Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
After the first few painful weeks, I was able to find joy in my HEA TikTok account again. It allowed me to channel all my frustrated romantic feelings into something positive, and it was also growing enough to get attention from several couples who later hired me as their photographer.
Business was booming because love still existed in the world…
And someday, it would be my turn.
In early October, after a busy weekend shooting two weddings, I met Abby in the city for dinner. She’d called me Sunday night and asked if we could go for sushi at her favorite place, just the two of us. I assumed she was excited to discuss her wedding plans… or possibly so stressed about her wedding plans she’d rather discuss anything else. Either way, I was here for it. But as soon as I slid into the small booth across from her, I could tell it was neither of those things.
“What’s going on?” I demanded after five minutes of nervous laughter and failing to meet my eyes. “Are you okay? You don’t have bad news to share with me, do you?”
Her smile wavered. “No. Not bad… exactly. In fact, it’s good. Just unexpected.”
“Abs, out with it. You’re making me nervous. Are you pregnant? Switching careers? Moving away?” I couldn’t bring myself to guess anything truly terrible, but if it was a cancer scare, we’d get through it. She had good health insurance through the school district. I grabbed her hand on the tabletop and held it. “You can tell me anything.”
She took a deep breath. “Dex and I got married.”
I stared at her. Anything but that.
“Yesterday,” she went on. “We went to the local courthouse and said our vows during our lunch break.” She watched me with worried eyes. “Surprise?”
“I can’t tell if this is a joke or not…” I began. “I’m sorry. But… are you serious? Because—”
She held out her hand so I could see the shiny gold wedding band next to her familiar engagement ring. “It’s not a joke. Please don’t be mad.”
I glanced from the ring up to her face. She was so worried about my reaction, my usual instinct to comfort her snapped automatically into place. “I’m not mad. I’m just… wow. Married. Why? I mean, why now?”
She pulled her hand back and clasped both hands tightly in her lap. “Last weekend, Dex and I got in a huge fight over roses. Rainbow roses, specifically. They were going to cost five thousand dollars, which is almost double our budget for flowers, and Dex said that was an insane amount of money, and couldn’t I be happy with just pink ones? And I reminded him that he was the one inviting literally three dozen second cousins, even though he doesn’t know most of them by name, so who was he to talk about economizing? He got so angry he stomped off, and I burst into tears. It was awful.”
“Oh, Abs—” I shook my head. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s okay though.” She leaned forward. “Dex came back and hugged me, and we talked for hours. We realized we’ve spent so long arguing over details, spending all our free time scrolling wedding websites—which is kind of a joke because we have no free time since we’ve both been working so many hours trying to pay for every damn thing—that we lost sight of what the wedding is about in the first place. It’s about us, Hugh,” she explained when I stared at her blankly. “Me and Dex. And how much we love each other.”
I blinked. “Well, yes, obviously. But I still don’t understand. It’s because you love each other that you wanted it to be just right—”
Abby shook her head like I was missing the point. “It doesn’t matter if the roses are pink or rainbow or nonexistent. It doesn’t matter if we have a band or a DJ or whether we get married in Dex’s mom’s church or at the beach. The whole point is to be with the person I care about. To build a future with him. To make sure he can get updates on my condition if I’m ever in the hospital again,” she added wryly.
I shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“I’m not joking. Dex still talks about it a lot. And that’s one of the reasons we sort of said… why are we waiting for everything to be perfect to do the thing we want? Life’s uncertain. You know that, just like I do. So, to me, it doesn’t matter if he and I have this one special day when every day we get to be together is special. I can’t imagine holding out for confetti and roses when it meant growing apart from the man I love.”
“Yes, but—”
“There’s such a thing as being too much of a perfectionist, you know? Sometimes you have to embrace the messy.” Abby laughed lightly. “Or, in this case, the linoleum floor and wood paneling in the back room of the courthouse. We decided we cared more about our marriage than our wedding, so we were willing to compromise on what we thought we wanted to get what we really needed. And it was the right thing, I swear, because once it was done, it was this huge relief.”