Page 134 of Masks and Mishaps

“Stop playing it cool, Mom,” I comment, nudging her. “I already told Porter you miss him.”

“You traitor,” my mother hisses at me before facing Porter and smiling elegantly. “You look good.”

“So do you,” he replies, giving my mother that annoying lovesick look he always used to.

I sigh. “I’ll call it out: You two are obviously going to bang tonight—gross, by the way. I hate it. But you seem to still like each other, and Essie likes Porter now. She even showed him the sandbox version of her site, and he was blown away. So, if you two are interested in trying again…”

“You have our permission,” Essie finishes, taking each of their hands and squeezing.

Porter nods at both Essie and me before he faces Mom. “What do you say? Should we go talk?”

“I’d like that,” my mom agrees, taking his outstretched hand. “I’d love it, actually.”

***

Later that night, once the party has dwindled to stragglers, Essie joins me on the back step of my Mom’s house and rests her head against my chest. I wrap an arm over her, and she lets out a long sigh. “You’re going to be my stepbrother again,” she mutters.

“I’m going to be your stepbrother, your co-founder…and your Daddy.” I place my fingers on her chin and tilt her head up to look at me. “I’m also going to be your husband,” I remind her.

Her eyebrow rises. “Is it legal for us to get married after our parents do?”

“Yeah. Totally legal but still weird.”

“Annoying too.”

Silence sets in between us until I say, “Unless…we get married first.”

Essie’s brow tightens. “But we said we’d wait a year after I graduated.”

“I know what we said.”

She’s shaking her head now. “Alyssa would kill us. She’s been planning our wedding since we got engaged.”

“She probably has her own wedding to plan now—not to mentionthree more sonswhose weddings she can plan, in addition to Valeria and Lander’s, and Cora and Everett’s. Plus, we just got our second round of funding from Claudia, I’ve got investor meetings booked for the next three months, and frankly, I’ve been dying to fuck you while saying ‘my wife has the prettiest pussy,’ for three years now.”

“You’re so right,” Essie realizes. “Wait…do you really want to do this?”

I’ve never nodded so fast in my life.

“It’s unconventional,” she mentions.

“That’s our thing.”

“I don’t know the legalities of getting married last minute, and Valeria, Lander, Cora, and Everett would self-destruct if we did this alone—”

“Sweetheart,” I interject before a brief kiss. “I’m going to handle it.”

That’s all it takes. A smile spreads across Essie’s face, and she settles back against the step, breathing out. She trusts me—she believes me.

She knows I’d never let her down.

And a mere twenty hours later, at a tiny chapel in Las Vegas, Essie and I stand in front of an Elvis impersonator. With our four best friends by our sides, we hold hands and look into each other’s eyes. The music is too loud, the lighting is fluorescent, and the air conditioning is working on overdrive against the desert heat.

I smile at Essie, and she smiles back at me. Every reassurance resides in the trust we find in each other’s familiar faces. No masks, no hesitation—and no more waiting.

Our vows are improvised, but we both knew what they’d be months ago—maybe years. I’m going to take care of her for the rest of our lives, and she’ll take care of me too. Always.

And then Essie and I say together:

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