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I shifted from one foot to the other, trying to breathe through the hot, muggy air. We had fans going and the dais where the ceremony would take place had been set up with a canopy of sorts to protect us from the late July sun, but I was sweating bullets. I didn’t think it had much to do with the weather, though.
“Relax,” Nash said under his breath. “You look like you’re ready to bolt.”
“Nah.” I grinned over at him. I was battling a lot of emotions, but none of them included wanting to run. The backyard of our house—Ben and Lauren’s house—was filled with the people we loved and cared about most in the world. My teammates, coaches and their significant others, my parents, Lauren’s parents, and a handful of friends and neighbors. It was only about seventy-five people, so it felt incredibly intimate.
Exactly how we’d envisioned it.
We hadn’t wanted it to be a big ordeal. It was a final hurrah before we moved to the new house we’d bought and started the next chapter of our lives together. As husband and wife. Mommy and Daddy to Benny and Annalise. Benny had already made the transition, babbling all kinds of words these days, but Dada and Mama were reserved specifically for me and Hadley. Annalise was still on the fence, but we’d explained as best we could that she could call us whatever she wanted. We’d noticed in private it had become more Mommy and Daddy, while in front of others she stuck to Aunt Hadley and Uncle Wes.
Whatever she wanted was fine with us; we just wanted the kids to be happy.
They were so excited about the wedding. Well, Annalise was excited and Benny was just excited because the rest of us were. Marrying Hadley was the icing on the cake of my life. I hated that we’d had to lose Ben and Lauren to find each other, but we had and making her my wife was all I’d thought about since that last trip to Miami.
“Here we go. You ready?” Nash grinned over at me and I turned.
The light jazz that had been playing stopped and the “Wedding March” began. I might have replied to Nash, but I wasn’t sure because the moment I caught sight of Hadley, I couldn’t think straight. I was completely mesmerized.
Since her parents were gone, and she’d been extremely close to both Lauren and her parents, Lauren’s father, Greg, was walking her down the aisle.
Hadley was a vision in white. Though her dress wasn’t a traditional wedding gown, it was pure Hadley. It was white and lacy, with what looked like silky material, but I didn’t know what all that stuff was called. All I knew was how gorgeous she was. The dress was calf-length, appropriate for an outdoor, backyard wedding, and both summery and classy. It hugged her curves in all the right places but was strapless so it showed off her shapely shoulders and the elegant line of her neck.
God, she was beautiful.
How had I never thought so until recently?
Then her eyes met mine and she smiled.
Suddenly my suit fit perfectly, I wasn’t sweaty, and the funny feeling in the pit of my stomach disappeared. She was walking down the aisle. Toward me. Toward our new life together. I took a second to look down at Annalise, who was throwing rose petals on the path ahead of Hadley, and she grinned up at me happily.
“Hi, Daddy!” she called out, oblivious to the rules and traditions of wedding ceremonies.
I noted that Hadley’s step faltered for a second, her eyes meeting mine, but I winked at Annalise before mouthing, “don’t cry,” to Hadley.
Her lips turned up into a tremulous smile and then she was standing next to me.
“Dear friends,” the nondenominational pastor we’d hired spoke up. “We are gathered here today…”
“Well, Mrs. Kirby,” I said, holding my new wife in my arms as we danced our first dance. “How does it feel?”
“Amazing,” she whispered. “We did it.”
“We did.” She gazed up at me. “Ben and Lauren are totally laughing at us right now.”
“Totally.” I shook my head. “I can literally hear his voice in my head, telling me what a dumbass I was and how much time I wasted.”
“Same. Except in Lauren’s voice.”
We laughed together as I pulled her against me. “I love you, Hadley.”
“I love you too. Much as it pains me to say it.” She was teasing. We joked a lot about how we’d felt about each other until recently, and it always made us smile.
“Ready for a week alone in St. Lucia?”
“God, yes.” She frowned for a moment. “Though I hate leaving the kids.”
“We need us time. They’ll be fine. Tasha and Greg are going to take good care of them. Plus they need special time with their grandchildren.” Despite Tasha’s MS, she and Greg had offered to take the kids while Hadley and I went on a honeymoon. We had Tori staying with them so she could help out overnight, though Benny didn’t really wake up much anymore, and Drew and Nina were on call for any emergencies that might come up. Tasha was okay most days, and Greg would be with them, so we weren’t worried. It actually made us feel good to know the kids would get to spend quality time with Lauren’s parents since we felt like they might be their only present biological grandparents. We hadn’t heard from Patrick and Susan since the judge awarded us custody, and while we wouldn’t keep them from the kids, we also weren’t going to seek them out. If they wanted to see the kids, they had to come to us for now. That might change when they got older, but I wasn’t playing games with Ben’s kids.
