Page 56 of Last First Date
He reaches out to his best man, Daniels, who has been making big heart eyes at Lily this entire time. He's so freaking predictable.
I feel for him though because she's not even sparing him a second glance. I know her entire story now, and I can safely say he's never going to get anywhere with Lily. He might as well not exist to her.
Daniels hands him the wedding band, and he slides it onto my hand without fumbling even a bit. Because Thomas Abernathy's the kind of man who is good at every single thing he does, even getting married.
We manage to make it the rest of the way through the service without any more outbursts from me or Aunt Opal, and finally the minister pronounces us man and wife. "You may kiss the bride," she intones solemnly.
Thomas Abernathy kisses me like he does everything else—expertly and far too hot for his own good. The crowd starts cheering as our kiss gets more heated than is strictly proper for a wedding. Most wedding kisses don't involve tongue, but ours does.
We finally break for air and the guests clap. The minister claps. Hell, even I want to applaud. That was one hell of a kiss.
He gives me a decidedly happy looking grin. "Let's go out to the receiving line, wife."
"Yes please, husband." We head toward the other end of the seating as our guests shower us with bubbles from the little tiny bubble wand favors.
"I can't see," I gripe.
"This was your idea," he murmurs, and tucks me closer to him. I step on his foot as we move. It might have been an accident, or it might not have.
"Hey, if you're trying to get out of dancing with me later, you'd better think again. I know you were stepping on my feet that night at the gala because you were mad at me, but now that I'm your husband, you can't be mad at me like that ever again."
I sniff. "First of all, let me be the one to break the bad news to you. I'm more likely to be mad at you now that we're married than ever before. But I don't want to fight with anyone else other than you for the rest of my life."
He looks at me thoughtfully as our guests start lining up to shake hands and hug us on their way out to the reception. "Thanks? I mean, I get where you're coming from on that, but how about we don't fight instead? I'd rather we just get along with one another."
I sniff. "You're already disagreeing with me, so I don't hold out a lot of hope for that." He tenses, and I pat his arm a little too hard. "Also, you should probably know now that I really am one hundred percent that bad at dancing."
He's so good at keeping a straight face, but I'm watching him closely enough that I catch the split second where his eyes widen with panic. Haha, he's so busted.
"Darcy," he gives me a small, nervous smile this time. "I swear I had bruises all over the top of my feet for a week after the last round. Maybe we should skip the reception."
My mother overhears his little bit of whining and eyes us dangerously. "Absolutely not. You'd better plan on attending the reception and putting on a good show for your guests even if my daughter does have no sense of rhythm."
She sniffs. "As if any son of mine is going to skip out on his own wedding reception."
Abernathy's face softens at her words. "Okay, okay. I'll let her rough me up on the dance floor, but you must know that I'm suffering for your sake." He pretends to pout and everything, but I know he doesn't really mean it. He loves me even if I can't waltz to save my life. And he really loves my mother. It’s opened up something new and surprisingly tender in him to have this kind of relationship with her.
I pinch him a little bit, right on the fat round apple part of his perfect butt. "I'll make it up to you later," I coo at him.
Daniels shakes his head at us. "Get a room you two. Yuck."
Lily snorts. "That reminds me, Ken and I got you a present." She waggles an envelope at me.
"Ken?" I glance over at Daniels, who is suddenly extremely fascinated by whatever is on the opposite side of the park. Absolutely nobody ever calls Ken Daniels anything other than his last name, Daniels. Except Lily it seems, for reasons that I can't quite figure out.
Abernathy nudges Daniels in the ribs with his elbow. "We'll talk about this later," he pretends to whisper, then taps the side of his nose with his index finger.
Daniels flips him off, so it must be some sort of rude joke between the two of them. Whatever.
The guests are starting to get restless, so we press on with all the handshakes and cheek kisses, and then adjourn to our reception.
Unfortunately, the reception is at the country club because we couldn't completely talk my mother out of it. Well, you can’t win ‘em all I guess.
But the upside is that the room is lovely and full of delicious food, and we booked my favorite deejay for the night. No waltzes are on the playlist, so I expect Abernathy's toes should manage to make it through the evening injury-free.
We slide against each other easily when we slow dance, barely moving as the words of some love song wash over us. "Do you remember what I told you when you asked me to give you wooing lessons?" he asks in my ear.
"Seems to me that it was something disgusting about me making woo-woo sounds when you fucked me."
