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I’d stammered and umed my way through the next few minutes and finally pictured Theo’s face, so open and happy when we told them the news. How could I deny someone’s wish for family? So I’d said a tentative okay. When Caleb said, “Great, he’ll be so happy,” I heard an excited whoop from Caleb’s end and couldn’t help but grin.
“Give him the phone,” I said, and then I forced all my gratitude into my voice as I said Thank you, because I didn’t want him to doubt it for a second.
And that’s kind of how most of the planning had gone. Me initially saying What? No! We can’t! and then finally saying Yeah, okay. It got to the point where Rhys started teasing me about it.
“Hey, babe, I have some wedding stuff you need to see. Do you wanna just say no twice now so you can say yes after dinner?” Then he’d wink at me and I’d scowl at him and he’d kiss the shit out of me until I didn’t care.
And the fact was that I really didn’t care. I didn’t care about food or flowers or any of it. Luckily, Rhys didn’t take it personally and bent his substantial reserve of decisiveness to the task.
Also luckily, musicians were a multitalented group, and Rhys turned out to know someone who could do just about everything. A few of his friends would, of course, provide the music. His friend Lou, who split time between New York and New Orleans as Caleb had once done, was an amazing cook and had offered to do the food. It was going to be a kind of kicked-up barbecue.
Theo, of all people, offered to get us some flowers. Apparently he’d struck up a friendship with a woman who grew them and sold them at the Stormville farmer’s market.
We’d forgone the idea of a wedding cake in favor of a bunch of different kinds of pie. And bar owner Huey had suggested that instead of a bar, we offer two signature cocktails, to keep the booze a bit more confined from those who were substance-free. Caleb was far from the only one in recovery.
When Rhys asked Huey if he’d design the cocktails, Huey’s first response was, “I strike you as the kinda person who makes up cocktails?” Huey absolutely did not. He was in his late thirties, huge and massively muscled, all the sleeves and chests of his shirts straining to contain him. He had a shaved head and dark, intense brows over piercing blue eyes. His voice was rough and gravelly and declarative. No, he looked more like a bouncer or a bodyguard than a mixologist.
And yet, a couple of weeks after mentioning it, he sent Rhys a text that simply said Cocktails covered, one for you and one for Matt. And that was drinks taken care of.
We were having it in the backyard, so we were renting some tables and chairs, but mostly people would be milling around. Rhys had gotten obsessed with the idea of Max being our ring bearer and strapping a pillow to his back, but then he watched YouTube videos of dogs eating rings, dogs pulling entire cakes and roast pigs down off tables to run away from people trying to get the rings they carried, and dogs tripping grandparents while bounding excitedly to deliver rings, and decided Max should just attend as a guest.
The one detail I cared about was the rings. I’d never noticed wedding rings except in passing, but ever since I’d mentioned them to Rhys the night he’d proposed they were all I saw.
A wedding ring said that the person wearing it belonged to someone. That someone belonged to them. It was a reminder more tangible than words that they had been chosen.
And I wanted one.
I wanted one so much that when Rhys and I picked them out a month before the wedding I grabbed the bag from the jewelry store as soon as we got home and put mine on.
“Hey!” Rhys had said. “No fair!”
I’d found myself clutching my hand to my chest so he couldn’t take it away. His face had softened at whatever he saw in my eyes, and he’d kissed me.
“You want to wear it now?”
I nodded.
“Okay, but you have to let me put it on you.”
He’d taken the ring off my trembling hand, kissed it, and slid it back on my finger while looking into my eyes. And I’d started crying. I was embarrassed, but Rhys just smiled at me sweetly.
“I want you to wear yours too,” I’d told him.
“Of course. Can’t have people thinking you’re married to someone else.”
I’d slid the ring onto Rhys’s finger and shuddered. It was like every hickey and bite mark we’d ever left on each other magnified and solidified into something no one could misinterpret.
