Page 118 of For Pleasure Or Worse

Pike was beside me, Angelo rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet to his right, then Wink in his perfectly tailored suit and Echo adjusting the sleeves of his jacket because there wasn’t one big enough to fit all of him just right.

“What time is it?” I murmured.

Pike flicked his wrist out to look at his watch. “Almost four.”

Any minute now.

Frankie motioned me toward him to straighten my tie and tuck my folded pocket square into the breast of my suit jacket. “So this is it, huh? You’re leaving me for real. Name off the deed, mail forwarded, separate taxes next year.”

A chuckle rolled out of me. “You’re one to talk.”

“How did this even happen?” he lamented with wide eyes and a grin. “One day it was just you and me watchingTrailer Park Boysreruns on the living room couch, and now we’ve got these women spooling us around their fingers.” Pike pointed to the string quartet. “Did you ever think you’d have a cellist at your wedding?”

I smirked, looking down at the remnants of a seashell cracking under the pressure of my shoe. “I’m about as fancy as a two-dollar slice and soda deal from the corner pizzeria.”

“But you're a damn good time like one, too.”

When Pike left for Colorado with Ophelia my brain always assumed he would be back, because we were side by side for fifteen years and it was something like losing a limb. Sometimes I walked into the kitchen and expected him to be there eating a bowl of cereal, or looked out the window and imagined he’d be mowing the lawn. I missed him being there all the time, but we were both exactly where life needed us. Going in different directions was the end of an era and the start of a new one.

“Are you going to cry?” he asked.

“Are you going to throw sand in my eyes?”

“O told me if you weren’t crying on your own when you see Tally I have to.”

I leaned away from him. “I believe that.”

“Listen, if you cry it’s going to rub off on me and I’m going to start crying. It’s like when you see someone yawn and then you can’t help but yawn, too.”

“I think the more crying men around Tally, the better. She feeds off male fragility like a demon.”

Pike chuckled. “Did I ever tell you that the two of you were made for each other?”

“You didn’t have to.” I gave him the most ear-splitting grin.

The string section splintered abruptly in the middle of a Taylor Swift cover and recouped to play the recognizable sound of “My Girl” by The Temptations. All the murmuring from the people in front of me hushed to a stop and heads turned toward the top of the aisle. My spine straightened. I sucked in a deep breath and held it in my chest until the sound of my heart was thumping in my ears.

I wasn’t nervous, but there was something twisted about this level of anticipation that made my stomach feel like static.

My mom was the first person to come ambling around the corner of the trees, and I thought I had it together—I really fucking did—but that pure, proud look on her face was all it took to crack me. Goddammit, I thought I could at least hold out for Tal, but seeing Mom in that dress that was her favorite color of green, sparkling in the sun with a smile that made her eyes disappear, brought it all on like a wave. I’d never seen her in anything like it. I hadn’t even seen her wear more than a dab of lipstick all my life. I peeked over at Ang and his eyes had glossed over as well, no doubt thinking the same string of things.

Sistine came next, glowing, warm, and tropical as she found a seat opposite my mom. Camilla walked slowly behind her in a black dress, then Bella ten steps later. The rhythm of my heartbeat was erratic by the time Mia took her turn smiling down the aisle, and Ophelia was just as emotional as I was with rosy cheeks and quivering lips the second she saw me standing at the end of the long path.

O blew Pike a whisper of a kiss and lined herself up on the other side of the officiant with a giant bouquet of white flowers resting between her hands. It was like the changing of the guards. There was some silent understanding between Opheliaand me that I’d given my best friend away to her last Christmas, and she was here returning the favor with Natalia now.

“I’ll take good care of her, O,” I murmured. That was a given, but I wanted to say it out loud. She sucked in a little breath and her eyes watered some more.

“Showtime, Cap.” Pike nudged me as the guests began to stand and turn toward the open space where Tally floated into view between the palm trees.

Nothing could have properly prepared me for the moment I saw her in that white dress. She was so devastatingly beautiful that it almost brought me directly to my knees. I scrubbed my hand over my mouth and down my face, but it was fucking useless to hide my jaw falling open and the way I was damn near debilitated by her. She was my total undoing.

I blinked my eyes clear and I realized that she didn’t only look beautiful, she looked different. Her hair was chopped to her neck in soft waves that sent my eyebrows skyrocketing and my pulse racing. It was bouncy and sharp, sexy and playful. I didn’t even have time to question it, I was too busy shifting my attention from her head to her toes, taking it all in. I could spend all night admiring the details in her dress, and I would do that. I would trace every last bead with my fingertips, every single score of lace after that. There wasn’t a world where I’d let this woman in this dress go unmemorized.

Her father was at her side, offering his elbow to hold, guiding her closer and closer to me. Tally was a diamond in lace; the curves of her body were a Renaissance painting, and I was a beggar just trying to exist beside her, still not entirely sure how I ended up the man privileged enough to be her husband.

Fire caught in my heart and burned up my throat, stinging my eyes until they were blurry with tears. I had to wipe them away as fast as they were falling just to make sure I didn’t miss a second of her walking toward me.

While my eyes were transfixed on Natalia, the rest of the people were turned back around and trained on me. I could hear the sniffling under the melodic string music and say confidently that there wasn’t a dry eye in the entire house. Not my mom, or Sistine, or the bridesmaids. Not the audience of distant cousins and hopeless romantic aunts, or Natalia’s old bank coworkers, or the two women behind cameras making sure they got every single angle of the whole thing.

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