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Goldie shakes her head, hand on her mouth. “Should we move here, Coop? We should move here. I mean, most of these people don’t even know us, but they helped out anyway. You told everyone they’re invited to the wedding, right?”
I laugh. “We did, yes. And you should definitely move here. Tuck says it’s a great place to raise kids.”
Cooper grabs Goldie’s hand. Lu releases her, coming to stand beside me. She threads her fingers through mine. My heart skids inside my chest.
I want her. So damn bad. She looks gorgeous in a little black dress and sky-high heels. She was able to sneak away from the house to get her hair and makeup done last minute, and now her lips are glossy and her eyelashes are a mile long.
She smells like coconut and chocolate.
“Oreos,” she’d explained. “They’re Goldie’s favorite.”
“You’re my favorite.”
She licked her lips. “I am delicious.”
My torso cramps. A fierce craving that hits me hard enough to hurt.
Fuck. Me.
I wish I knew what happens next. I wanna skip the bullshit. Dive right into the deep end with Lu. I worry we’ll fall apart if we stay in the shallows too long. We both hurt too much over the years to survive anything but certainty this time around.
But I got a feeling Lu isn’t certain. Not yet.
I know it’s only been a week, not even a full seven days. But when you’ve been in love with someone for over a decade, you’re done being patient.
You’re done waiting for answers.
“I’m not gonna lie, y’all,” Goldie says, “this just might be better than what our wedding was going to look like at the club. Color me impressed. Seriously, Lu, we can’t thank you enough. And Riley—”
“You always, always come through.” Coop offers me his hand. “Couldn’t have asked for a better friend or best man.”
I shake his hand, and then he’s pulling me in for a hug.
“Goldie’s thrilled,” he murmurs in my ear. “Which means I am too. I owe you one, brother.”
“You owe me nothing. Now let’s get y’all married.”
There’s not a dry eye in the room when Goldie walks down the aisle to a classical cover of Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight.” She’s transcendent. Big smile, eyes bright. She’s flanked by both her parents, who are wearing happy, wobbly smiles themselves.
Lu, Cooper, and I watch from the front of the room in awed silence. Mrs. Underwood shuffles on her feet between us, her long black preacher’s robes swishing above the music. I asked her to keep the ceremony relatively clean, but we’ll see what her definition of “clean” is these days.
Glancing at Lu, I see a big old smile on her face. Tears slipping down her cheeks.
Because she’s smiling, I doubt she’s thinking about her ex. But makes me wonder if she’s thinking about me. The guy she’s hopefully going to walk down the aisle to one day.
Or maybe she’s not thinking about guys at all. Maybe she’s thrilled for her friend, pure and simple, and she’s lost in the romance of the moment.
How it should be.
I nudge Coop with my elbow. “She’s beautiful, man.”
“She is.” He wipes his eyes. “DR, this is the happiest moment of my life. Make it slow down.”
I chuckle. “That, I can’t do.”
The ceremony begins. Mrs. Underwood has a surprisingly magnetic presence, with a strong, clear voice and a calm delivery of her unsurprisingly filthy sermon.
“When you marry someone, it’s not enough to say ‘I love you.’ You must also like each other, so that it becomes ‘I love you, and I like you, and I really like you naked’.”
The crowd laughs along with Goldie and Coop.
“You’ll know it’s love and like when you feel comfortable walking around in that birthday suit of yours,” Mrs. Underwood continues. “Not only because you’re turning each other on. But also because it shows you feel at home with each other. There’s no fear of judgement. No sense of shame for showing one another your truest, messiest, horniest selves.”
Goldie curves her hand over her tiny baby belly. “Guilty.”
More laughs. Lu looks at me with full, wet eyes.
“Home is about belonging. Safety. Friendship. And because you’ve found your belonging—because you feel safe enough to allow yourself to be seen in both the biblical and metaphorical sense—now you’re free to joyfully live the rest of your life being who you truly are, as you are. You’re free to explore. Learn. Nourish. And you get to do it all with your very best friend, the one who cracked your world wide open.”
My vision blurs. I blink. Lu’s looking at me again. Her lip trembles.
I don’t know how she did it, but Lu showed me the world in the space of a single summer. She really did crack it open, allowing me to experience a way of living I didn’t know existed. She’s shown me what it’s like to be seen. To be loved for who I am, not who I could or should be.
