Chapter 14 #3
“I know” is his only reply. And there is a light chuckle from the people who surround us.
Chandler takes my bouquet, releasing my hands from their task of gripping something.
Resulting now in an absence of what to do with them.
But his are extended to me so subtly, that I can slip them into the partnership of his grip.
Standing here in this well-crafted ruse, the photographs will appear far from fake.
Lucas clears his throat. “We’re here,” he begins, looking out at the assembled group and city beyond, all of which has been brought together into something extraordinary by sheer force of intention, “because these two people have made a choice.” He looks back at us.
“A legally binding one, which I can confirm is entirely in order.” A small chuckle moves through the chairs.
They all had doubts about this. But Hudson and I agreed, no one can know the depth of the truth.
So any suspicions are reduced to a bit of laughter that Lucas waits to pass.
“A choice that, above all the paperwork, is the most important one of all. It’s the choice to love. ”
Lucas turns to me.
“Louisa, do you take Hudson, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold—”
Lucas's voice reaches me through a significant amount of interference, drowned out by my own pulse. (Mostly.) And the terror of standing here with my hands in his, in front of the people I love, saying words I have narrated in every register and had started to doubt I’d say out loud myself.
Saying them now and not being able to tell (and this is the part that frightens me) whether the terror is because they're fake or because I don’t want them to be.
Hudson’s eyes find mine and stay there. I watch his lips count, barely moving. Not visible to anyone around us. One, two, three, four. An exhale through his full lips. The instruction he gave me, again in a moment I need it most. I follow him, and it begins to settle me.
It’s Lucas clearing his throat that breaks us from our concentration.
“I do,” I say, quickly. My answer is rushed, either honesty or panic, and tonight I can't tell the difference. Because I don’t know how to take my time with this, so I might as well just spit it out. The answer he needs from each of us to sign, seal, and deliver this wedding as legitimate.
“Hudson.” Lucas turns to him. “Do you take Louisa—”
“I do.” Before the sentence finishes. Before Lucas has arrived at the part that requires an answer, Hudson has already given one. (A legally binding one.)
“I knew what he was going to say.” Our friends laugh. Our friends. I wonder how long I will think of things in terms of our. (Less than a year if we’re lucky, he said. Just as long as we need to.)
Lucas has known Hudson for years, maybe that’s why all he says in response is ‘Good.’
The rings are in Hudson’s jacket pocket, already there, already decided, because of course they are, because he doesn’t leave anything to chance, and would never ask me for help.
His hands carefully shift as to not release both of mine that have been held by him since we came face to face at the end of this makeshift (very real) aisle.
He holds both of my hands cradled in his right palm, and is careful when he slides a small ruby on my finger.
So much more careful than his usual self, or the usual version of him that I’ve known.
It’s like the care itself is the point. When the ring reaches its new home, he doesn’t release my hand immediately, just runs his thumb across the stone that now sits centered below my knuckle.
As if he too needs the reality check that this isn’t reality.
A small, deep-red ruby, held up by a soft cool-gold band.
This isn’t the Cracker-Jack-box ring I thought it would be.
Not even an cubic zirconia. While Grams had made the joke about what he’d be able to afford, I don’t think any of what’s happening affords me any kind of proper jewelry.
Especially not something that looks like an heirloom, not a purchase.
He can see the question in my eyes, or maybe on my lips, as I open my mouth to ask.
But his lips give me the smallest wink as his eyes flick towards the chair to his left, where Grams is sitting.
And when I slide the simple gold band on his ring finger, his eyes are unwaveringly watching my hands as they do it. Like he needs to see it happen to believe it has. (Maybe that’s just me.)
“By the power vested in me by this great state,” Lucas says, composed with the same gravity he has when delivering a closing argument before court (I assume), “and by the internet’s most well-reviewed and entirely legitimate ,” a sound moves through the chairs, “I now pronounce you—”
He doesn’t wait for the end of it.
His hand comes up to my jaw, fingers curling at the base of my neck, and pulling my face close to his.
Our lips can feel the warmth of each other, but not the agreement to meet yet.
It’s a fraction of a second that we are suspended.
As the prequel of his kiss hangs above my lips, he says, “I know what he’s going to say. ”
And he kisses me.
It’s not restrained, or careful. Not the performance of a kiss for a paper trail, but a real one, in this very fake ‘I do.’ He’s present in a way I didn’t imagine this could be, that anyone could be.
As his mouth parts mine, I stop performing, I stop narrating in my head, I stop doing anything except kissing him back, which I am, so completely, that I’m overtaken by it.
His hand spreads across the low drape of my back, warm against my skin, pressing me closer, and somewhere behind me, Chandler stops pretending to be quiet and Paola says something to Grams, and Theo, on a laptop in London at whatever hour it is there, makes a sound that carries across the distance.
When he pulls back, his thumb stays at my jaw.
“Now is the right time.”