"Absolutely not. Ladies first."
"That's sexist."
"That's chivalrous."
"It's cowardly."
"It's smart.”
Roman starts a chant: "Speech! Speech! Speech!"
Everyone joins in, the voices rising, filling the room, and I realize there's no getting out of this.
"Fine." I raise my glass, and the room goes quiet. The sudden silence is almost louder than the noise was. "Um. Hi. So, this is unexpected."
Laughter ripples through the crowd, warm and affectionate.
“Nearly three months ago, I got on a plane to Vegas for my sister's bachelorette party. I was freshly divorced, professionally adrift, and pretty sure my life had peaked at twenty-five." I glance at Victor, whose gray eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that makes my chest tight. "And then I met this guy. This impossibly handsome, grumpy as hell, control-freak CEO who somehow saw something in me that I'd stopped seeing in myself."
Victor's watching me with an expression that makes my heart do a full-twisting layout beneath my breast.
"We got married by accident. We became friends by necessity. We fell in love by—" I stop, my throat suddenly tight. "By not being able to help it. And now here we are. Married for real. On purpose. With all of you as witnesses to this absolute chaos we call a relationship."
I raise my glass higher. "So thank you. For being here. For celebrating us. For loving us even when we're disasters. To family—blood, chosen, and the cats in tuxedos who tolerate us."
"To family!" everyone echoes, glasses raising.
Victor takes over smoothly, his hand finding mine. "I'm not good at speeches. I'm better at spreadsheets and acquisitions and pretending I don't have feelings." He pauses, and there's a ripple of laughter. "But Harper changed that. She made me want things I'd convinced myself I didn't need. Things like home, and family, and a wife who spills beverages on me with alarming frequency."
I laugh, and so does everyone else.
"So thank you all for coming. For celebrating with us. For accepting that the Ice Prince finally melted." He looks at me, his gray eyes soft in the candlelight. "And for accepting her, even though she has terrible taste in men."
"Hey!"
He kisses my temple, his lips warm against my skin. "To Harper. The only person who could make me host parties, cook on camera, and voluntarily spend time with large groups of people. I love you.”
We kiss, and the room erupts in cheers and applause and the sound of glasses clinking, and for a moment, everything is perfect.
Then I hear it.
A crash. A yowl. The distinct sound of something toppling.
I turn just in time to see Rasputin—having apparently escaped his carrier—leap onto the gift table with the grace of a drunken gymnast.
His tiny tuxedo makes the movement look even more absurd. He lands on top of a wrapped box, which tilts, which knocks over a candle, which rolls directly into the crocheted congratulations blanket Margot and Amelia made.
The blanket—covered in pixelated hearts and the words "PLAYER 1 & PLAYER 2" in bright colors—immediately catches fire.
"FIRE!" someone yells.
Everyone starts moving at once.
Dad grabs a pitcher of water from the drinks table—ice cubes flying everywhere, water sloshing. Mom starts beating the flames with a dish towel, the terry cloth making a whump-whump sound against the table.
Christian appears with a fire extinguisher from God knows where—does my parents' house have fire extinguishers? Where was it?—and puts out the fire with a whoosh of white foam that covers everything in a three-foot radius.
The chemical smell of the fire extinguisher fills the room, sharp and acrid, cutting through the smell of flowers and food.
