Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Someday, that will be us, I realized with a profound sense of belonging, love, and sisterhood. I’d never feared getting older, but I suddenly had a vision of it that filled me with relish.
We will be a hoot, I thought. We will cause loving trouble wherever we go.
I’d had aunties, yes. I would forever be grateful for them. But sisters? Other than Paige and some of the girls from nursing school, I hadn’t had a lot of female friends. And nothing like this.
This was a true family, just like the aunties were. Not just friends. We had each others back through thick and thin. The feeling lifted me up, made me courageous, made it safe for me to be myself.
In fact, it kinda felt like we were aunties in training.
“The boys are ready for us. How do you feel?”
I smiled at Kaylie and the girls. I closed my eyes and exhaled. Then I stood up.
“Let’s do this.”
“Thatta girl,” Janet said in an old timey voice and Molly started to chuckle. Then Sally. Then Suzannah. Then Kaylie, Paige, the aunties, Mae, who had catered the event of course, and me.
In fact, my stomach hurt from laughing by the time we all slowed down with the giggle fest.
Everyone hugged each other as Sally shouted not to muss up anyone’s hair or makeup. Then it was ‘last looks’ as Sally called it, whispering that it was a ‘showbiz term’ and giving me a saucy wink. The aunties all headed downstairs to take their seats, followed by my coterie of bridesmaids. Finally it was just Auntie and me.
“I am so proud of you, girl. You reached for happiness. That takes a lot of courage.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, my eyes getting suspiciously misty. “For loving me. For teaching me. For being my mother. For everything.”
She blinked at me.
“Girl, you are going to make me cry!”
We hugged and exhaled, then looked at each other as the wedding march started.
“Dang! We are going to be late!” Auntie exclaimed as we hustled down the stairs in time to see the last of the bridesmaids heading ‘up’ the aisle from the sidewalk. We hustled to the back of the house to take the path that led to the front. She took my arm and squared her shoulders with supersede dignity. You would never know she’d practically ran down the stairs with her dress pulled up to her knees.
“Come on, baby girl. Let’s get you hitched.”
I was smiling as we reached the front pathway and turned to sedately walk through the newly painted and repaired wrought iron fence and down the aisle. The newly refurbished path was lined with galvanized florists buckets full of fresh cut pink peonies and pale green hydrangeas. Everything about the wedding design was homespun and pretty. My friends and family surrounded me. And waiting for me with the preacher by the front door was my husband-to-be, looking supremely handsome in his three piece gray wool suit.
It could not have been more perfect.
My heart was pounding, but not from nerves. My pulse was elevated from running around like a crazy woman so I didn’t miss my cue. Auntie and I linked arms as I stepped up onto the porch where the judge, wedding party, and my groom were waiting for me.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Drake
This was it. The moment I had been waiting for since the moment I first laid eyes on my Sunshine. My Dana. My reason for existing. And in just a few minutes, my wife.
I was nervous as hell waiting for her to appear in her wedding finery. Part of me couldn’t believed I’d actually gotten the girl. Part of me was waiting for other shoe to drop.
When she turned the corner from the back of the house, the world literally stopped turning. I watched as she took her place on the pathway between the rows of seats filled with bikers and neighborhood friends. The aunties and the girls had outdone themselves with the decorations. There were white and pink flowers everywhere, with white fabric and ribbons festooning the porch itself. Even the bikers had cleaned up and were wearing suits, with a few notable exceptions.
Jersey Mike in particular. We would have words about his attire at a later date. Not on my wedding day, for sure.
But none of that compared to the spectacular woman walking towards me.
She looked so incredibly beautiful as she started walking to the sedate pace of the wedding march. She literally took my breath away. I stared in awe as her auntie brought her down the aisle to me. There was no one better to ‘give her away’. I wanted to hug them both.
Hell, I wanted to do a lot more than that with my bride-to-be. Hugging and kissing her was just the start of it. And I planned to be doing that for the rest of my life.