by J. Bengtsson
All in all, though, a solid showing, given the way I’d been feeling after seeing Casey walking down the aisle at the beginning of the ceremony. If anything, the kiss was a reflection of her splendor. I’m not trying to be overdramatic here, but it really was like an out-of-body experience… as if I were looking down on the proceedings wondering who the hell the lucky bastard was who got her. The fact that the bastard was me became clearer and clearer the closer she got. If human eyes could bulge like those of cartoon characters, mine would have been a few inches outside their sockets. Casey was beyond all expectation… my tailor-made princess. Her purity and grace were magnified by the beautiful face under the veil. Her expression was serene, like a woman who was sure of her choice in soul mate. It struck me then that Casey was so much more than I deserved. Had she not met me, her life would have been a whole hell of a lot easier. But I’d fought hard for my bride, and selfish or not, I wasn’t going anywhere until I made her mine.
And making it official was just what I’d done. Casey and I stood facing the guests, soaking in the applause and well wishes. I couldn’t remember a moment I’d felt as happy as now. We were husband and wife. Life, from here on out, would be lived together. I’d promised her to try harder… and I would. Giving her everything she wanted was my priority even if it meant facing the ghosts of my past.
I glanced at my bride only to find her peering up at me with a glint in her eye and a conspiratorial grin on her face. Maybe she was remembering the searing kiss. I know I was still fevered from it. But when the music started, I realized that smile of hers had nothing to do with the kiss at all… Casey had something more sinister up her sleeve. She was taunting me with weddings past.
“Don’t look at me like that, babe,” she said, laughing. “You know exactly what’s happening here.”
My eyes left her in order to stare down the wedding party. Surely they weren’t a part of this shakedown – but one look at all those expectant faces and I knew Casey had turned them against me. I made eye contact with Keith, but he shrugged. My brothers, even? Dammit. Defectors! All of them.
“We are not doing the wedding dance!” I protested. I’d managed to dodge it once before at Mitch and Kate’s wedding, but like a case of aggressive crabs, it was back to haunt me. I really had no choice. Either I looked like a douche for not finding Casey’s joke whimsically fun, or I looked like a total idiot for pretending to be a happy participant in one of the stupidest ideas any bride or groom had ever come up with to entertain their guests.
Casey nudged me forward, her eyes pleading for my cooperation. Well, shit. This was happening. I was doing the dance. Mentally preparing myself for the humiliation, I looked to Casey for guidance just as the music suddenly stopped, and the entire church erupted in laughter.
I looked around, not sure what was happening, but certain I was the butt of the hysterical joke.
Casey grabbed my shoulders. “I’m just kidding,” she said, laughing. “I’d never do that to you.”
“So we’re not…”
“No dancing, Jake… just your standard wedding fare.”
What the hell? Twice! She’d gotten me twice with the same damn joke. How could I not have known? I bent over and grabbed my knees, exhaling audibly. When the shock passed, I looked up at my new bride and said, “You suck.”
“I love you too. Now walk me down the aisle.”
Because of the helicopters overhead, the outdoor portion of our wedding pictures was canceled and everything was taken inside the church after the ceremony. It was just as well since the temperature had already hit triple digits. I’d planned my tour schedule around an August wedding, giving myself four weeks off between the end of the European leg of the tour and the beginning of the Asian shows. Since the decision to move the wedding from Southern California to Arizona happened after the tour had already been set and tickets had been sold, there was no option but to marry in August… when it was hot as balls outside.
Because of security issues, those of us from the wedding party were given a police escort to the reception where our other guests were waiting. Originally the plan had been for Casey and me to leave the church in our own limo, but we didn’t want the police to make a separate trip just for us, so we hitched a ride with Kyle, Kenzie, and Keith.
The crowd of well-wishers who’d been pushed back earlier in the day were now crowding on the small two-lane road leading out from the church. Some people held signs or flowers, but one committed woman stood on the curb in a wedding dress and veil.
“Ahh she’s pretty,” Casey cooed. “And look, we’re twinning.”
“Uh-huh, and by the looks of it,” Kyle said, “You’re both marrying the same guy. I’m honestly surprised she’s not splattered with pig’s blood.”
“She doesn’t have to be a creepy stalker, Kyle. Be more sensitive. What if she was just jilted by her fiancé? Those things happen,” she said, elbowing me in the ribs. “Right, Jake?”
Before I could respond, the woman on the curb answered Casey’s question by lifting up the top of her two-piece wedding gown to reveal ‘marry me’ written across her bare breasts.
“Whoa!” we all screamed in unison, not having expected such a bold proposal. Casey playfully tried shielding my eyes.
“Damn, that was so unexpected,” I said, my vision still trained on the words written on her bosom. It’s not like I hadn’t been flashed before, but this was the first time by a woman wrapped in white satin.
“What did I tell you?” Kyle said, a smug look of satisfaction on his face. “Stalker.”
“You know, Jake.” Keith smirked. “If you’d just held out a day longer, you and the flasher could have been so happy together.”
Kyle was peering out the window with a puzzled expression on his face. “You know what I wonder? How did she write that on herself? Wouldn’t that be upside down when you look in a mirror?”
“Try backwards, dumbshit,” Keith insulted, slapping him on the backside of his head. “Kenzie, I thought he was getting smarter dating you.”
“Look, bud.” Kenzie addressed him directly. “I do the best I can, but I only have so much to work with here.”
Kyle grabbed for her as she squirmed away. “You don’t diss me and get away with it,” he said, throwing himself over her as she squealed in laughter.
“Oh, Jesus. Happy couples everywhere,” Keith complained. “Why didn’t I ride in the kids’ car?”
“I thought you had a girlfriend,” Casey said. “You asked to bring her to the wedding, anyway.”
“I never said I was bringing her. I just wondered if I could invite someone on such short notice. But she wasn’t my girlfriend. We went out twice. I didn’t bring her because I didn’t want to introduce her to the family and get her hopes up.”
“Her hopes up?” Kyle grinned. “Yeah, Keith, you’re the catch of a century.”
“Well, I’m no Uncle Paul, but…”
Kenzie looked around, confused. “Who’s Uncle Paul?”
“Only the hunkiest old guy alive today. And did anyone happen to catch a glimpse of his date?” Keith asked.
I thought back to the guests in the church but had no memory of even seeing my dad’s older brother… and a fifty-five-year-old man with One Direction hair and a dark, leathery tan was not easy to miss. Nor were the types of women he normally dated. Knowing Uncle Paul, his date would be ravishing. When we were younger, the women he brought around had always starred in our wet dreams. “I did not. She was that good, huh?”
“Dude. She was bangin’… and our age. I mean, I totally bow down to the man. How does he do it?”
“It’s the surfer thing,” said Kyle, in all his infinite wisdom. “Doesn’t matter how old you are, girls just dig it. Right, Kenzie?”
“Oh, yes. I love it. Kyle’s super sexy when he arrives home smelling like seaweed and trailing sand through the apartment. I especially enjoy when he comes to me crying about chafing and wants me to rub soothing ointment in places I don’t want
to talk about.”
“Um, FYI Kenzie, I don’t cry. I simply articulate, in a very manly way, that I have sand collecting in areas of my body that terrify me.”
“I told you, Kyle, you can’t get kidney stones if sand collects in the tip of your penis.”
“And you know this how? Do you have a medical degree that you forgot to mention?”
“If it bothers you that much, go see a doctor,” Kenzie said. “Or better yet, Google it.”
“Right, because the Internet is the place for sound medical advice.”
Casey put a stop to their bickering by pressing Keith for more information on the mystery woman he had been thinking of bringing to the wedding but didn’t. “You’re talking about the woman you met at the studio, right? I thought you said she was perfect for you.”
“Yeah, I thought she was, but turns out I was wrong.” Keith shrugged, seemingly indifferent to the conversation. “There were red flags from the beginning.”
Both Kyle and I groaned in unison.
“What? You guys are assholes. You didn’t meet her so don’t go hating on me.”
Keith always found some excuse for why he couldn’t get serious with a woman, and usually it was the pettiest excuse you could imagine. He dumped one for wearing red toenail polish and another because he didn’t like the way she ran her tongue over her teeth.
“What horrible disorder did this one have?” I asked. “A hangnail?”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re referring to.” Keith knew full well where this line of questioning was going but was playing coy for laughs.
“You don’t think it’s just slightly weird that you won’t call a girl back because you don’t like the way she pronounces ‘caramel’?”
“Okay, I stand by that one. Caramel is not three syllables and you know it!”
I groaned. “You’re the nit-pickiest person I’ve ever met.”
“I like what I like.” Keith slid down in his seat, hooking his hands behind his head. “Big deal.”
“You never told us what this one did,” Casey asked, clearly excited for the answer.
“She probably blinks too much,” Kyle said.
Keith’s lips curved in delight as he caught our amused expressions and matched it with his own. “Well, now I don’t want to say.”
“Did she have a crooked toe?” Kenzie suggested.
“Or bad breath?” Casey guessed.
“You make me sound so shallow.” Keith beamed. “If you must know, she parts her hair in the middle.”
The four of us traded puzzled expressions.
“You know, like smack dab in the middle. I’m telling you, it’s a total deal-breaker.”
Laughter swept through the ranks. Even for Keith, hair parts were stretching it. He hadn’t always been this way, but since breaking up with his ex, his focus was all off. Keith needed to just let her go and move on. I couldn’t tell yet if being in the same room with Sam after so many months apart would be good for him or not, but at least we didn’t have to contend with either of them bringing a date.
“Damn, that girl with the middle part must’ve been hideous.” Kyle shuddered, fixing his stare on Kenzie with a mischievous grin wide across his face.
“Hey.” She jabbed him with her thumb. Her hair was currently being worn with a part smack dab down the middle.
“No offense.” Keith said, offhandedly. “It looks good on you.”
“Oh, right. Thanks.”
I watched her run her fingers through her straight hair, flipping a few strands here or there to lessen the stark appearance.
Trying to be nonchalant with a question she really wanted an answer to, Casey asked, “Did you see Sam at the church?”
“She was in the back, but yeah, I saw her.”
We all watched him.
“What?”
The stare down continued.
“I’m not sure what you think is going to happen, but I can assure you, we aren’t getting back together. Samantha made that perfectly clear.”
We arrived to fanfare. Boris had made certain of that. Because we were robbed of the church exit we’d been hoping for, a cascade of white feathers floated down on us as we entered the reception hall.
“Please tell me Boris didn’t pluck the feathers off live doves for this,” I whispered in Casey’s ear, while keeping the obligatory smile on my face.
Casey leaned into me. “Maybe if you were a little more involved in the planning process of our wedding, you would know that there are a thousand naked birds convalescing in the avian hospital as we speak.”
“Did we at least send them get well cards?”
“We did. They should be up and flying in a few years’ time.”
I blew a feather out of my face and smiled at my wife before giving her a kiss on the cheek. Seconds later we were surrounded.
Casey’s parents were standing at the end of the welcoming committee, and Linda immediately embraced me. “I’m so happy you’re officially part of the family. Now I don’t have to pretend to be nice to you anymore.”
“Oh, were you being nice before?” I asked, meeting her mischievous grin with my own. “I couldn’t tell.”
Linda grabbed my face and kissed my cheek. “You know I love you. And I especially adore how much you love my daughter.”
I leaned in to give my new mother-in-law a hug. “I’ll make her happy, I promise.”
“You already do.”
Linda and I had hit it off on our very first meeting, and our friendship had only grown from there. And now that bond extended to the rest of Casey’s family. Just as I would for my own flesh and blood, I’d do anything for the Caldwell clan. Such an attachment might seem natural to most people, but for me it was a somewhat surprising development. I’d spent so many years cut off from others, believing I didn’t have the capacity to develop feelings of love toward anyone who hadn’t been in my life from the very start.
Casey had proved that theory wrong when she charmed her way into my life overnight. Still, that could be explained away as romantic love. Caring for a whole group of people – that was a different story. Yet that’s what happened when I was first introduced to the Caldwells. They’d welcomed me in with open arms, accepting me despite my unusual profession… and highly checkered past. Spending time with them never felt forced and I found myself easily bonding. It just went to show that there was no chokehold on my heart and there never had been. The limitations I’d placed upon myself were entirely of my own doing, and once I let go of them and opened up to the possibilities, I was able to blend them into my world. When I exchanged my vows this afternoon, I hadn’t just gained a wife, but an entire family.
Dave placed his hand on my shoulder and, maybe it was just me, but it felt like his fingers were digging into my flesh a little more aggressively than they should have been. One look in his direction told me he wasn’t feeling the love like his wife was.
“Really?” he asked, shaking his head at me. “Was that really necessary?”
I knew exactly what he was referring to – the kiss – and I smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. It wasn’t planned, if that helps.”
Dave made a show of swallowing an invisible lump before saying, “No, it doesn’t go down any easier. Here’s the deal, Jake. I know my daughter’s an adult… it’s just… I’d rather not have her romantic life, for lack of a better term, shoved down my throat. You know what I’m saying?”
“I definitely do.”
“Good. Nice chat.”
His fingers disengaged as he walked away, and I followed after him with my stunned eyes. That was badass! When had Dave, the mild-mannered office manager, become an ex-CIA shakedown artist? One thing was for certain, in the future, it would be wise to keep the steam level in the ‘dad-pleasing’ mild range with Casey for the rest of our lives.
Luke came galloping up, shaking my hand and slapping my back in unison. “Welcome to the family, bro. Is this a good time to ask for a loan?”
The smile
on his face was contagious. Luke was just a good-natured person, who shared so many admirable traits with his sister. It really was impossible not to like him. Over the past two years, Luke had taught me a thing or two about not taking life so seriously. He really could teach a class in positivity. After all, this was a guy who, when told to ‘have a good day,’ always responded with, ‘Have a better one.’
“Don’t do it, Jake,” Miles said, coming up behind him and putting his brother in a choke hold. “I loaned him money in the second grade and he never paid it back.”
“It was a gumball machine,” Luke said, performing an awkward pirouette to extract himself from Miles’s grasp. “I cannot believe you still bring that up. Would you like me to pay you back? Would that make you happy?”
Luke made of show of checking his pockets for change, and when he couldn’t find any, he asked, “Jake, do you have twenty-five cents on you?”
He’d been asking for loans since the beginning of our relationship – not for the money, mind you, but for the laugh he got by pointing out my income. “Not for you,” I responded.
“Eh, that’s okay. I wasn’t going to pay Miles back anyway, the tightwad.”
My mother, her arm hooked in Casey’s, arrived to give me a hug, but we ended up doing a weird three-person one instead. “That was such a beautiful wedding,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
“Are you crying?” I asked, smiling my amusement by her predictable display of emotion.
“What?” she said, slapping my shoulder as a smile spread across her face. “Why is it that you and your brothers insist on finding enjoyment in my tears?”
“They just come at such random times, is all.”
“There’s nothing random about it, Jake,” Casey said, pushing me. “They’re wedding tears.”
