Chapter 30
AMELIA
Imade it thirty seconds into the first dance before I remembered the song we chose.
I mean, I knew it. We picked it together.
Gage played it one night while we were slow dancing in the kitchen and asked if I felt it in my bones.
I did. Of course I did. The man could hum an infomercial and I’d feel it in my bones.
But also, those opening lines? I melted when he whispered them against my ear that night.
But now it’s playing on actual speakers. In front of actual people. While my husband looks at me like he’s about to whisper a vow so private it’s going to set off fire alarms.
Our song is “Turning Page” by Sleeping at Last. Which, when we chose it, felt romantic. Now? It feels like foreplay with string instruments.
“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” Gage asks, his hand sliding lower on my back. “You okay?”
“I’m great,” I say, trying to sound normal. “Just realizing we picked a horny song for our first dance.”
His lips twitch. “You’ll have to explain that one to me, sweetheart.”
“This song has ‘undressing you with my soul’ energy. And ‘I will inhale every breath you give me’ energy.” When he just keeps watching and waiting for me to elaborate further, I say, “It’s feral in a slow-burn soulmate way.
Like, ‘you will get pregnant via eye contact’ type vibes. Surely you’re picking up on that too.”
His mouth curves. “I’m picking up that you’re thinking way too hard about this.”
“I’m not thinking too hard. I’m thinking the correct amount. Everyone can hear this, Gage. And oh my god, your dad is right there.”
“My dad’s had five kids. I think he gets it.”
I bite back a laugh and try to focus on the steps, but Gage is doing that thing where he leads without making it obvious, and I’m just following his body like I was built to do exactly this.
“Stop overthinking,” he says, pulling me closer.
“I’m not overthinking. I’m just aware that people are watching us—”
“I don’t care about them.” His voice turns to gravel. “I only care about you.”
My heart actually trips over itself. “Okay. That’s very romantic.”
“I’m a romantic guy.”
“You threatened to put someone through a wall earlier.”
“Also romantic.” His thumb brushes my hip in a way that’s absolutely not appropriate for a family event. “Context dependent.”
I’m trying to come up with a response when he spins me, and I’m suddenly aware that I’m still a little foggy from this morning, a little exhausted from the day, and that my husband is looking at me like he’s counting down the minutes until he can get me alone.
When he pulls me back, his mouth is close to my ear. “You’re stunning.”
“You’ve said that like six times today.”
“I’ll say it six hundred more.” His hand tightens on my waist. “You’re my wife, Amelia. I get to tell you you’re stunning whenever I want.”
God, this man.
“You’re not playing fair,” I whisper.
“I never will.”
The music swells, and we’re just barely swaying now, barely moving, and I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to be doing actual dance steps but I don’t care. Because Gage is holding me like I’m something precious, and I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt, and—
“I meant every vow I said today, Amelia,” he murmurs. “But there’s one I didn’t say out loud.”
I hold onto him a little harder because I know that whatever he’s about to say is probably going to make me cry again.
His eyes lock on mine, dark and serious and so full of heat I feel it everywhere. “I promise to want you every day for the rest of my life. Not just love you. Not just protect you. Want you. Obsessively. Unreasonably. Like this.”
My breathing slows. “Gage—”
“I’ll want you when you’re eighty and yelling at me about the thermostat.
I’ll want you when you’re crying into the carpet about your cheekbones.
I’ll want you when you hate me. When you love me.
When you’re hormonal and threatening to hurt me.
And even if you don’t bury those bodies you promised you would, I’ll still fucking want you. ”
A laugh-sob escapes me. “You can’t just say those things to me when we’re dancing to a horny song in front of our families. In front of our daughters.”
“I can. I am.” His arm tightens around me, possessively. “You’re mine, Princess. And I don’t know how to want you any other way.”
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” I whisper while my heart beats so fast I’m concerned it’s about to malfunction.
“You existed. That’s all you had to do.”
My hand slides from his shoulder to the nape of his neck, fingers curling into his hair as I press myself hard against him. Every cell in my body feels like it could burst from how much love I feel for this man.
“You know what I promise?”
His eyes darken. “Tell me.”
“I promise to be the kind of wife who makes you question your sanity on a daily basis.” My fingers dig into his skin. “The kind who drives you crazy. Who keeps you up at night and begs you to fuck her over and over.”
His grip on my waist turns bruising. “Fuck, Amelia.”
“I promise to want you back just as obsessively. Just as unreasonably.” I lean in closer. “And when I’m eighty and yelling at you about the thermostat?” I bring my mouth right next to his ear. “I’ll still want you to make me come.”
He stops moving entirely. Just stands there, holding me, looking at me like I just said something that broke him in the best way.
And then his mouth is on mine, and I forget we’re dancing. I forget we have an audience. I forget everything except the way he’s kissing me like he’s claiming me all over again.
When he finally drags his mouth from mine, because apparently we both still need oxygen, I’m dizzy and breathless and not convinced I can keep standing.
The song ends and the applause starts.
Sarah waves at us with both hands. Luna is twirling with excitement.
Tim whoops. Ethan yells out something that’s highly inappropriate but that, thankfully, Sarah and Luna won’t understand. Gage’s other brothers and their wives are cheering loudly with grins on their faces. Colin’s holding up a napkin like a scorecard.
Marin yells, “Ten out of ten, would emotionally spiral again!”
And I have never loved these people more.
The greenhouse is glowing now—the same glass building where we held the ceremony, but completely transformed. Gage had a team reset it while we were off taking photos. The flowers are wilder. The lights are warmer. The whole place hums with laughter and music and the sound of family.
“Your brother’s having a moment,” Gage observes.
I glance at them again and see that Tim’s now full-on sobbing while Colin pats his back. When we step off the dance floor, Tim immediately crashes into me with a hug.
“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed,” he sobs into my shoulder. “You’re a literal goddess and Gage is obsessed and I can’t—I just—” He pulls back, dabbing at his eyes with a napkin. “I’m not okay. I will never be okay again.”
Colin appears by his side. “You need to pull it together for your toast later. You’re up first.”
Tim’s eyes widen. “Oh god. I have to give a toast. I can’t give a toast. I’m emotionally compromised.”
“You’ll be fine,” I assure him.
He’s not fine.
He makes it through his toast, but only after Colin fans him with the dinner menu, Kristen physically restrains him from climbing onto a chair to declare his feelings about love, and Gage threatens to mute the mic if he says the word womb again.
But honestly? That kind of unhinged energy sets the tone for the rest of the night.
Because Gage might have planned the perfect wedding, but our reception is perfectly, chaotically us. The Sinclairs and the Blacks. Equal parts mayhem, love, and too many feelings with not enough filters.
There’s a photo booth in one corner that spits out double strips of black-and-white pictures, and I can’t remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did taking photos with Sarah and Luna.
There’s glitter on my face now. I don’t know where it came from. Possibly Marin. Possibly the sticker station. Possibly the unholy combo of both. Which, by the way, what even is a sticker station? That wasn’t part of our wedding plan. Gage and I did not arrange a sticker station.
Tim and Marin went rogue and set it up. An entire table labeled “Emotional Support Stickers” with phrases like “Wife Energy”, “Emotionally married to Gage Black”, “Don’t look at me, I’m in love with Gage too”, and “Big Tim Energy.” Pretty sure Tim came up with all those.
Then there’s the snack bar Gage designed without telling me—an exact replica of my comfort food stash, complete with popcorn, cheese, pickle spears, and three kinds of sour candy. The sign above it says Mrs. Black’s Midnight Menu, which is generous because I’m probably going to be asleep by ten.
He thought of everything. Again. But it doesn’t feel like too much. It feels like him. It feels like all the ways he loves me, made visible.
It’s fun. It’s chaotic. It’s loud. It’s perfect. And for a few hours, we dance and drink and eat and let everyone love on us.
I catch a moment alone with my parents. I don’t cry. (Okay, I do. But only a little.)
I drink champagne with the girls while we laugh and gossip and take photobooth photos. Even Blair—Gage’s family lawyer and the woman Marin keeps calling her new bisexual awakening—who I’ve literally never seen laugh, holds a prop sign that says “MILF Mode Activated” and gets wild with us.
I kiss my husband a hundred times.
And then I watch him slow dance with Luna while she stands on his feet and holds his hands and tries very hard not to cry too.
I didn’t know I could feel this full. This held. This crazy in love. Not just with my husband, but with our whole, wild family. Turns out, I can.
We cut the cake and then my parents call it a night at nine thirty. Ingrid offers to get Sarah and Luna to bed just after that, so we say our goodnights to the girls.