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My eyes sting for how true it turned out to be.
He and Rae and I have all struggled with very painful things, but we’ve come out of them stronger, brighter.
“Champagne?” I suggest.
I realize those green eyes have been looking at me softly—he probably noticed the emotion building in me. But now he grins lightheartedly. “Sounds great. We’ve got a lot to celebrate, don’t we?”
I nod. “Marriage and happiness and all that.”
He nods, too. “Soulmatery, yes, all that.”
I chuckle before the sting comes back to my eyes and I whisper, “Rae on Sunday.”
Both hands on my face now, thumbs caressing my cheeks. The emotion has built in him, too, for sure.
“Yes,” he whispers back.
I place a long kiss on his lips.
His hands drift down over the lace of my sleeves and have me shivering contentedly.
“Champagne,” I repeat.
“Champagne,” he agrees.
Once we’ve gotten into pajamas, we sit at the kitchen table with plastic flutes of chilled bubbly in our hands and just…enjoy.
Enjoy our drinks.
Enjoy the calm silence when it’s fallen and enjoy talking to each other when we’ve got something to say.
It’s just like usual, really. We’re the same as we were before I walked down the aisle to him, only now there are wedding bands on our fingers and I’ve got his last name—not according to most places yet, I guess, but still.
“Liv-Andria Wintermute,” I muse halfway through my drink.
“That’s a kick-ass name,” he says as he taps at the diamond on my ring.
He’s using his left hand, so I can easily tap his ring right back. “I think so, too.”
“Well, Mrs. Me, what should we cook for dinner? The shrimp or the steak?”
“Ooh, I don’t know!” Since we didn’t spend much money on the wedding and didn’t book a hotel room or a trip for our honeymoon, we splurged on things to eat and drink here. “You say you can cook both of them well and I believe you, so…whichever is easiest, maybe?”
We talk about that for a little bit, finish our champagne, start on second glasses. It’s beginning to makeusfeel even more bubbly; we have more enjoyable conversation and less calm silence. We laugh with each other, daydream about the future….
When he says, “I wish Lolly and Pop could’ve seen us today,” there’s still a smile on his face, but his eyes dim like they always do when he thinks about them, especially Lolly. “They’d have loved you and Rae so much.”
I squeeze his hand. “We’d have loved them, too.” After a moment, “I—I wish I’d been as lucky as you, even just for a little while, you know? Known what it was like to have a mom and a dad who werepresent, for one thing, and loving. Wish Rae could’ve known grandparents like that.”
He nods. His smile is fading, but the fingertips of his other hand are steady where they’ve started tracing random shapes on my forearm. “Me, too, Liv. I’m sorry.”
I lift my shoulders. “It’s okay. I’m sorry foryou.”
He tips a soft smile at me, then echoes, “It’s okay.”
Well, I know it isn’t always. I know his getting better about dealing with Lolly’s passing doesn’t mean he’s over it—I know he’llneverbe over it. But I also know Rae and I can strengthen him, because we’ve already been doing it, just as he’s been strengthening us. And that’s what really matters, I think.
I’m delighted to say that because of the trust he allowed me to place in him when we were just friends, and because of his support of me during my various fights with my childhood in and out of counseling—just becauseofhim, I truly have been made stronger. I have gotten better in my own way. Before I knew Landon, I thought I had a handle on my demons, but after meeting him, I learned that keeping them pressed down under my hands and actually having control over them wasn’t the same thing; having no illusions about what happened to me andfacingwhat happened to me wasn’t the same thing.
