He steps forward and takes my hand, the meeting of our palms a period at the end of a sentence. His pulse speeds up until it matches mine in a single heartbeat.
“Just like that?” I had much more prepared. Hours of material. “You’re not going to make me grovel or anything?”
He smirks. “That wasn’t groveling?”
A smile ruffles my wet, splotchy face. “I practiced a whole penguin with a rock allegory in front of my mirror, where our friendship is this pebble, and—”
“You don’t need to—”
“What about everything you said before? About how we shouldn’t need to map out our whole futures and ‘Why can’t we just try things?’ ” I imitate his deep baritone.
“Is that what I sound like?” He clasps my other hand in his and pulls me close enough that our noses are only centimeters apart. My heart’s been thumping against my bones like an animal in a cage since this morning. Only now, it calms. “You like to know what tomorrow will look like, and I think I can learn to go along with that. I just prefer when tomorrow includes me.”
I twirl the strand of hair that flops onto his face between my fingers, and something heavy lifts from my chest. The armor around my ribs is cracking open and I can breathe again. Living without Ethan is so much more terrifying than the unknowns of being with him. “You’re a critical part of my five-year plan.”
“Can I kiss you now?” he whispers through his grin, and I tilt my mouth to his for a kiss that feels nothing like a dare, a challenge, or a risk. This kiss is a soft place to land. A beginning of an adventure filled with so many more moments like this one.
“So,” he breathes into me when we come up for air. The buzz of his lips sends a trickle of heat down my spine. “I would very much like to carry you into the van right now and make up for lost time, but your sister and Petey are staring at us and—”
“Oh.” I straighten and crane my neck to confirm that, yes, they’re very much watching us. “They’re phase two of my plan.”
“Phase two?” He’s as confused as my road trip captives behind us.
“You didn’t think this was thewholeplan, did you?” I tease. “I thought you knew everything I was thinking. I’msopredictable. Right, Powell?”
He shakes his head, his smirk blossoming into a full-blown grin. “Easy, Beekman. You surprise me all the time.”
I face the car again, beaming at my sister’s encouraging and perplexed face. “Phase two is the wedding.”
—
Laurel cries when I show her my proof of ordination—fully weeps for two solid minutes—hopefully with elation and not in relief that the only thing I want from her document box is the Cook County marriage license she procured last time we were all here.
“This dress is perfect,” she says, examining her braid crown in the mirror of Ted Wetter’s bathroom.
Ted was pretty cool about the stolen kayak/animal trap situation when I called to check in on him after his accident and arrange the surprise nuptials. He was—understandably—unwilling to rent me boating equipment. Luckily, he pitched the perfect alternative and generously lent Petey a white button-down.
I smooth the skirt of the cream-colored silk dress I spotted in the window of a secondhand store in Linden Hills. Between the plunging neckline and delicate lace details, I knew it was made for Laurel the second I laid eyes on it.
“I’m glad you love it. I thought if the packing list included a white dress, you might catch on to my master plan. Though I guess I could’ve B&E’d your place, since that’s a thing us Beekmans do.” My smile slips. “Or Eriksson-Thaos now, I guess.”
She grabs my hand. “You and me. We’re Beekmans, Charley. A wedding doesn’t change that.”
That’s whenIstart crying.
Petey knows the waterfall Ted is talking about based on almost no defining characteristics beyondYou’ll know it when you see itandA sound bath of water and magnificenceandIt’s absolutely sick. But when we climb out of the van and see the untamed beauty of it—hear the chaotic yet harmonious cacophony of cascading falls—Idoknow it and itdoessound remarkably close to a sound bath of water and magnificence.
Petey stares out at the torrent of water with his hands on his hips. “See? Absolutely sick.”
Then all that’s left to do is help two of my favorite people get married. No one gives Laurel away, because she’s not going anywhere. She’s using her enormous capacity for love to make something new with her best friend. I can’t believe there was a time when I didn’t want this moment for my sister.
Ethan eyes me the whole time like he’s getting ideas, and that’s fine by me. When it comes to him, I’m getting ideas too.
They exchange their own vows. Petey’s involve a complicated hockey analogy that is surprisingly poignant, but Laurel’s are simply, “I promise to runtoyou. With you. Always. To be as patient and generous with you as you’ve been with everyone you’ve ever met.”
“And with that…,” I tell them when the rings have been placed and the vows have been exchanged. “By the power vested in me by…the internet, it is my great honor to pronounce you husband and wife.”
Ethan steps on my decree with a raucous cheer that Petey can’t help but join. My sister throws her arms around my shoulders and yells, “We did it!” directly into my eardrum. It’s a clumsy end to an endearingly heartfelt ceremony.
