Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 66259 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66259 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
What if she changes her mind?
What if she does walk away?
What if this isn’t real?
“Need a little of this?” Karen aka Kitty, offers me her champagne glass.
I laugh. “No, I think I can do it without champagne.”
“The question is not if you can, the question is do you want to?” She winks. “You’ll be just fine, I’ll be over there with my ball and chain.”
“Good to know.” She’s literally going to move two feet away from me, not to Siberia. She’s hilarious, though, I’ll give her that.
The only people present are her parents. Addison of course said she had a headache after the fights from last night.
Good fucking riddance.
I’m glad Adrian listened to me. He walks up the hill and waves, Bible in hand, and meets me at the front with Dustin. “Ready?”
I nod a few times. “Might hurl, but sure, yeah.”
“Remember, she did puke on you.”
“Revenge, a dish best served… wet?” Dustin frowns. “Yeah, that doesn’t work, all right, so I’m just going to be standing over here filming—”
“Nope, got that covered.” I grab him by the collar. “You’re a groomsman, you both are, though Adrian might need a little help with the vow part.”
He laughs. “Got you covered.”
Adrian looks around. “It’s so nice and quiet.”
“Like a dream, seriously.” Dustin snorts. “But, do we have any music for her to walk out to?”
“Be right back, wish me luck.”
I jog down the hill and find my bride. Her back’s to me, but it’s not because she’s turning away.
No, it’s because she’s waiting for me.
Funny, how my entire life I thought about that gesture as leaving, and recently of Cassidy giving me her back, and now I see my bride doing the same, but she’s doing it with patience, not regret, betrayal, or anger.
And from what I see, the dress is stunning.
I hired one of the videographers to film everything and may have conned three teens vacationing here into doing some TikToks for me. I paid them a hundred bucks each, they’ll survive.
“You ready, beautiful?”
Scarlett looks over her shoulder. Her makeup is light, her lips pink, her hair pulled into a low ponytail with pieces falling away from it. The dress fits her perfectly, like it was sculpted for her. It trails behind her as she slowly walks toward me, eyes blinking slowly as she takes me in and laughs. “Are you seriously wearing leather pants right now, all your rockstar jewelry, and a gray T-shirt?”
“Your fault.” I hold out my hand. “You texted Leather Pants to rescue you, and now we rescue each other. It’s only natural that I’d show up like the true rockstar.”
She loops her arm in mine. “You look sexy.”
I capture her mouth in a hungry kiss and pull away. “And you look stunning.”
She leans her head on my shoulder as we walk up the hill, and without any sort of background music, I start to sing.
God Bless the Broken Road.
I begin the first verse then get choked up, and nearly stop singing. She looks up at me, and I look down at her and continue. “…Others who broke my heart, they were like northern stars…” I sing the entire way to the front and face her parents.
Adrian clears his throat. “Who gives this woman to this man?”
Her dad smiles warmly at us. “Her mother and I do.”
We walk past them, hand in hand, to the front, facing Adrian. I know it’s bittersweet, but I also know that I wouldn’t want anyone else at this point to be the person helping us with our vows.
“Killian, you said to keep it simple, and honestly I know in my soul this will be the last time I have to stand before your bride and ask her to read her vows, though let’s hope this time they aren’t—” He stops talking at my glare. He clears his throat. “Scarlett, do you take Killian to be your loving husband, to be with you through sickness and in health, through hard times, and good, stand by his side until the end?”
“Yes,” she says it so quickly I almost do a double take. Did she really really say yes?
“And Killian do you—”
“Yes, just yes, I’ll take her turtle to the vet if he gets sick, I’ll walk the dog with the blind eye, I’ll buy her flowers just because she likes the way they look, and I swear, I’ll sing to her every single time she asks, until the end. I’ll sing to her until the very end.”
Scarlett’s ruining her makeup with her tears, but it just makes her look prettier. Dustin reaches into his pocket and hands the bands to Adrian.
“Rings are a symbol of eternity, of forever,” he says. “Stay by each other’s side, no matter what, be the symbol you wear.” He hands Scarlett the ring, she holds it to my left hand and looks up while sliding it on.