honor. And while this trip was sort of an ambush, it was my way of showing him I had zero doubts.
“Why do you need a marriage license to get married out here if you’re already married? Isn’t it valid everywhere?” Caden asked after we stepped out of the cab.
“No, they don’t need one,” I said, biting back a smile when Jesse and Emily shared a laugh behind Caden’s back.
“Okay,” he said, eyeing all of us with a deep crease in his forehead. “Then why are we here?”
“They don’t need one, but we do. So, if we are going to make our appointment at the chapel, we need to go inside.”
“Wait? What? Our appointment for…” He trailed off, his eyes popping open as realization dawned across his face.
“I love you. And I’ve made you wait long enough.
Yes, I said I never wanted to get married again and you insisted you were fine with it, but I want to be married to you.
” I took his hand as his eyes still blazed into mine.
“I think it’s time I gave you everything since that’s all you’ve ever given me. Please marry me today.”
He stood, frozen, as I watched the roll of his throat.
“You’re asking me to marry you? Here? That’s what this trip was about?” He glanced over at Jesse and Emily. “And they were in on it?”
“Yep,” Jesse said. “And the look on your face already makes the cost of airfare and hotel worth it.”
“Absolutely,” Emily said, a watery laugh escaping her. Shit, my best friend was going to make me cry even harder.
“Aren’t you supposed to get down on one knee?” Caden asked, chuckling as he swiped at his cheek with the heel of his hand. “I mean, a job worth doing is worth doing right.”
I raised a brow and shrugged as I sank down to the floor.
“If that’s what you want…”
He pulled me up by my arm, grabbing my face to press his mouth against mine, his hands shaking against my cheeks as he slanted his head, kissing me deep enough to leave me breathless.
“I love you so fucking much,” Caden murmured against my lips.
“Hey, save it for later. Are you in line or what?”
We broke apart and craned our necks to the couple behind us. A man in a Hawaiian shirt draped over a woman with smeared makeup, adjusting her halter top as she glared at us.
“Sorry, we’ll be quick,” I said, pulling Caden over to one of the clerks.
“Should we change?” he whispered, nodding to where they now stood behind us. “Pretend we’re on a bender so it looks like a real Vegas marriage?”
“I think we’re good, babe. I just want to marry you as soon as possible.”
A slow grin spread on his beautiful face, his chocolate eyes dancing as they held mine.
“Anything for my wife.”
“Someone really thought ‘Now or Never’ was a good name for a Vegas wedding chapel?” Caden mused as we waited at the end of the aisle to be called. “I’m sober and sure, but that’s a lot of pressure if you’re here on a whim.”
“Hal is the cutest thing. Elvis jumpsuit and everything,” I whispered. “If you want an actual wedding, we can put something together when we get—”
“I don’t. I just want you. Elvis is perfect. Or, what is his name?”
“Hal,” I said, jutting my chin to the altar. “I think we’re up.”
The beginning chords of “Love Me Tender” piped through the speakers as we made our way up the aisle.
Hal made a little speech about marriage and seizing the moment, but I half listened. Caden only looked at me, his eyes full of excitement and contentment, triggering a twinge of guilt that we hadn’t stood here sooner.
But maybe the wait was what made this moment so wonderful.
“Do you, Sabrina, take Caden to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do,” I said, another rush of emotion burning my eyes. A Vegas wedding was supposed to be the quick, fast-food-type of way of getting married, but it felt huge all the same.
“Do you, Caden, take Sabrina to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“Hell fucking yes,” Caden breathed out, as if he’d been waiting to say it for a long time.
“He sounds eager,” Hal said, his belly, fighting with the stitching on his jumpsuit already, shaking with a laugh.
“By the power vested in me by the great state of Nevada, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
“You’re damn right you do,” Caden rasped and pulled me to him by my waist, dipping me back for a deep, passionate kiss that made the one leg still on the floor almost buckle.
Unlike my first marriage, I was here with no doubts and no desire to be anywhere else but at Caden’s side. I’d decided that longer, bumpy roads had the best destinations.
And Caden was the best.
Now, he was finally all mine, with all the attachments and not a drop of regret. Forever.
Thank you for reading Caden and Sabrina’s story!