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My dad stepped back and looked over both Hale and me. "You know your mom and I are both proud of you two, right?"
I glanced at my brother, and we both nodded.
"I'd give you advice on having a successful marriage, but from what I've seen, True, you've got a good handle on it. Nothing is more important than listening to and respecting your spouse. Going out of your way to do the little things that make her happy. I've watched you with Amara, and you already do the things I'd suggest. So my advice is don't lose that in the chaos of your life. Always put her above everything else, and you'll be just fine."
I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat.
Hale's baritone voice cut through the tension. "Better you than me, bro."
I laughed. "Funny, I was going to say the same thing. Better me than you. You have no idea what you're missing out on."
"True's right, Hale. You're in for the shock of your life when you meet the one for you someday."
Hale scoffed. "Maybe someday far,farin the future. But today's not that day." He turned to me. "Couldn't even be bothered to have a big wedding with lots of single bridesmaids, huh?"
I punched him in the shoulder. "No, and keep your giant paws off the girls that will be there."
He sighed dramatically, and my dad chuckled. "Fiiine."
My dad turned to me and dusted off my shoulder, which looked like something to do with his hands to hide the fact his eyes had gone misty. He cleared his throat. "Ready?"
I glanced out the window and saw the sun was quickly sinking toward the horizon and nodded, a smile breaking out across my face. I couldn't wait to get to the end of the aisle and make Amara mine forever.
"I've never been more ready for anything in my life." I turned and crossed the room in a couple of long strides and held open the door for my dad and Hale. I followed them out and down the stairs. As I was about to step outside, I thought I heard yelling coming from outside the front door, across the house from me. My eyes flicked up to the second floor, where Kennedy stepped out of Amara's room and glanced nervously at the front door.
Then she caught my eye and gave me a small smile before going back into the room. A heavy hand landed on my shoulder, and I turned to find Maddox standing next to me. "What's going on?"
"Nothing. Connor's got it handled, don't worry about it. Let's go." I glanced back at the door one more time before deciding to let them handle it. Connor was Zen's bodyguard for a reason. He knew what he was doing, and he'd take care of whatever was going on.
We walked down the steps to the beach, Maddox right behind me. I got the feeling he was staying close so I wouldn't turn around and go find out what the hell was happening, but I trusted my friends and family to deal with whatever was going on.
Letting my gaze wander across the beach, my breath caught at how beautiful everything had come out. Our friends had done a great job decorating and making the little strip of beach behind Zen's house romantic. I hoped Amara would love it.
There were fairy lights strung from the back deck over the small aisle and chairs set up, casting a pale glow over the whole beach. We weren't having a big wedding, so there weren't tons of guests, but there were a few rows of chairs on each side. At the front, there was an arch, but it caught my attention because of how different it was. It was made out of thin pieces of wood and stood in a hexagonal shape with big flowers decorating a couple parts of it.
The whole area was perfectly Amara, and I could see her minimalist approach in everything, but the scene was still romantic. My heart leaped because I knew even though she may not have always pictured her wedding this way and that it had come together so quickly, she'd still be getting the wedding of her dreams. And she wouldn't ever get a do-over, so I didn't want to mess this one up.
Connor strolled down the sand, hands in the pockets of his linen slacks with the wind blowing his short hair all over the place. He made his way over to where I stood near the back of the aisle and looked me over. "You don't even look nervous."
I smirked. "That's because I'm not."
"Good. I wanted to give you a heads up. We had some paps trying to sneak in, but my team handled it. We should be good to go in about ten minutes otherwise."
Fuck. How had they even found out we were getting married today? Sure, we'd gotten our marriage license, but that hadn't had any details about when or where we were getting married. I reached up and twisted my nose ring before I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked back over at Connor.
"I wasn't going to tell you, but I thought you should know. There's nothing to worry about, my team shut that shit down." He glowered in the direction of Julian, who stood watch up on the deck with a pair of binoculars aimed down the beach.
Like Maddox, Connor could be a scary dude when he wanted to be. "Let's talk after the wedding about security. I want to hire you to handle Amara and the baby's security going forward. Now that there will be a record of her and I being married, it's only a matter of time before it comes out."
He nodded. "Yeah, we can do that." Ever since Zen's stalker got out of hand last year, Connor had tightened down his team, and nothing had gotten through since. I'd hire him myself, except he stayed with Zen and Kennedy pretty much all the time. Still, the guys he recruited for his team were top-notch, and I knew Amara and Phoenix would be just as safe with any one of them.
"Thanks again for doing this, man. Amara and I really appreciate it." Since we had to be careful about who we let in on the secret that we were getting married, we'd asked Connor to marry us. He did a great job with Zen and Kennedy's wedding, so I knew he could handle ours, too.
He nodded once. "Happy to do it."
We both turned as everyone started making their way outside to their seats. On the way to her seat in the front row, my mom stopped and gave me a watery smile before wrapping her arms around me. I chuckled and bent down, wrapping my arms around her. "Love you, mom."
She sniffled and let me go, patting my arm. "Proud of you, True."
