by Max Monroe
“It’s not time for that!” Thatch yelled behind him. “Vows first!”
The crowd laughed.
“Okay, I guess I’ll go first,” Kline announced, unwrinkling the paper towel.
“Georgia Rose, I promise to trust you even when you deviate from our grocery list and convince me to buy six boxes of Dunkaroos and three bottles of wine I know you’ll never drink.
“I promise to give you all of the love and support that I don’t give Walter. Also, I promise to be nicer to Walter.” He paused, glancing up at her and shaking his head with a giant grin.
“I’m not saying that.”
She tapped the towel. “You have to. They’re your vows, remember?”
He turned toward the attendants, letting everyone else in on the secret. “We wrote each other’s vows, if you couldn’t already tell.”
“I warned you, Kline!” Dick shouted toward him. “Ballbuster.”
“Daddy!” Georgia scolded. “There will be no talk of balls during my wedding ceremony.”
The room filled with more laughter.
Once everyone settled down, Kline cleared his throat and continued, “He’s a really good cat. The best cat. Man, I sure love Walter.” He rolled his eyes, but said it nonetheless.
“I promise I’ll never keep anything from you because there are no secrets between us. I vow to love you through the difficult and the easy. I promise to never put you or myself in danger. This includes me never drinking lime juice with my scotch ever again.” He winked at her.
“I vow to never change from the amazing man that I already am. I promise to never lose my huge, strong, kind, and determined heart. I will never stop teasing you, making you laugh, or flashing smoldering blue eyes your way. I will always greet you with the smile that’s only yours. And when it’s just the two of us at home, I vow to only wear boxer briefs around the house. No matter what I’m doing, I’ll either be naked or just wearing boxers.” His blue eyes found hers, his brows waggling in agreement as a few women in the crowd hooted some catcalls.
“And I vow to listen, for as long as it takes for you to feel heard. I vow to be your unrelenting cheer squad on the days it feels too much. I vow to pick the important fights with you, especially when I know you’re selling yourself short or not being treated with respect.
“I vow to spend the rest of our lives laughing, smiling, going on crazy adventures, and most importantly, loving each other through the good times and the bad. And if there are bad times, I promise the kind of makeup sex that has your blouse buttons hitting the floor.”
And on the last sentence, he stared deep into her eyes. “I vow that I will love you, Georgia, every day, for the rest of forever.”
Georgia sniffled a few times, and I handed her a tissue to wipe her eyes.
“Don’t cry, TAPRoseNEXT,” Kline whispered, brushing away a few tears. “You may have written those vows, but I’ll stand by every last word.”
She giggled at his sincerity, but I wasn’t used to it, and therefore, found myself completely ill prepared. I dabbed at fresh tears with the back of my hand as she unfolded the paper in her hands.
“Kline Matthew, I stand before you today to become your wife.” She paused for a second, looked up at him and then back at the paper. “I think everyone here knows that already, but I’ve got this feeling that you really wanted to hear me say it.”
She turned to the crowd and remarked, “I’m not improvising.” She turned the paper toward them. “It really says that.”
Everyone laughed and he nodded. “Keep going, Benny.”
She looked back to the scrawl of his words.
“From this day forward, I am yours and you are mine. I promise to remind myself of this most important fact every day and smile when you do it for me. I promise not to give up or run away when you make the kinds of mistakes that every man makes, and I promise to use my heart, rather than my ears, to really hear you.”
Sweet cookies and dildos, this guy had a knack for saying the right thing.
“I promise to rap my way through our days and beatbox for you each night because it’s times like those when I’m so…” She paused and glanced to the crowd. “I’m so…effing…adorable you can’t even stand it.”
Her amused eyes met his again. “You really wrote the F-word in my vows?”
He shrugged. “Adorable wasn’t enough.”
She shook her head, smiling, and continued, “I promise to keep you on your toes with my hair and my words and always stand up for myself with the backbone you love and expect.”
“And, I promise to be late as often as I want because you’ll always be waiting. But when it comes to lovin’—” Georgia stopped midsentence, giggling at her groom. “Kline, I’m not saying that in front of the minister.”
“Baby, you have to. They’re your vows, remember?”
She leaned forward, whispering something into his ear. His mouth twisted into a devilish grin and he whispered back.
Georgia turned toward the attendants. “Please feel free to cover your ears during this part.”
She cleared her throat, cheeks pink, and said, “I’ll come early and I’ll come often because the power of Big-dicked Brooks compels me.”
“I knew it!” I shouted. “I told you!”
Pfffft. I knew my cockdar wasn’t on the fritz.
Everyone in the crowd was a mixture of laughing, clapping, and wolf whistling.
Once we settled down, Georgia gazed at Kline like she would happily crawl inside him and stay there and said the rest of her vows.
“But most of all, I vow to love you with everything that I am, no matter the circumstances, because I know, from the very depths of my tiny, perfect being, that you will be there, doing your best to love me more.”
And when the minister told Kline to kiss his bride.
He motherfucking kissed his bride so good it made my toes curl.
“Congratulate me, boys,” Kline toasted with a glass of scotch in the air, the happiest I’d seen the fucking sap in ages.
His body was here with us, but his mind and his eyes were on his boogeying bride on the other side of the dance floor. The space was fairly small. At least, this room known as The Greenhouse was. They’d rented out the entirety of The Foundry out of nothing more than necessity. Kline liked to think his life was boring and normal and that no one cared at all, but the truth was they did. They cared a lot. And keeping such an important event completely private was the only way to maintain his happy little bubble of make-believe.
“That,” he said with a slightly tipsy gesture, “is my wife.”
I laughed and slapped him on the shoulder, exchanging smiles with Wes behind his back. I raised my eyebrows in question, and Wes gave me a pursed-lip nod of agreement.
“Go get her,” I urged simply, knowing he wanted to be with her a million times more than he wanted to stand here and shoot the shit with us.
And, regardless of what people might have thought they knew about me, that was fine by me. My oldest, closest friend had found it. Found her.
Always loyal and loving, I couldn’t think of anyone who deserved it more than he did.
“Benny!” he yelled, pulling her attention from the crowd of women around her to him. “Make room on the floor. I’m coming for my dance!” The wattage of her smile was blinding.
I stood next to Wes and watched as Kline danced his way over to her, pulling her into his arms and handing off his drink to the first, unsuspecting free hand he came to so he could hold on to her with both hands. Hands to her jaw and lips to hers, he kissed her in a way that I felt all the way in my stomach.
“Good God, he’s a goner,” Wes remarked, sinking into the wall and tipping his drink to his lips.
“Yep,” I agreed, thinking about the vows they’d exchanged during the ceremony.
“It’s nice,” I added without thought—because it was.
Wes laughed way harder than I thought was appropriate. “Jesus. Who are you and what have you done with Thatcher Ke
lly?” He morphed his face into what he thought was a good impression of me and mocked, “It’s nice!” with a wobble of his head.
I punched him hard enough in the shoulder that he stopped laughing abruptly.
“Ow! Fuck, Thatch! Christ.”
“It is nice,” I told him again, further delving into the teachings of his lesson. “Take fucking note from your most experienced of friends. Multiple flavors of pussy are great, but what our fucking goner of a friend found is better.”
He looked at me like he didn’t know what to make of me.
“The two of them stood up in front of God and us and committed to each other forever with enough trust in each other to speak one another’s words rather than their own. That, motherfucker, is love.”
Powerful speech performed, lesson conveyed, I felt content with my message until Wes went and fucking ruined it.
“Jesus, fuck, The Foundry must be some sort of Twilight Zone. I don’t even know who you guys are anymore,” he teased, chuckling into his bourbon.
“One day, Lancaster, when it happens to you, I will remember this moment.” I drained the rest of my drink and walked away.
Moving away from the bulk of the crowd, I sat down at a table that was mostly empty. My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I thought it might be the tattoo shop, checking in to see if I’d be there tonight, but instead, I found a number I didn’t recognize.
Unknown: She’s a lot older than you normally go for, but it looks like you’ve got a chance.
I looked around, wondering what the fuck whoever this was was talking about. Quickly, I typed out a message.
Me: Who is this?
A reply came almost immediately.
Unknown: Your mom.
I was no less confused, but hell if I didn’t fucking laugh.
Me: WTF. Who is this?
Unknown: The hot bitch at the head table.
I looked up across the dance floor as the crowd parted in front of me. Cassie, the craziest bitch I’d ever encountered and Georgia’s maid of honor, sat all by her lonesome at the wedding party’s table, one leg cocked and her bare foot in the chair beside her. She popped her eyebrows in a mischievous challenge.
This chick had balls, sitting there by herself, just kicked back and relaxed with zero fucks given about it. Fuck, Cassie’s balls might have been bigger than mine, and that was saying something.
Me: How’d you get my number?
Unknown: I have my ways.
Cryptic. Another message came right on its heels.
Unknown: But good luck with that pussy tonight.
I looked at her as she raised her glass in cheers and then looked at the area around me. Not even one prospective lay stood out in the nearest twenty-foot radius.
Me: What pussy?
Unknown: The silver-haired cutie beside you.
I looked to my left and then to my right, and what I saw had me smiling like a lunatic. Kline’s grandma, Marylynn, sat clapping along to the heavy beat of the music and swaying back and forth. She was cute, but she was no less than eighty-five years old. I looked down to my phone and typed as quickly as my big thumbs would allow.
Me: You should be ashamed of yourself. This is Kline’s grandma. But I’ll be sure to tell her you find her attractive.
I shifted my gaze from the phone to her table as soon as I was done, but when the dancing crowd finally moved out of the way, she was gone. Gone from sight and gone from my phone, but she’d found a home somewhere else—stuck in my head.
THE END
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First of all, THANK YOU for reading. That goes for anyone who’s bought a copy, read an ARC, helped us beta, edited, or found time in their busy schedule just to make sure we didn’t write a pile of drunken chicken scratch.
We also have to thank ourselves for being awesome. Not ourselves ourselves, but each other ourselves. Max thanks Monroe, and Monroe thanks Max. We’re not actually thanking ourselves like assholes. We both needed each other more than we probably ever could express, and we literally had the time of our lives doing this together.
Thank you, Lisa, for being funny and awesome and so freaking adaptable to our needs and requests. Your love for this book nourished it in a way that allowed it to grow into something better than the two of us could create without your input.
Thank you, Murphy, for whipping our shit into frosting. Or, you know, as close to it as possible. We love the finished product that we couldn’t have created without you.
Thank you, Sommer, for creating the perfect Kline Brooks packaging. Hours have been wasted ogling rather than trolling through Facebook. We’re happy with the change.
A special thank you to Colleen for being so gracious with both her time and sense of humor, laughing at our simple joke about not being her that we hadn’t planned on anyone really seeing and further messing with our minds. We’re still confused about how you wrote this book without us knowing it.
And last but not least, a HUGE thank you to our families, for allowing us the time and space and freedom from short-term household responsibilities that we needed to pull this off. They’re the reason for everything.
All our love.
