Page 99 of Between Brothers

Chapter 44

Hayley

Slow, so beautifully slow and so full of meaning, love, and light I couldn’t even stand it. I adored Blue and the care he’d shown me the first time we’d made love since… Well, since. It was what was going through my mind as I stood, hand in hand with him in front of the judge marrying us.

Dragon, Dani, and Thirteen stood behind him, and I could feel my father, Melody, and Archer at my back as we exchanged vows. My hands trembled and shook with the magnitude of the moment as I slid the gold band Dani handed me onto his finger, his eyes alight with all things love, hope, and desire.

“Mr. Barry?” The Judge asked and Blue slid first a simple gold band and then a proper engagement ring onto my finger.

The judge’s voice was a wordless buzz in my ears as he finished what he had to say and Blue’s smile grew wider, I felt my own echo his and my heart swell and we kissed. The first time we ever would as husband and wife.

A couple of cheers, a smattering of broken applause and happy tears leaked from the corners of my eyes.

I just couldn’t stop kissing him.

I never wanted to stop kissing him.

“Alright you two,” the judge said with a wink, “I do have some more people that would like to get married today.”

Laughter, and Blue pulled me into the shelter of his arms and turned us away from the judge, taking the manila envelope with our marriage documents inside from the clerk.

“Congratulations,” she said.

“Well now, we need to get back to the house,” my dad said. “Finish getting your stuff moved in.”

I laughed and said, “Dad, all he really has are clothes… we can’t do anything about the rest for now.” Blue and I had agreed that his bed needed to come but we weren’t sure how it would fit in my room. There was still so much up in the air and undecided and I was going just a little bit insane trying to keep track of and implement all of the changes happening all at once.

“We’ll figure everything out,” Blue murmured. “We have everything we could want, or need, and the rest? We’ll figure it out and let the chips fall where they may.”

He was right. We’d already survived some of the worst things that could happen to a couple. Anything else would be so small by comparison.

My dad drove us home, and when we pulled up, it was to a line of motorcycles backed up to the curb in front of our house. I blinked and asked, “What is going on?”

“Surprise,” Blue said from the backseat of my dad’s Explorer. I twisted around in my seat and blinked at him, his smile smug even as fiddle music lazed through the open car window from our backyard.

As soon as my father pulled up to the curb past the motorcycles, Blue leapt out of the back and opened my door for me. The way he did it screamed that I would likely never have to open a door for myself in his presence again and I thought how sweet that he does it. It was, too. It spoke of a man who was desperately trying to be all that a man should be, but I knew that the only real role models that he’d had growing up for what that was, was how men behaved on television and figuring out from his dad’s behavior exactly what it was not to do.

He took my hands and steadied me as I stepped out of the truck in my heels onto the grass and made sure I was safe getting onto the sidewalk. I smoothed down the front of my summer dress. It was more than a little bit country and I loved it. White eyelet material and form fitting around the bust with just enough give to the front to hide the small pooch of me just barely starting to show.

It had taken a while to get an appointment to get married, some kind of a backlog with the courts, so here it was, June but here we were… married and apparently having a party?

Blue led me around the side of the house down the gravel of the drive to the backyard which was indeed set up for a reception. I laughed as everyone turned and yelled ‘surprise!’ and covered my mouth with my hands as I flamed in a giant blush.

My dad pulled off his suit jacket and loosened his tie and I took in our fully transformed backyard.

A barbecue pit was in full swing at the back of the house with food piled high. Rush had put up a little gazebo for shade near the lilac bushes my mother had so loved. There was a table for two under it facing out over several freshly built picnic tables all of them decorated with flower arrangements that I could see from here weren’t flowers at all but carefully folded and hand crafted paper flowers done by Blue.

Two aluminum troughs filled with ice, beers, wine, water and soda flanked the back steps and Blue went and got me a bottle of chilled water before coming back to me as I just took everything in.

In the main part of the drive, a tent had been erected and a dance floor put down over the gravel. To one side a small stage and on it? The band from our first date.

I couldn’t help myself… I started to cry.

Laughter and a whole bunch of ‘awe!’ caught my ears as Blue pulled me against his chest and rubbed my back murmuring, “I love you and I wanted your day, the one we talked about, to be perfect.”

“I love you all so much!” I cried and there was applause. The singer for the band put his lips to the microphone and started to sing and I spent a good portion of my time having person after person come to me and shake my hand congratulating me.

Melody came up and I hugged her tightly. She had her camera around her neck and had been taking photos at the courthouse for us and said, “I’d love to get photos of you and Blue at your table.”

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