“Are you just figuring that out?” Alex’s dad asked.
“Simon!” Mama B swatted him, but I couldn’t look at them, couldn’t take my eyes off my parents.
“I’m in love with Alex. I know it’s probably a shock to you, but I think…deep down, both of you knew. How could you not? Maybe you denied it the way I did. I was so afraid of screwing up and losing him, or ruining what we had, or…not being who you wanted me to be, that I lied to myself. I can’t do that anymore. I’m in love with him, and I’ll always be in love with him. He’s it for me.”
“Oh, sweetheart. Did you really think we’d care? This is Alex. We love him, and we love you. All we’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy,” Mom said, and I knew she meant it. “Isn’t that right, Edward?” she prompted, and her tone of voice left no doubt that she was telling Dad he better be okay with this.
Dad didn’t reply right away. He looked down, his left leg bouncing up and down. Alex’s hold on me strengthened while my chest tightened, making it hard to breathe.
“Edward?” Mama B asked.
“I love you, Dad. I do. But if you can’t handle this, that’s your problem, not ours.” Maybe this was a conversation my parents and I should’ve had on our own, and maybe I shouldn’t be saying the things I was about to say, but I couldn’t stop myself. And I didn’t want to. “I’ve spent my whole life watching the two of you be miserable with each other. I was so damn afraid that would be me as well, that if I accepted how I felt about Alex, we would turn into you, but I was setting myself up to be that miserable without him. Because I could never be happy with anyone other than him, and we will never be anything other than happy together. When I doubted it, Alex was my reminder that there is true love in this world. I won’t walk away from that for anything.”
“Jesus, Caden,” Alex said softly.
Finally, Dad raised his eyes to us. “You doubted love because of us?”
“Yes.”
Dad glanced at Alex’s parents, this embarrassment obvious when he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Now probably wasn’t the best time to go into too much detail. We could save that for when it was just the three of us.
When Dad turned to us, his gaze going from me, to Alex, then back to me again, I could see when he got it, when he got us.
“I’m glad you have each other, and I’m so sorry our problems have affected you so much. I’m not going to disrespect you by lying—this isn’t what I saw for you. But your happiness means more to me than that. Alex is a good man, and we’re all lucky to have him in our lives.”
They all rose to their feet then. There was more hugging and tears, and everyone—including my dad—seemed nothing but happy for us. Mama B and Alex’s dad were clearly a bit upset with my father, but hopefully they’d work it out.
When everyone settled down again, I looked at my husband and grinned. “So…I’m not sure if this is the best time to tell you guys this part too, but Alex and I are married. We got hitched in Vegas, and I went on his honeymoon with him.”
“What!” both our moms gasped, and Alex’s dad chuckled.
“You don’t do anything partway, do you, son?” mine asked.
“Nope. Not when it gets me him.”
I turned to Alex to see he’d dropped down to one knee. He held a black band in his hand that looked awfully familiar.
“Goddamn it! I was going to do that when we got home! We seriously got matching rings. How perfect are we together!”
“Caden.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up so I can propose to you right. You can ask me to marry you too if you want. Hell, we’re already married anyway. We don’t do anything the usual way.”
“So are you going to do it, or what?” I asked.
“I’m having second thoughts.”
Everyone chuckled, and then Alex sobered. “I’ve been in love with you my whole damn life, Caden Hill. I never thought I’d be lucky enough to call you mine. You gave me the greatest gift by loving me too. Will you marry me? Again?”
Emotion clogged up my throat, but I managed to get out, “Yes. God yes.”
Alex slipped the ring on my finger. The other, shitty ones, we’d put on chains we wore around our necks.
I pulled Alex to his feet and kissed him. Our parents hugged us and congratulated us before promptly demanding an explanation on how our Vegas wedding happened and how I’d been in Puerto Vallarta without telling them.
We had a few more memories of that night…going to a random chapel…buying rings from a guy in a Spider-Man suit—no lie, but it was Vegas after all. We didn’t remember it all but we knew we’d had fun and we’d been happy. Drunk us got our shit together before sober us did.
We all had dinner together, and we promised to come home to get married. It was what we both wanted anyway. Afterward, I went home with my parents and spent more time talking to them—about Dad, about my childhood, about everything. It wasn’t perfect, but we’d begun to patch up some of the damage.
When we were finished, I crawled out my bedroom window like old times, and sneaked over and knocked on Alex’s.
He opened it right away and smiled. “I was waiting for you.”
“I’ll always be there.” I climbed in.
We stripped down to our underwear, me wearing a pair of his super short trunks. I was a little obsessed with them now. We got into his childhood bed together, the place where I always felt comforted and loved, and held each other all night.
Epilogue
Alex
One year later
“I now pronounce you husbands,” the officiant said, the words barely out of his mouth before Caden pulled me to him and kissed me, to the sounds of clapping and cheering all around us. Of course, we were technically already married, but we’d wanted another ceremony, to do it right this time and pretend it was our first.
Our parents were in the front row, the rest of our families behind them, and also some of our childhood friends—Bentley, who was happily married to a man of his own, and Kendall and Lynn, our first kisses, who hadn’t been surprised at all when they’d learned we were together.
And Jack was there too. He’d driven down from Portland with the love of his life by his side.
Caden grabbed my hand and held it up. “It’s time to party and celebrate us! Seriously. We’re the best couple ever!” he said, making everyone cheer louder and laugh. No one was surprised at his antics.
The wedding was incredible, and the reception even better, filled with laughter, happiness, friendship, family, and love.
It had been a long year. Caden and his parents had a lot of difficult conversations, and his parents had separated. While he thought that was for the best, it was still difficult for him to deal with, but I’d been there for him, making sure he knew he was loved and that I’d never leave him.
The evening went both fast and slow. I wanted to savor it, but I also wanted to get my husband to the honeymoon suite, even if it wasn’t all that in the small town we grew up in. But the next day we would be leaving for our second honeymoon, this time to Europe. We thought about heading back to Puerto Vallarta, but we’d wanted something different, something ours. We were hitting up Ireland, Scotland, England, and France. We wanted to travel everywhere, to explore the world by each other’s sides.