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“I guess this is it”, Jack says, as we pause briefly before taking our sides. “Now it gets serious.”
“Don’t look so worried, Penny”, Logan adds. “At least we’re guaranteed to see each other every Christmas now.”
There is so much I want to say right now but I’m so choked up with emotion I can’t form a single stupid question out of my myriad worries. All I can do is smile like an escaped mental patient and hope that somehow this situation doesn’t turn around and fuck me in the ass.
“We should take our seats”, Alice says. “It looks like your dad’s on his way.”
Jack takes me into his arms and gives me a hug, regardless of what it looks like to anyone watching. “Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory”, he says, and when he pulls away again, I’m almost crying.
This is it. In less than an hour, these two spectacular men are going to be my stepbrothers. We’ll spend Christmases together, sit around the table on thanksgiving, even share the same parents. I couldn’t give two warm shits if Mom, Brandon and everyone else in the world can’t accept us doing that as lovers as well, what I do care about is Jack and Logan still wanting to do so when this is all over. Alice is technically right when she says that nothing will change, I just hope that when push comes to shove and the dust has settled over our brand new status, neither one of us has a Chernobyl style freak out.
These men are far too perfect for me to lose, and the last thing I want is to have them close by and totally off limits, because I can’t think of anything worse.
It’s five past two when everyone eventually takes their seats, ten past when the music starts and twenty five past when Mom finally emerges through the fruit trees, her weird brother alongside to guide her.
I know that in the absence of my grandfather to give her away that role traditionally falls to someone else in the family, but even so, I would have expected her to choose anyone else but Laurence.
“She looks gorgeous”, Alice says, bringing me back to the moment, and it’s true, she looks absolutely stunning. I wipe a tear away from my eye when I see how genuinely happy she is too, and remember just how long it’s taken her to get here. Despite the inconvenience this union has for my own relationship, I’m absolutely overjoyed that Mom has finally found happiness.
Laurence delivers her to Brandon, pauses in confusion for a moment and then disappears back down the aisle in search of his family. Mom smiles at me when she sees me, her eyes wet with tears, and it affects me so much I can’t help but breakdown and cry. I’ve worked myself into an absolute mess stressing about what this means for all of us, and it’s finally got to a breaking point.
There is a pause in the proceedings while the celebrant asks me if I’m okay and then waits for me to gather myself together when I nod and smile like that escaped mental patient again, and the audience respond with a mixture of their own nervous laughter and tears.
Alice takes my trembling hand in hers, and with my emotions pretty much as frayed as they’ve ever been, bouncing rapidly between overwhelming happiness and sheer unadulterated terror, the celebrant declares the ceremony open.
It’s not a religious ceremony, nor a conventional one. Mom and Brandon have both been here before and they know exactly what is and isn’t necessary. They’ve got no songs planned, haven’t handed out an order of play and are saving speeches and readings until after lunch. This ceremony is a marriage ceremony and nothing else, during which they plan to demonstrate and then declare their love and commitment for one another in front of their family and closest friends.
The celebrant is one of Brandon’s closest friends, the piano player another, the sentiment personal and a hundred percent their own.
“Friends and family members”, the celebrant begins, giving a cheeky nod in my direction just to see if he’s okay to go on, “We are gathered here today to witness the marriage of Catherine Harper and Brandon Fox, who have promised me they are in love and neither one of them is looking for a visa.”
There is a rumble of laughter through the crowd and when I look across the aisle to Jack and Logan, I’m delighted to see them looking back at me. The celebrant continues in the same lighthearted vein, being serious and official when he needs to be and jovial as often as he can, and the closer Mom and Brandon get to officially tying the knot, the more relaxed I begin to feel myself becoming.
Every so often I glass at Logan and Jack, and even if it’s a moment when they’re not looking back across towards me, I can’t help but feel a heat rise through me like lava about to explode out of a volcano.
“I think I’m okay”, I whisper to Alice.
“Okay?” she responds.
“With all of this I mean. I think everything is going to be okay.”
I can’t explain what it is, or how it’s happened, but suddenly I feel an almighty relief. Either Alice has slipped me a prozac, or the tears themselves have taken all of my anxiety away. Yes Mom and Logan and Jack’s dad are about to get married, and Logan and Jack and I are about to become step siblings, but so what? If I can get these two to fall in love with me in the first place, nothing is going to be able to come between us, least of all something like this.
“Catherine”, Brandon begins. “You were always my angel in the sky, and now we’re here I can hardly believe my luck. I promise to love you, care for you and always be by your side, no matter what. The last few months have been the best I’ve ever experienced and I know it’s just going to get better from here on in. I love you.”
I wipe another tear away from my eye, while Mom pauses to do the same.
“Brandon”, she says. “The man in seat 6F. As an air hostess I’ve brought back many things from my travels, but never thought I’d ever bring back you. When you asked me on a date, my natural response was to think you were joking. In fact, you had to repeat the question several times before I would believe you.” Brandon nods guiltily. “I’m so glad you didn’t give up on me. You have made me realize that all good things come to those who wait, and all the best things come to those who wait on those sat in seat 6F. I love you too.”
“Thank you, both”, the celebrant says, “that was really lovely. And you’ve made Penny cry again.”
The audience respond with a rumble of laughter while I feel the heat of way too many eyes looking upon me.
“Okay, we’ve come to the part of the ceremony where I have to ask that question you all know from TV shows and films because it’s a legal requirement for me to do so.”
The audience groan in unison. “Can’t you just let them kiss and be done with it?” someone shouts out.
“If there is anyone gathered here today”, the celebrant begins, “who knows of any reason why these two should not be allowed to legally marry, please speak up or forever hold your breath?”
Alice squeezes my hand just that little bit tighter and I dare a glance over to Logan and Jack, both of whom smile back at me reassuringly.
“Anyone?” the celebrant adds jokingly. There is little response but a ruffle of laughter. “Good!” he adds enthusiastically, mopping his brow and taking a deep breath for comic effect before he continues. “Now, Brandon, please repeat after me. I Brandon James Fox, come here freely and without reservation to give myself to Catherine Elizabeth Harper in marriage.”
Brandon repeats the script word for word.
“And I, Catherine Elizabeth Harper come here freely and without reservation to give myself to Brandon James Fox in marriage.”
Mom repeats her part word for word.
“Brandon, do you take Catherine to be your wife, to love her, cherish her and always do the washing up when she asks?”
Brandon smiles. “I do.”
“And Catherine, do you take Brandon to be your husband, to love him and cherish him and always roll him onto his side when he’s snoring?”
“Absolutely, I do”, Mom responds.
“Excellent, I love it when that happens”, the celebrant says excitedly. “Time for the rings.”
A st
aff member steps forward with two rings on a silk cushion. Brandon takes one of them first and as the audience watches on in silence, he prepares to slide it on Mom’s finger.
“This ring is a symbol of our unbreakable love”, he says.
When he’s finished, Mom takes the remaining ring and does the same. “This ring is a symbol of our unbreakable love”, she repeats.
Mom and Brandon look at each other and then over to the celebrant. The audience wait with baited breath.
“Is that it?” I whisper to Alice.
“I don’t know”, she says back.
I look over to the twins, and while Jack shrugs his shoulders, Logan blows me a kiss.
The celebrant smiles. “I now pronounce you husband and wife! Congratulations! You can officially kiss the bride, and we can all go and get drunk!”
Brandon and Mom close in on each other, and while they embrace and kiss passionately in front of us, everyone in the entire audience watches on apart from their own children. Logan takes the opportunity to mouth the words I want you even more across the aisle to me, while Jack looks at me in such an intimate way that if I held his gaze any longer he could probably make me come.
“See”, Alice says, clapping along with the rest of the crowd. “I told you nothing would change.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
After the ceremony is over, and Brandon and Mom have walked back down the aisle as husband and wife, absolutely covered in colorful bits of confetti, more champagne and canapes have been handed out and every single possible permutation of the obligatory family photos have been taken, Jack, Logan and I finally get a moment to ourselves. While Mom and Brandon work their way strategically through the gathered crowd like insurance salesmen at a summer conference, and Alice goes undercover as our eyes and ears on the ground, ready to dole out alibis and then rush upstairs and warn us immediately should our absence become apparent, unable to resist the wait any longer and excited by the danger of being caught, the twins and I disappear quickly and as quietly as humanly possible up to my room.
Maybe it’s the urgency of needing to know that nothing’s changed between us, or perhaps the occasion itself that has made me overly sensitive, or simply the fact that whenever I spend any length of time with these two men, I just can’t help but want to fuck them immediately. Whatever it is, I‘m so horny I could burst, and despite the fact there are two hundred of my mom’s and my new step dad’s nearest and dearest friends gathered together only meters below us, there is no other remedy for it, but what we’re doing right now.
