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Getting out of the car, I straightened out my dress and tried to will away the flutter in my stomach. Was it nerves? Excitement? I couldn’t tell, but the feeling settled as soon as Walker took my hand and looked down to me.
“Let’s do this,” he said. His smile was wide and reassuring, and I couldn’t help but smile back at him.
“Let’s.”
We took the stairs leading up to the courthouse with a confident stride that was only interrupted with a stumble up them as I tripped over my own feet.
“Bag of dicks! I’m not even wearing heels—”
“Little eager there, are you?” Grant teased as Walker held me steady. “Better watch out Walker, she might be a keeper.”
Grant winked at us as he bounded up the stairs. I shook my head and looked to Walker. He grinned and squeezed my hand.
“We’ve got this.”
The inside of the courthouse was as close to what I would call regal as a boring old courthouse could get. Everything was mahogany and gold trimmed, with red and deep navy-blue carpets and drapes. It was impressive, but it was still a far cry from the stained glass lined walls of a wedding chapel that I’d had in my head as a teen. There was no organ playing as we were led politely into the modest room where we would exchange vows—and rings. Walker had ordered a set after asking me my size.
It was all very, very romantic. Sarcasm alert.
Our officiant was a stout woman with greying hair and a kind face. Her bright smile took me by surprise, since I’d expected judgement. After all, the stereotype was that the only people who’d have a shotgun wedding at a courthouse were the ones that were ‘in trouble.’
But Walker and I weren’t ‘in trouble.’ Not in the traditional sense, anyway.
We took our places opposite each other, hands outstretched over a small centerpiece that stood between us. It was something of a blur for me, as the officiant spoke about love, about lifelong commitment, about the joy of giving yourself completely to another person. It was elaborate, for a courthouse wedding.
And then… it was time for the vows.
I hadn’t prepared any, because I didn’t think I’d have to say anything. I didn’t know if the officiant caught my panic or not, but Walker squeezed my hands in his and gave me a reassuring look.
My gaze met his, and my nerves settled enough for me to unlock my jaw. I wasn’t a writer, so I knew that my ‘vows’ wouldn’t be all that great. But what did come out was short, natural, and so very reminiscent of us.
“I remember when you took me to the pier for the first time,” I said. “You got me a Nathan’s, and the most romantic thing about that day was how you cleaned all the mustard off my face that you had smeared there, claiming you were making a painting out of me.” I smiled. “I knew then that I loved you. It was the first time I realized I could only see my future with you in it. No other guy could make mustard seem romantic. Cheesy, but romantic.”
Walker laughed. “Cheesy was the chili cheese dogs you wouldn’t eat…”
The officiant smiled between us, turning to Walker. It was his turn for vows. I braced myself, not quite sure what to expect. Would he be stiff and formal, the buttoned-up version of Walker Prince that he’d grown into? Or would he make something up just to get the officiant to move on?
But when he spoke, my breath seemed to hang in my lungs as my heart thudded hard in my chest.
“I loved you from the first moment I saw you,” he said. “Hunched over a sketch book, scribbling away—but to hear you tell it, they weren’t scribbles. I could never get the difference between sketches and scribbles down. I just knew that whatever they we
re, I liked yours. I wanted more. I wanted to see what else you could come up with. It was more captivating than anything I’d ever seen in my life… I can honestly say no one’s ever captured my mind and heart the way you have, Macks.”
Fake. It’s all fake, I told myself as I struggled to make my lungs function again. Of course, he was just saying that to make the wedding real in the eyes of the law.
The thing was, where was the line in authenticity? Where were we supposed to draw it?
Because one moment, I was staring into those impossibly gorgeous, sky-blue eyes of Walker’s, and the next, my eyes closed as my lips pressed against his. I felt his solidness against my body, his frame stiff at first with shock before his arms wound around my frame and pulled me tight against him.
Had I started this? Had he? Who had closed the distance between us?
Our lips parted, his tongue greeting mine as the kiss deepened.
I didn’t think I’d ever been kissed like that before in my life.
6
Walker
