The chapel erupts in a roar of applause and shouts of utter glee. Everyone stands and it’s a riot of cheering, the voices so loud I wince. I can tell Leo can hear them. At least a bit, because his gaze is scanning around our friends and family and his smile is wide. We rush down the center. High-fiving our guests as we pass by. It’s the single happiest moment of my entire life. It’s when I got it right. Humans make mistakes constantly. It’s our nature to fail and flounder and curse our existence.
Every once in a while, maybe with a little help or support from our friends, we succeed in unwitting ways. The glass case we surround ourselves with as protection cracks, and we truly begin living. Either for the first time ever, or again, a second chance. Or a third. Or a fourth. Because there is no limit on joy except for the stipulations and limitations we create.
We walk back into the choir room. He closes the door and spins on me. There is another enormous window above us colored in golden hues. The sunshine is beaming so bright the whole room feels like a realm of heaven. “Leo, this is the best day of my life.”
He shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it on a piano. “Mine, too,” he says.
“Everything you said in there was beautiful. So perfect. I can’t imagine this day being any better.”
“That’s a bold statement, Mrs. Callaway. What are you wearing under that dress? We can make this official, official right here.”
I laugh. “Not in a church. I’d like to keep my spot in heaven.”
“Even if I go to hell?” Leo claps back.
I roll my eyes. “You are not going to hell.”
He surrounds me with arms and presses his forehead against mine. “I would have raided hell wearing a thong if it meant I got to marry my best girl.”
“This is sort of heaven right here and now. Isn’t it?” I say slowly.
He nods against me. “You’re everything, you know? And now you’re mine.”
“Leo,” I say, batting my lashes. “I’ve waited to hear you say that for so long. You’ve been my everything for a long time. You’ve changed my entire life. Saving you, saved me. I’ll never be able to repay you.”
“Well, you could, but you don’t want to do that in a church.”
Laughing, I grab the collar of his white dress shirt. “Mr. Callaway, you drive a compelling argument.” I step out of his embrace and lean over to grab the train of my dress. “How about a peek of what you get later?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes,” Leo says it and signs it, furiously.
Hiking up the dress to expose my cranberry red garter, I shake my leg at him. “Go ahead,” I say. “Check it out.”
“I want to see higher up,” Leo growls, narrowing his eyes, a chuckle on his lips.
Shaking my head, I say, “That’s way later. Check out the garter.” My heart pounds and pounds against my rib cage. I wanted to show him this here, while we were by ourselves. Kneeling in front of me, Leo grabs the garter on my high thigh and slides it down.
“What is this, Sunshine?” he asks, rubbing the tiny tattoo I had inked a few days ago. Keeping him away from me was easy as he was with his friends the week before the wedding, so he hasn’t seen it yet. It was the only opportunity I had to get the tattoo done.
“Read it,” I encourage, signing, so hopefully he can see me in his peripheral vision.
Leo says the words, written in small script out loud, “Only love to embrace.”
“Happy wedding day,” I say, hoping he likes it. We’d talked about tattoos before, so I know he likes them. I’m not sure if he likes them on me.
He looks up at me. “Natalia’s quote.”
I nod. “Do you like it? I figured it was worth reminding ourselves about. Every day.”
“It’s perfect. Thank you.” Leo stands, and captures my face in his hands. He presses his lips against mine, and my body warms immediately. He tells me thank you several times in breaks of our mouths. I end the kiss, and wrap my arms around his neck to hold him close.
The way it was always supposed to be. This is the day all of the pain makes sense.
