Mateo was unsurprised. He glanced down at it and back up at me, shaking his head with a boyish grin and warm eyes. “It’s not broken,” he said. “I did that.”
“Did what?”
“I stopped it from moving the second you said ‘I do.’ I wanted to immortalize it.”
The shock of that curled around my lungs and impacted a place deep in my chest. I was speechless trying to process something so sentimental and romantic, and that he even thought to do it at all. He was still wearing it regardless of how useless it had become when he could have easily left it at home for another functional watch.
“In Vegas?” Emotion scratched up my throat.
“I’m surprised it took you this long to notice.”
“I’ve been a little busy,” I croaked. “I don’t even know what to say.”
There were no words proper enough. When I thought I’d reached the epitome of my husband, and there were no other things he could do to make me love him more, or respect him deeper as a person and a partner, he went and proved me wrong over and over again. There was no end in sight. Happy little surprises followed him in every direction we weaved.
This, though.Thiswas something out of a movie.
Mateo laced our fingers on the table and leaned into me. Our noses brushed and our foreheads tilted together, boxing us out from the reception into our own little world briefly. “That’s the thing, Tal. I’m never looking for anything in return. You love me loudly enough without words. Let me love you quietly too.”
“I love you every way humanly possible.”
He kissed me tenderly, feverishly, with a sweeping tongue and a moan on the cusp of his lips that only my ears could hear. It was over too soon, and when we sat back he felt miles away when all I wanted was to melt into him again.
Metal tinged against a glass softly and stole our attention, and we tracked it to Frankie in the center of the dance floor with a microphone in his hand.
“A little birdie told me I had to say something tonight as the best man.”
Mateo sat up straighter, tugging the leg of my chair closer to him until I was basically sitting in his lap. Our other bridesmaids and groomsmen came shuffling back to the table to sit beside us, and the guests quieted for Frankie to continue.
“I’m generally a man of few words, and I don’t do well with lots of eyes on me like this, but if there’s anyone in the world I’d suck it up for, it’s you, Cap.”
Matty smiled wide enough to show off a dimple.
“For those of you that don’t know, my name is Frankie, and up until January, Mateo and I lived together for almost fifteen years in and out of the military. So it’s actually a miracle that it’s not the two of us up there making out at the end of the dinner table.”
Laughter erupted around us, and Frankie’s shoulders dropped away from his ears. “Some people thought we were swinging the other way for a bit, so I’m glad Mateo decided to propose and finally clear the air about that. I was running out of ways to defend the length of his shorts to the neighbors next door.”
“Nothing wrong with showing a little thigh!” Matty called out.
“Either way, to keep this short and sweet, because there’s dancing to be done, and drinks to be had, and an ice sculptureby the oyster bar melting at a rate absolutely everyone in here saw coming—” He sobered, taking a deep breath, and then began again. “I’m so glad you found your person, Cap. There is no one more deserving of happiness in the world. You care so hard and so much for the people around you, and it’s beautiful to see Natalia be that counterpart for you, and make you a better man, give you hell, and provide you new purpose all at the same time. And I knew it was you, Tally,” he addressed me and my heart lagged a beat. “The day Cap saw you in the bank was the first real day of his life, and he never looked away again. If you’re lucky, you guys will live a thousand lives together. I'm just honored to be here, a part of this one, having seen the two of you grow together from the beginning. I want to be there for every milestone, because you both mean the world to me. I’m going to say it was fate all along, because your happiness gave me mine.” Frankie’s soft smile and deep gaze swept to Ophelia. “I guess giving my best friend away isn’t so bad if I’m giving him away to you, Natalia.”
My nose stung all the way up to my eyes and I placed my hand over my heart, so grateful that we had such amazing people surrounding us. That peace of mind was worth more than Frankie knew. He picked a flute of champagne off the table and raised it, and Mateo’s fingers tightened around mine.
“To the Durans!” he cheered, and a chorus of applause and clinking glasses followed.
Ophelia’s chair scraped lightly against the wood floor as she pushed away from the table beside me with a folded piece of paper in her hand. “Who let him go first?” she grumbled. “I’ve been working on this for three months and he just winged that off the top of his head with nothing but a Red Bull and vodka.”
“You’ll do great!” I slapped her perky little ass on her way to the center of the floor where she stole the mic from her boyfriend. He looked both enamored and terrified of her all atonce, and it was the most satisfying enigma to watch. She was the world's most conscientious woman and fell in love with the man who flew by the seat of his pants; they would balance each other out until the end of time.
“I’ll rough him up for you, O,” Tyler shouted, tugging Frankie down next to him and putting him in a headlock that split a grin across her face. What was it about weddings that made everyone sentimental? It wasn’t like the boys weren’t rowdy together in their own ways—we’d seen enough of that to outlast ten weddings—but there was a sense of something deeper between everyone.
Family.
Well, maybe not everyone. Definitely not Mia and Angelo, who hadn’t so much as snarled at one another over their steaks the entire day. It was honestly for the best.
Ophelia tapped on the top of the microphone. “Hellooo,” she sang into it, adding a curtsy that put a winsome smile on my face. Her long light brown hair curled over her shoulders and the pearls around her neck were the perfect timeless edition to her strapless black dress. “I’m Ophelia, the other best friend. We decided to do this funny little thing where we dated another pair of best friends, and now here we are in Key West making speeches.”
A mumble of laughter washed over the tables. She looked down at her paper briefly and then folded it back up in her palm. “I was going to read this long-winded thing I wrote, and tell you all about how Natalia was in college and the way we became friends, and our embarrassing corkboard in our dorm room with pinned photos of Chris Evans on it. Which is equally as embarrassing when you think about the fact that Mateo was probably somewhere in a desert trying not to step on an IED at the same time.”
