That Wedding (66 page)

A few minutes later, there's a knock on my door. I look out the peephole and see Phillip's adorable face. I open the door and quickly let him in.

"What are you doing?" he asks, pointing to the purple permanent marker I'm still holding in my hand.

I look down at the marker I forgot I was holding. "Oh, I just finished writing on the bottom of my wedding shoes."

"Why are you writing on your shoes?"

"It's kinda like in high school when you'd write math formulas up your arms before a test. You know, so you wouldn't forget. I'm writing on the bottom of my shoes, so I don't forget."

He squints his eyes at me in confusion. "Show me."

I flip up my purple satin pumps and show him where I wrote,
i do!

He laughs at me. "It's your wedding. Do you think you'll forget that part?"

"I don't know. Maybe," I tease. "So what are you doing back down here? I thought you were supposed to be getting your beauty sleep."

"Yeah, I know. I just wanted to check on you. Are you nervous? Do you have cold feet?"

"Nope, I put on the socks you gave me." I point down at my fuzzy socks. "I'm all good."

"Have you had anymore bad dreams you haven't told me about?"

"No, but I have been thinking a lot about my parents." I tilt my head at him. "Phillip, do you think they'd be proud of me now?"

He pulls me into his arms and looks at me sweetly. "I know they'd be proud of you. You're learning about life, about love, and you're playing the hand that was dealt to you the best that you can."

"It took me a long time to figure things out. I think I'm finally dealing with it. With losing them. I still can't believe I stood up at their funeral and preached about appreciating what you have, and I didn't do it myself."

"Irony, right?"

"Yeah, and it's only taken me four years to figure it out."

"At least you realized it. Speaking of that, do you realize this is your last night as Jadyn Reynolds?"

I pull him down onto the bed with me. "Jadyn Mackenzie. I'm not sure I like the sound of that. I might have to keep my name." I slowly slide my hands down his sides.

He grabs my hands tightly. "No sex."

"What do you mean, no sex?"

"No sex if you keep your name." I struggle and try to free my hands. Phillip has a smart ass grin on his face. He loves being stronger than me. He might be stronger, but I'm pretty sure I'm smarter. I lean my face into his shoulder, like I'm going to kiss it, but bite it instead. It didn't hurt him, but it startled him enough that I'm able to get one of my hands free.

I run that hand down the front of his jeans. "You drive a hard bargain." I press down a little firmer on his jeans. "Get it? A
hard
bargain."

He laughs. "You're bad. Is it bad that I want to?"

"I don't think it's bad at all. I want to too. But before we get to that, can I read you the poem I wrote for the service tomorrow? Like Lori's gonna read it, but I kinda wanted you to hear it from me first."

Phillip smiles. That smile that makes me melt. "I'd love that."

I grab the poem out of my bag and sit cross legged on the bed facing him.

My eyes get teary as I read to him.

Phillip does that to me. He makes me cry. I remember one night in high school when Katie was crying because her and Neil broke up, Lisa found some quote. It was something like,
No boy is worth your tears, but once you find the one that is, he won't make you cry
. I've decided that quote is wrong. Phillip makes me cry. I cried about him on the beach in Cancun. I cried about him the night I said yes. Phillip has been chipping away at the hard exterior I put around my heart since my parents died. I hadn't let myself cry, and I wasn't letting myself feel much either. I locked all my feelings away. Kept them balled up inside of me. I didn't want to feel anything for anyone because I knew how much it hurts when you lose them.

But Phillip's love got through.

Straight through to my heart.

I feel free now.

Free to feel, free to cry, and free to live my life. And the tears I've been crying haven't been sad tears, they've been happy ones. I'm so happy with Phillip, I can hardly believe it.

Phillip gazed into my eyes the whole time I read. I say a silent prayer that if I'm lucky enough to see those brown eyes every day, I will have lived an amazing life.

Phillip pulls me into his chest and hugs me. "That's amazing, Princess, really. I can't believe you wrote it."

"Well, it's kinda amazing what comes out of you when you start to feel again. Somehow, this whole process, from the planning to the stupid counseling, has helped me feel again. I can't thank you enough for putting up with my crap and for helping me get through this. I love you, Phillip. I really do."

"Is there a reason we're not supposed to be together tonight?"

"Well, I think traditionally, it was to protect the bride's virtue. But since I don't really have any virtue left, we don't have to worry about that. It's also supposed to be bad luck to see the bride on the wedding day. You're supposed to wait until you see her walking down the aisle in her dress or whatever."

He gives me sexy grin. "Wasn't it you that said we never listen to anybody?"

"I think that was me." I put my hands on his biceps and give them a little squeeze. "Does that mean I get to wake up in these sexy arms on my wedding day?"

"Most definitely," he says. He gets up, turns off the lights, puts the do not disturb sign on the door, strips down to his boxers, and slides into bed with me. "We'll order room service for breakfast, relax, and I'll sneak out when you go get your hair done. What time is that?"

"My appointment isn't until noon," I say as I happily snuggle up next to him.

Lori bangs on my door at ten-thirty. I'm leaning against Phillip's naked chest while he feeds me bites of pancakes.

I get up, peek my head out the door, and whisper to Lori. "Didn't you see the do not disturb sign? That's kinda like hanging a sock on the door. I have a boy in my bed."

She pushes through the door. "Jade, don't joke about something like that," she says, like I was hooking up with some random stranger on my wedding night.

Her eyes get big when she sees Phillip. "Phillip, what are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here!"

"It's not my fault she wanted one last single girl fling."

I slide back in bed to finish breakfast. "Lori, don't act all shocked. I know you and Danny spent the night together before your wedding."

"No, we didn't."

"You left early. Don't act all innocent."

"Okay, so maybe we spent some time together the night before, but he went to a different room to sleep. I didn't want him to see me the morning of the wedding. It's bad luck, you know."

"I think it's good luck. I also think it's a stupid tradition and why some brides call off their weddings at the last minute."

"You think sleeping with them the night before will guard against cold feet?"

"Definitely. When you're all alone the night before your wedding, you have nothing to do but think. To question yourself. Contemplate all the lifetime commitment stuff you're about to say." I give Phillip's thigh a little squeeze. "It's hard to think about cold feet when you've got a hot guy in bed with you."

"Fine, joke all you want."

"I'm not joking at all. I'm dead serious. I'm glad Phillip spent the night with me."

Phillip kisses my cheek, pops the last piece of bacon in his mouth, and gets out of bed. He's only wearing boxers, so he pulls on his jeans, tosses his shirt over a broad shoulder, and picks up his shoes. "I think I better leave you girls to this."

"You're a chicken, you know that, right?" I tell him.

After watching his sexy backside walk out the door, I turn to Lori and say, "You want some food?"

"Are you really doing okay? Like you seem very calm."

"Does that surprise you? I've always been pretty chill about stuff."

Lori rolls her eyes at me and shakes her head. "You used to be chill about everything until you started dating Phillip. Then you got a little dramatic. So is there anything you need? I feel like we should be doing something."

"I'm gonna finish eating and then take a long bath. The hairstylist doesn't want me to wash my hair, so that's all I have to do."

"You seem too calm. It's kinda scaring me."

"Lori, I wanna marry Phillip more than anything. I'm excited, happy, and incredibly blessed. I found a man that is so amazing in bed, it makes me cry." I grab a tissue and dab at fake tears.

She slaps me on the arm. "Jade! Do you ever take anything seriously?"

"Yes, actually I do. In all seriousness, I'm seriously blessed. Like he's amazing. Last night...."

"Okay, I give up. You're calm. Danny sent me down here early because he was worried you'd be freaking out."

"You don't need to babysit me. I'm not going anywhere. I didn't even have any bad dreams last night." I grab a ceremony program off the nightstand and toss it toward her. "Take a look at this."

She watches it float down to the ground, and as she's leaning down to pick it up, she says, "What's this?"

"The ceremony program."

She looks at the front of it. The black and white brocade print. The purple trim. Our wedding monogram. She turns it over, flips it open, then closes it. "It's pretty."

I smile. "No, you need to read it."

"Why? I know everyone."

"Fine, there's something I need to tell you. If you'd read the program, you'd see that you're not my matron of honor."

She puts her hand to her chest and cries out, "What did I do wrong?"

"No, silly. I mean we're not calling you matron of honor."

"Oh, you scared me, and Jade, I'm so sorry. You didn't have to do that. It was so selfish of me to want to change your wedding."

"Well, I looked up the word matron in the thesaurus for a different word to use. The synonyms were even worse. Words like biddy, dowager, dame. So then I decided fuck tradition. I searched the internet and found that other people felt the same way. I found lots of ideas. A nice one was treasured friend, but I thought that sounded like we were fifty-year-olds. There was honor attendant, lady of honor, best woman, chick of honor, goddess of honor, my home girl, and the bride's babe."