AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I also touched it and it did feel warm. “Thank you. Thank you for the ring and the necklace. Thank you for saying that about my eyes, thank you for everything.”
He’d been so happy. We’d fallen asleep that night holding hands, his big fingers gently clasping around my new ring. With my other hand, I held onto the charm of my new necklace, the heart. It had reminded me briefly of the one that Ward had given me, the one that my boss at the NGS had wanted me to test to see if it was genuine. This new necklace was absolutely genuine. It genuinely meant that Bowie cared about me.
He did. He did, because he was a knight, a guy who in previous centuries would have ridden on a white charger and had a sword and banners. After today, he was my knight, because he was my husband. That might have been for life, maybe, if this had happened differently. Maybe he wouldn’t only have wanted to rescue me—maybe it could have been something real. His arm now went around my waist and pulled me against his chest, against the orange and blue tie he’d worn to honor his college and the Woodsmen.
“Let me get a picture of you,” Aubin ordered, and his parents moved to the side as she talked about angles and lighting. I tilted up my chin to look at Bowie and smiled at the happy grin on his face. “Yes, that’s definitely the one you should post,” she said, satisfied. “Bowie, who does your social media?”
“That would be me,” he answered.
“Did you ever think about hiring a professional?” she asked, but my dad interrupted to ask if we were ever going to cut the cake.
“In a minute,” Bowie told him, and my dad paid attention to him, just like he’d been doing all day. He’d listened when my husband—myhusband—had told him that no, we weren’t going to celebrate by toasting with Scotch, and yes, he’d have to stand during the ceremony and not speak, not a word, until the “I do” part was over. Bowie didn’t say any of that meanly or without a smile, but he meant it, and my dad listened. I’d never seen him listen to anyone besides Aubin, and that was only because he wanted so much for her to love him, not because he respected what she had to say or thought she was right about it.
Aubin had been right about everything today. She’d been like a whirlwind planning it, just like she had been for her own wedding, but I’d been in such a daze that I’d been happy for her to take over. She’d shown up with the cake, she’d decorated the house with flowers, she’d bullied my dad into wearing the suit that he’d also had on for her wedding. She’d been amazing and again, I felt lucky that my sister was so in charge and responsible.
I’d thought so, anyway. She definitely had the clamp down in regards to my wedding, but about her own life? I wasn’t sure. She hadn’t said a word in response to the many, many questions that I’d had since my conversation with Bill. Well, she had said words, but they weren’t good answers. They were the same kinds of things she said when she talked about her company, which meant that I got more confused the more she talked.
“Billy and I are going through a transition and working on our collaboration,” she’d explained as we shopped for the silver ring and I’d come right out and asked if her marriage was in trouble.
“‘Collaboration?’” I’d repeated. “Does that mean your relationship, and does ‘transition’ mean that you’re separating or something?”
No, that hadn’t been what she’d meant, but she kept on saying more words that didn’t explain it very well. I’d come away with the general understanding that yes, there were problems with both her husband and with Jess, her partner, but they were solvable problems. She already had the solutions worked out. But when I’d asked specifically about those solutions, she’d specifically told me to leave her alone and stop with my dumb questions. That was more of the Aubin I remembered from when I was a kid. The smooth-talking, lingo-filled speech was new and I didn’t like it at all.
I realized that I’d been imagining myself shaking my sister by her shoulders and messing up the perfect waves of her hair, which would never happen because her hair didn’t get messy and because we’d never physically fought. Could I take her? I imagined that, too.
I snapped to reality when I heard her ask, “Paris?”
“We’ll have to decide,” Bowie answered her. “I know that Lissa has always wanted to travel, right, honey? So we’ll take a nice, long trip to celebrate after the season is over. A delayed honeymoon. You should get a passport,” he told me, then asked, “What? Why do you look like that?”
“Are you serious?” I asked him. “You really want to go away somewhere?
“Sure, we could visit wherever—hey, thanks,” he told me, because I’d thrown my arms around him, as high as I could reach. Like he’d done during our marriage ceremony, he bent and picked me up, settling me even closer to himself. “I guess you like that idea. I do, too.” He laughed. “I wish I’d said this a while ago, since it makes you so happy.”
“I am happy.” I was, I realized. I wasn’t scared or anxious, I wasn’t trying to plan ahead to avert some kind of catastrophe, and I wasn’t even considering the cost of the power washing that had made the stones of this patio light grey instead of dingy black. I was just happy.
“I think I’m messing up your dress,” he said, nuzzling against my neck.
“I don’t care.”
“Are we cutting the cake?” my dad asked for the fifth or sixth time, and Bowie did put me back on my feet in the shoes that didn’t seem to hurt the broken one at all. Not too much.
“Paris,” my sister said again as we sat down to eat dinner before we had the dessert. All the food had been catered and I wouldn’t even have to do these dishes. “Is that where you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” I said, but I was imaging so many places, some with white-sand beaches, beautiful cities, ancient ruins, and all of them with Bowie there, too. “Do you have suggestions? You have a lot of experience.”
She frowned. “No, I don’t.”
“You do! You went away to college and you traveled then. Remember how you went to Orlando for the dance competition? I watched you on TV. Then you went to the Caribbean on your honeymoon, too. ”
“You went away to school, Aubin?” Bowie asked. “I remember Lissa saying that you got a dance scholarship.”
“You told everyone at my wedding during your speech,” she reminded me.
Had I? I barely remembered it now.
“Sissy got a scholarship also. Division One gymnastics,” my sister announced.
“D-one, like Garrett,” Bowie’s mom said, and my dad turned to her.
