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Beautiful. Breathless. Wrecked.

His thumb brushes the inside of my wrist, and I swear it sets off a chain reaction through every nerve ending in my body. There are tears in his eyes, but he’s fighting them like hell. His jaw clenched. His lips trembling. His shoulders rigid from the effort of keeping it together when everything about today is meant to be felt.

“Hi,” he whispers.

It’s the only word I need to hear. Because it’s not just a greeting. It’s a heartbeat. A promise. A beginning.

“Hi,” I breathe back.

The officiant steps forward, her smile soft and reverent, as if she knows this isn’t your average love story. As if she can feel how hard we fought to get here.

“Welcome,” she says, her voice floating on the hush that’s fallen over the crowd. “To the union of two souls who refused to give up. Who turned pain into poetry. And who’ve chosen each other—again and again.”

Fletch’s grip tightens.

I feel everything in that squeeze. The fear. The fire. The forever.

We decided to write our own vows—of course we did. There’s never been a script for us. Just music and mayhem and meaning where most people wouldn’t find it.

I go first.

Because if I don’t, I might collapse into his chest and sob through his entire speech.

I hand Reese my bouquet and face him, heart jackhammering.

“I used to think love had to look a certain way,” I say, voice shaking. “Big and perfect. Cinematic. With grand gestures and glittering promises that never cracked or broke.”

I meet his eyes, and my whole chest caves in.

“But then I found you. And you weren’t perfect. And I was definitely not perfect. But somehow… we made something bigger than all of that. Something real. Something that survived everything we thought would destroy us.”

His eyes close, just for a second. Like he’s letting the words settle deep.

“You didn’t fix me, Fletch,” I whisper. “You stood with me while I figured out how to fix myself. You held space for my anger and my softness. For the broken and the beautiful.”

I blink back tears, but one slips down anyway. Screw it. Reese will live.

“You were the safe place I never believed I deserved. But I do. I know that now. And I promise I’ll never run from it again.”

I pause, swallowing hard. “I’ll love you with everything I am. The soft parts. The sharp edges. The pieces that almost didn’t make it. All of me is yours. Always.”

His hand lifts to brush the tear from my cheek. “You trying to kill me?” he croaks, voice shredded.

“Little bit,” I sniff, laughing.

Then he pulls his vows from his jacket pocket, but halfway through opening the folded paper, he stops. Crumples it. Drops it.

“Not gonna use that,” he says roughly. “Didn’t say enough.”

He holds my hand like he’s afraid it’ll disappear.

“You were the girl I could never get out of my head. Even when I tried. Even when I told myself I was better off alone.”

His voice cracks, and he doesn’t even bother trying to stop it.

“I loved you before I knew how to love anything. And even when I didn’t deserve you… I still looked for you. In every song. Every stupid headline. Every mile I drove back to the ranch wishing you were still here.”

I feel my knees go soft. I’m holding on by sheer force of will—and his grip on me.