And she’s mine.
I’m hers right back, too. We’re each other’s love, and in a year and a half or so, we’ll make it official. The wedding, the license, the piece of paper that deems us legally husband and wife isn’t that important. It’s a symbol.
We’re already joined.
We’ve been joined since the day I found her with her hand in that damn toilet.
Love at first flush.
She moves, rolling over and rubbing her eyes, a shaft of strong sunlight shining in her face. Unlike me, she doesn’t get a tiny tan from it reflecting off a prism. Her face moves toward me, arms wrapping around my neck, ring hand sinking into my hair and cupping the back of my head as we give each other a morning kiss that makes me seek out her warmth.
The kiss breaks and she whispers:
“We have to tell my parents. Your dad, too.”
I groan, the feeling a rebel cry from my fellow men throughout the ages, stretching back to the dawn of time, to cavemen past with mothers-in-law who drove them nuts, too. I’ll bet all those cave drawings aren’t of wooly mammoths being stabbed with spears. If you look close enough, they’re mothers-in-law.
“I thought waiting for the ring to, uh, come out was the worst part of all this, but Marie? Planning our wedding? You’re killing me.”
“Just get us into Farmington Country Club and she’ll be happy.” She waves the ring around in the sunlight, a tiny white spot jiggling on the ceiling and walls like a very expensive laser pointer. If Chuckles were here he’d be a furry ping-pong ball, trying to catch it.
“Your mother will need her own reality television show. Momzilla. She’ll make Bridezillas cringe in fear.”
Shannon laughs. I don’t think she realizes how serious I am. “It’ll be fine,” Shannon insists, cuddling up against me, her creamy thigh nudging up along mine, knee headed toward my hipbone. That lush warmth drives all thoughts of Marie away and makes me think maybe this wedding won’t be so bad after all.
Shannon’s phone buzzes again. She sighs, and the thigh disappears as she gets up. While I like the warm skin on mine and miss it, the view of her ass is spectacular. A guy could get used to seeing that every day for the rest of his life.
My throat closes.
I will get to see that ass every day. For the rest of my life.
How did I get so lucky?
“It’s Mom,” Shannon says, reading her phone. “She wants to know if we can get a cake topper with a woman’s hand in a toilet and a guy in a suit giving her the thumb’s up.”
I groan again.
Millions of men through time and space groan with me. I’ll need their support.
“And Agnes wants an invitation, too.”
This is going to be a long process.
Shannon says something into the phone and I hear Marie’s scream of joy. The two speak in fast-forward breakneck speed, until Shannon calls out,
“Honey? What do you look like in a kilt?”
I have no idea, but I have a sinking feeling I’m about to find out. At my own wedding.
A single kiss on Shannon’s shoulder makes her giggle. As I cup her breast with one wanting hand, she stifles a moan. Marie’s voice chatters on, dominated mostly by three words: Farmington, helicopter and kilt.
I don’t want to know.
Peeling Shannon off the phone turns out to be easier than expected when she tells Marie to call Farmington and book it.
Click.
“I need coffee,” Shannon declares, looking around the room. She pads off to the bathroom. I walk over to the balcony and look out over Central Park. The view is spectacular.
I look at Shannon.
Even better.
My own phone buzzes suddenly.
“You need to answer that.”
“No, I don’t.”
Shannon pokes her head out from the bathroom. “Yes, you do. It could be your dad.”
“Why would my dad call me? He has nineteen-year-old assistants to do that, and they just call Grace, who calls me.”
“It could be Grace, then.” I crawl back into bed, determined to ignore my phone.
“Hey! There’s no coffee in this hotel room!” Shannon shouts from across the room. “What kind of fancy hotel doesn’t have a coffeemaker in it?”
They assume you’ll order room service, but instead of explaining, I seize my chance because I’m a guy, and that’s what we do.
“You’ll just have to help me wake up the same way you did back home that one morning,” I say, holding the sheet up so she can crawl under.
“What about me?”
“I’m happy to wake you up that way, too.”
She laughs, a throaty sound that makes me tent the sheets. “That makes me sleepy, Dec. Caffeine is what I need.”
“I promise that my wake-up method will not put you to sleep.” I leer at her. “If not that, how about a nice bath in the tub? I’ll soap you up. You’re a dirty girl.”
BZZZZ.
She reaches for my phone and tosses it at me. It’s Grace. I answer.
“I’m just going to take off my makeup,” Shannon says from the bathroom doorway.
“Don’t take too long!” I call back. “I can’t wait to soap you up.” I wave her off and turn my attention to the phone.
“Hi Grace.”
“Declan, I’m sorry to bother you, but Shannon’s mother is on the phone requesting that we reserve the corporate helicopter, a jet, and a yacht for an unspecified date in 2016. Does Anterdec even have a yacht? And what does she mean when she says she needs fifty bagpipe players and a dozen kilt tuxedoes made from McCormick tartan as well?”