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He slid a wedding band onto my finger until it touched the engagement ring. I waggled my fingers, testing how it felt.
The Justice gestured to me. “Molly Carter, please repeat after me…”
I had imagined this day my entire life. I always thought I would be a crying mess on my wedding day, but as I looked up at the man I loved, the father of the child growing inside of me, my voice was steady and confident.
“I, Molly Carter, in the presence of these witnesses, do take you, Donovan Russo, to be my lawful wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. Inpandemicand in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.”
Donovan chuckled at my word change while I slid his wedding band on.
“By joining hands,” the Justice said, “you are consenting to be bound together as husband and wife. By the authority vested in me by the laws of the state of Indiana, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Gloria let out a loud wail, and was promptly shushed by her husband.
Donovan took me in his arms and kissed me. It reminded me of that first kiss we shared on the balcony in Rome, when we were just two strangers looking to each other for support during a crisis. It reminded me of the first kiss we shared when I was released from the hospital. It was so much like the kiss Donovan surprised me with while we were renovating the store.
Every kiss had been different, but they had all contained the same amount of warmth, passion, and love. A love that I knew would never fade.
Donovan suddenly dipped me. It felt like I was falling until his strong hand held me a foot off the ground, with him leaning down at me, smiling.
“Careful with her!” Herb suddenly scolded. “She’s carrying my grandchild!”
“I’ll always be careful with you,” he whispered, for my ears only. “Except for the times you want me to be rougher.”
I beamed at him, and we kissed once more before he raised me back up.
“I have the tremendous honor,” the Justice continued, “to introduce Mr. and Mrs…”
“Oh, not yet!” I said. “I’m not taking his name for a while. Not because I don’t want to! It’s because we own a business, and everything is in my name, and wedefinitelydon’t want to deal with the hassle of changing everything over right now. We’ll wait until we’re more settled.”
“Don’t care,” Donovan said. “You’re Mrs. Russo to me.”
Mrs. Russo. I did like the sound of that.
“Okay, enough celebrating,” I said. “Time to get back to the restaurant.”
“Can’t you take the day off?!” Gloria said. “You’ve been married for thirty seconds and you’re already jumping back to work.”
“We don’t open until four,” Donovan told me. “We can get brunch with my parents before we head back.”
“Okay, we’ll get a quick brunch,” I allowed. “But then I want to head to the restaurant. Opening night was more packed than I expected, so I need to schedule the extra servers we talked about, and order more raw food supplies. Not to mention reevaluate the Cost of Goods Sold ratio on the wine, which I think we can tweak…”
“My feisty wife has a business degree,” Donovan said, “and she never lets me forget it.”
I grinned at him. “You just called me your wife.”
“Get used to it, because I’m going to be calling you that a lot,wife.” He held out his finger. “I like how this feels.”
“You’d better,husband!”
Donovan’s parents stayed for a week. It was actually really helpful because while Donovan and I were at the restaurant constantly, they helped with other things around my apartment. Preparing the nursery, stocking up on diapers and wet-naps and other supplies, and even taking my car to get inspected before the sticker expired. Gloria and I spent a lot of time together, chatting about how fussy Donovan was as a baby, and the tips and tricks she used to get him to sleep.
“Oh, healwayscheated at hide-and-seek,” she revealed one morning. “He peeked through his fingers to watch where we would hide!”
“Don’t believe a word that woman says,” Donovan called from the kitchen. “I am, and have always been, a perfect little angel.”
Gloria and I glanced at each other, then fell into a fit of giggles.
By the time they left, I was really sad to see them go. I realized I was one of the lucky women who actuallylikedher in-laws.
