Page 99 of Own the Eights Gets Married
Jordan stared in awe at his scooter-swiping fiancée—well, hopefully still his fiancée. But before he could say anything, Talya clapped her hands excitedly.
“It’s sonnet time! Are you ready?” she asked Simon.
The kid nodded. “I’ve never been more ready in my life.”
“You’re going to be so epic,” she cooed.
“It’s totally epic that you’re here,” Simon replied.
Jordan cleared his throat, cutting through the epic amount of teen hormones. “It would be really epic if you won the race and aced the sonnet. You should get to it.”
“Right!” Simon answered, snapping back.
Talya and Simon jogged over to the table staffed with retired teachers, and Jordan exhaled a shaky breath as Simon’s voice carried over to them.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.
“He sounds good,” Georgie said with a nod toward the teen.
Jordan watched as she wiped a tear from her cheek. Was she just emotional to see Simon win and complete the recitation, or was it more?
And what the hell was he supposed to say?
I’m sorry?
Please, don’t say it’s over?
I’ve been carrying around your dryer lint for weeks?
No, none of it was right. None of that got to the heart of what he wanted to convey.
Simon’s voice grew louder.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove…
Simon’s recitation of Shakespeare’s sonnet on the definition of love was the answer.
He took Georgie’s hands into his, listening as the teen continued.
Oh, no! It is an ever-fixed mark.
Mark! It was a sign. This was what he needed to say to the woman he loved. He stared into Georgie’s eyes as Simon continued.
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
it is the star to every wandering bark,
whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
within his bending sickle’s compass come…
“What are you doing?” Georgie whispered, her gaze bouncing between him and Simon.
