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.
We danced and ate cake. We hadn’t had best men, because we were each other’s best friends and that was all we needed—each other.
Eventually, we were able to escape, a limo taking us from the venue to the hotel.
The second we were in the room with the door closed, I pulled Caden to me, cupped his face, danced the tips of my fingers over his cheeks. “I can’t believe you’re my husband.”
“I’ve been your husband for over a year.”
“Yeah, but this is different…and I still couldn’t believe it then.”
“You are pretty lucky.” Caden grinned.
“I was thinking the same about you.”
“We’re both lucky. We get to be married to our best friend.” He smiled, and I kissed it. “Can we have honeymoon sex now?”
“But they have a jacuzzi tub. I wanna take a bath with you first.”
“Fine. Bath, then honeymoon sex. I want to be on the bottom first. And you gotta do that thing you do with your tongue and my ass, you know the one I like.” We’d discovered over the past year that Caden was quite the greedy bottom. Which made sense. He’d always wanted to have everything and not feel left out.
I cocked a brow. “Any other demands?”
“Not at the moment, but if you give me time, I’m sure I can think of some more, husband.”
“I have no doubt you can.”
We started the tub, then stripped each other out of our clothes. We stayed in the water until our fingers pruned, Caden between my legs with his back against my chest. I played with his nipples, his cock, cupped his balls, but most of the time, we just talked and enjoyed each other.