10. One Year Later #3
"Good. I'm going to need every minute."
Later, hours later, they lay tangled in the sheets. The bedroom was a disaster: clothes scattered everywhere, pillows on the floor, the duvet half-off the bed. Neither of them cared.
"We're getting married," Becca said for approximately the hundredth time. She gasped. "Oh no, we have to plan a wedding!"
"Sophie's already texted me over a dozen venue suggestions."
"Of course she has." Becca laughed and snuggled closer. "What do you want? Big wedding? Small wedding? Destination?"
"I want whatever you want."
"That's not an answer."
"It is, though." Margot traced patterns on Becca's shoulder. "I spent so long not knowing what I wanted. Not letting myself want things. You taught me how to want again. So whatever you dream up, big, small, ridiculous, perfect, I want that. I want your dreams."
Becca's eyes were stinging again. "You can't just say things like that."
"Why not?"
"Because I'll cry."
Margot gave her a sappy look. "You've been crying on and off for three hours."
"Happy tears!"
"I know." Margot kissed her forehead. "I know, love."
They lay in comfortable silence. Becca turned her hand, watching the ring catch the light from the window. Rose gold and diamonds and morganite. The bridesmaid dresses from Sophie's wedding. Where everything started.
"I want to get married at the winery," she said suddenly.
Margot stilled. "Really?"
"Really. Where we met. The cottages, the vineyard, all of it. I want to go back there and marry you."
"That's—" Margot's voice was rough. "That's perfect."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She pulled Becca closer. "Let's get married at the winery."
"Sophie's going to lose her mind."
"Sophie's going to try to plan the entire thing."
"We'll let her. She's good at it."
"She is." Margot kissed Becca's hair. "When?"
"I don't know. Summer? Fall? Whenever we can make it work."
"Summer," Margot decided. "I want to marry you as soon as possible."
"Impatient."
"Extremely."
Becca grinned against her shoulder. "Me too."
The next morning, Becca woke to the smell of coffee and something burning.
She stumbled into the kitchen to find Margot standing at the stove, staring at a pan of what might have once been eggs with an expression of profound betrayal.
"I was making you breakfast," Margot said.
"I see that."
"It's not going well."
Becca crossed to her, wrapping her arms around her from behind. "You're adorable."
"I'm a failure. I can't even make eggs."
"You proposed to me yesterday. You get a pass on eggs."
Margot turned in her arms, leaning into the embrace. She was wearing Becca's ratty college t-shirt and nothing else, which was extremely distracting. "I wanted to do something nice."
"You did." Becca kissed her nose. "You existed. That's nice enough."
"That's a very low bar."
"You've met me. I'm easy to please."
"You're not easy. You're extraordinary," Margot protested.
"And you're cheesy," Becca said with a laugh.
"Only for you."
They stood in the kitchen, holding each other, while the smoke alarm went off overhead. Becca laughed and reached up to fan it with a dish towel.
"I should make the breakfast," she said.
"Probably."
"You can watch. That's romantic."
"Is it?"
"Very. You're learning."
Margot smiled, that real smile, the one that still felt like a gift every time Becca saw it. "I have a good teacher."
Becca made them omelets while Margot sat at the counter and watched. They ate at their tiny kitchen table, knees bumping together, feet tangled underneath. Outside, the city was waking up. In here, everything was warm and golden and right.
"We should call our families," Becca said. "Tell them the news."
"Sophie already knows."
"Everyone except Sophie."
"My mother will want to plan an engagement party."
"My abuela will want to interrogate you about your intentions."
"I thought I passed the test."
"There's always another test." Becca grinned. "But you'll do great. You already know the most important thing."
"What's that?"
"That I'm exactly enough."
Margot's expression softened. She reached across the table and took Becca's hand, thumb brushing over the ring.
"You're not exactly enough," she said. "You're everything. You always have been."
Becca's throat was tight. A year ago, she'd been crying at an airport, convinced she was too much, too intense, too everything. Now she was sitting in her kitchen, wearing her engagement ring, looking at the woman who loved her exactly as she was.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"For what?"
"For seeing me. For staying. For wanting the whole chaotic mess."
"The mess is the best part." Margot squeezed her hand. "Always has been."
They sat there in the morning light, hands intertwined, the rest of their lives stretching out before them.
It wasn't perfect. It was messy and chaotic and full of burnt eggs and smoke alarms.
It was exactly right.
Six months later, they got married at Weeping Willow Winery.
The guest list was small but mighty. Sophie stood at the front as matron of honor for both of them.
They'd flipped a coin, then decided to share her.
She was already planning to switch sides back and forth in the photos later.
Priya and Becca's cousin Maria stood on Becca's side; on Margot's, her college roommate Amelia had traveled from San Francisco, already tearing up before the ceremony started.
Becca's entire extended family had flown in from across the country.
Her parents were in the front row, her mother already dabbing at her eyes, her father trying to pretend he wasn't emotional.
Abuela sat between them like a matriarch surveying her kingdom, wearing a new dress and the same sharp expression that meant she approved.
Margot's parents sat on the opposite side. They'd warmed considerably over the past year, something about seeing their reserved daughter genuinely happy. Her mother had even hugged Becca at the rehearsal dinner, which Margot reported was essentially a miracle.
There was one empty chair on Margot's side.
Delphine had sent an apologetic video message that morning from what looked like a ferry somewhere in the Aegean, promising to make it up to them at their parents' anniversary party the following year.
"I'll be there," she'd sworn, phone wobbling as the boat lurched.
"I'll bring a date and everything. A real one this time, I promise. "
Margot had sighed. Becca had laughed. Some things never changed.
Jo from Margot's firm was at a table near the dance floor. She ran IT, and Margot had invited half her office because of course she had. Becca didn't mind; it helped balance the sides.
Jo's plus one sat beside her, a blonde woman in a perfectly tailored navy dress who Jo had introduced as "my Lottie." Charlotte, she'd corrected, extending a hand, though the correction had no heat in it.
They weren't together-together, Jo had explained cheerfully when Becca asked, just best friends since college. Charlotte had smiled at that, a tightness around her eyes that Becca recognized. The look of someone holding a torch so long it had become part of her skeleton.
The cake was three tiers of vanilla bean with lemon curd filling, covered in fondant with hand-piped lace that matched Becca's dress. She'd made it herself, of course. It was the best cake she'd ever created.
They danced their first dance in the same spot where Sophie and Jamie had danced theirs, and Becca thought about the room mix-up that had started everything. Sophie's meddling. The shared bed. The almost-kisses that had driven them both crazy.
"What are you thinking about?" Margot asked, pulling her closer.
"The cottage. The first night," Becca said with a smile.
"When you touched my arm and I fled to the bathroom?" Margot laughed.
"I didn't seduce you. I touched your arm."
"Same thing, with you."
Becca laughed and pressed her forehead to Margot's. "I love you, wife."
"I love you too, wife."
"Still feels weird to say."
"In a good way?"
"In the best way."
They swayed together as the song changed, and Becca let herself feel it: the joy, the certainty, the bone-deep knowledge that she'd found her person.
No more wondering if she was too much. No more trying to be less.
She was exactly who she was supposed to be, exactly where she was supposed to be, with exactly the person she was supposed to be with.
And they lived happily—chaotically, messily, perfectly—ever after.