Page 7 of Green
I sort of felt like covering her mouth with my mouth because she was so freaking cute—but that would have to wait.
“Umm…Whenever you’re about to tell me something that might disappoint me—like when you decided we should ban bread from the house—you send me a text of a sleeping baby animal to cushion the blow. And it works. Even though the no-bread rule was stupid and only lasted three days and we’re never doing that again.”
“Yes we are,” I mouthed to her.
She ignored me.
“And you inspire me. You really do. As a runner, even though your toenails occasionally fall off, which is gross. You inspire me as a student, and you inspire me as a future entrepreneur, even though you can be so damn grouchy when you've been up all night developing your app and even though you wear noise reducing headphones to listen to your weird coding music, I can hear you typing and bouncing your knee up and down and spinning around in your chair--but it doesn't even bother me that much.
Because you inspire me, because you're always striving for things. Better running times, better test scores than anyone else ever, to make a better fitness app than any of the ones out there now. But you're not one of those annoying sociopathic perfectionists who has to get everything just right. If you were, you'd be impossible to live with. But you're just always trying to make things better, and you've inspired me to be more ambitious, and made me feel like I deserve to be successful.
You always push me to do more and be more, like when we’re running and I literally want to die and kill you at the same time, and then you somehow make me angry while I’m laughing so hard that we make it back home and I feel amazing. Or when I was going to apply for that assistant set decorator position at the Playhouse for the summer, but you encouraged me to apply for the set decorator position instead. And I got the job, and I was shocked, but you weren’t. You knew I would.
And you make me see things in a different way. I mean, before I met you it didn’t even occur to me to figure out the science behind every single Avenger’s superhuman ability. I didn’t even know how important it was to use HDMI cables for better picture and sound quality on my TV or to have an external hard drive for my computer to back everything up. Since I met you, everything looks and sounds better. And I always know thatyou’llbe there to back me up.”
I gave her a look, becauseholy shit that was the cheesiest thing anyone has ever said in the history of people saying things.She tried so hard not to laugh, but as soon as she cracked a smile, it’s like her brain had broken. She laughed so hard. She was shaking and tearing up and snorting.
I looked over at the judge, glanced down at my watch.
She got control of herself and finally said: “So thanks for marrying me today. You make me happier than sleeping baby animals and I hope to break bread with you at our table every day for the rest of our lives…Amen.”
The judge said his thing about the power vested in himself, and informed me that I may now kiss the bride.
I made a split-second decision. Maybe it wasn’t a decision made in my brain, but it was a decision nonetheless.This may be the only time I kiss Gemma Kelly. I’m going to make it count. I don’t care who’s watching. This is my bride, dammit. Who knows when I’ll get married again.
The first time, I cupped her pretty face in my hands and leaned down to kiss her, slowly and softly. I watched her eyelids flutter before closing. Once I’d started to pull away, I realized she’d risen to her tiptoes, so I went in for a second kiss, this time a quicker one, with slightly parted lips. When that didn’t quite feel like the end of it, I whispered “Love you, Gem,” my mouth only a few millimeters from hers, and she either lost her balance or launched herself up to meet me. She grabbed me by my shirt and pulled me down for a long hard kiss that had our parents and friends laughing and clapping, but it nearly brought me to my knees.Nowshe was taking my breath away. Now my heartwasleaping out of my chest. I let one hand go to her waist and one to the back of her neck and I kissed her back.
Two can play at that game.
She gasped, opened her eyes. Before tearing herself away, she whispered: “You better love me, Walker, I just married your ass.”
And if I’d let myself believe for one second that this was a real kiss, she had cleared things up for me now.
She patted me on the butt, turned to face our friends and parents, the cameras, her arm raised in victory. “Wooohoooo! This butt legally belongs to me now!”
“Congratulations,” laughed the judge. “Be good to each other.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Be good to me.” But she couldn’t even look at me when she said it. I could see her trying to steady herself. I saw that flush in her cheeks.
I pulled her in for a hug, before people started coming over to talk to us.
“Love you,” I whispered down at her.
“Love you,” she whispered into my chest.
“Good job on those vows. You almost had me convinced.”
“Well, you know. I’ll say and do whatever I can to stay out of jail. Yours were good too. I guess we both won.”
“You didn’t pay attention to a word I said, did you?”
She pushed me away. “You don’t know me.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“That was a pretty convincing wedding kiss, though, right?” she mumbled, frowning at me.
“Yeah, I think we nailed it. Good job, buddy.”
