Page 29 of Breakout
“Now repeat after me,” the judge says.
I repeat the words very carefully as I stare Beckett in the eye. I know this might be fake, and he might be doing me a favor, butI hope he knows how seriously I’m taking this. That as long as we are friends and doing this, I’ll be by his side.
“Until death do us part,” I say as I slip the ring onto his finger.
“You may kiss the bride.”
Beckett doesn’t even wait until the judge is finished giving his blessing before his lips are covering mine.
I don’t know if it’s because of where we are or the vows we took, but the way Beckett holds my face between his palms and the way he kisses me feels different.
It feels real, and right, and perfect, and that scares me half to death.
My heart races as we walk out of the courthouse.
Holy shit.
I’m married.
Peyton is my wife.Mywife.
I look over at her and see she’s looking straight ahead, looking calm as ever. She must feel my eyes on her because she looks over at me and smiles.
I’m grateful to be alone at this moment. As soon as Mr. Piper signed as our witness, he claimed to have business elsewhere in the courthouse and left us.
I look down at the beautiful woman standing next to me.
“So, that just happened,” she jokes, making us both laugh.
“Now what happens?” I quip.
She scrunches up her nose. “Well, if this were a romance book, right about now, someone would drop a baby on your doorstep just to throw us for a loop.”
My smile drops. “That’s not funny. You know you’re the only one I’ve been with since we got together.”
Her eyes soften, and she squeezes my hand. “I was kidding. I know that won’t happen.”
“Okay, good.”
The last thing I want is for my wife to think that some random woman is going to pop out of the woodwork proclaiming we’ve been together in the last year.
My wife. Jesus, I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that word being tied to her.
“So how does it feel to be Mrs. Beckett Hayes?”
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s hit me yet. Nothing feels different.” She shrugs. “What about you, do you feel different?”
“Not yet,” I lie.
Everything feels different. I want to introduce her to people as mine and shout it from the rooftops. I want to see our last name on her back at my hockey games, so everyone knows who she’s with. I just want everyone to know, plain and simple.
We come to a stop next to my car, and I turn her body into mine. As I brush a piece of hair off her face, I have the biggest urge to kiss her just because I want to and I can, but I don’t. The last thing I need is to scare her off too soon.
“What do you have planned for the rest of the day?”
“I have hockey practice I need to head to.” When her face falls, my heart drops. “But I can skip it today. I can text Coach and tell him my dad has requested my presence. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary.”
Before I can even finish my sentence, she starts shaking her head. “Absolutely not. We aren’t going to start this off by youskipping on your responsibilities. Besides, we should keep up our normal schedules.”
