Page 75 of A Very No Strings Halloween
Billy slides the gorgeous ring onto my ring finger, and as soon as it’s on all the way, he stands up and pulls me to my feet, holding me in his arms. “I’m gonna marry you wicked hard, Red.”
“Bring it, Mouth.”
As we kiss, all the marvelous butts in the room get up out of their chairs, applauding and cheering for us.
Epilogue - Billy
DAWN OF THE WED
“What do you want, Nolan? I’m not doin’ shots outside of my own wedding. Especially when, out of the kindness of my generous heart, there’s an open bar.”
“That’s courtesy of your wallet, not yer heart. And we aren’t doin’ shots,” my best man informs me, snapping his mouth shut before he calls me fuckface or shitbrain or simplyeejit. Because it’s my wedding and I didn’t want him calling me names today, so I bet him that he couldn’t get through one day without calling me something insulting.
Nolan has gathered me, Declan, and Eddie on the front porch. My beautiful wedding to Donna happened in the backyard of the farmhouse, where the reception is now in full swing. The adults are enjoying a variety of cranberry-based cocktails of my owndesign, courtesy of our very own cranberry bog. There’s also Guinness and Irish whiskey—I’m not gonna start a riot on my own wedding night. There are also bottles of Sam Adams for my Boston bros, kept on ice in an open coffin next to the bar. The kiddies get a cranberry-and-orange-juice cocktail that comes out of a skull-shaped dispenser, Hogwarts pumpkin juice, and mugs of hot chocolate with ghost-shaped marshmallows. I’m paying Piper to keep an eye on the kids while she’s here, so she gets her very own virgin cranberry-peach-flavored mocktail. Surprisingly, she did not get the joke. Possibly because she was too busy checking out the bartender’s and DJ’s butts.
I have so much to be grateful for today. Most of all, for my stunning wife. But the weather is a very close second. You just never know what you’re gonna get at the end of October in New England, but we really wanted an outdoor wedding on the farm. I wanted to get married immediately, of course, as soon as Donna said yes. Not necessarily because I thought she might change her mind, but because I wanted to be her husband ASAP. But we decided to wait a year, until Halloween, because it’s the anniversary of us finally being honest with each other about how we feel and because we wanted to thank the people who really brought us together. Piper said that the spirit world is closest to the living one on Halloween.
We left two seats empty for Lars and Lara, whichmost of our guests understood as a lovely gesture—except Murph complained that they were prime seats. Which was crazy because he was a groomsman, so he was standing with me and the rest of the guys, but he had a tone in his voice like he could scalp tickets for them and get a really good price.
But after we recited our own vows and Donna said herI dos andI wills and I said the same, clouds sailed past the setting sun, making the whole sky seem to flash. It was like Lars and Lara were winking at us. It was a nice moment that Donna and I could privately share, even though we were standing in front of all of our loved ones.
All of our loved ones and about fifty jack-o’-lanterns. Donna and Chelsea and my cousins’ wives went a little nuts with the whole Union of Souls/Till Death Do Us Part/Halloween-themed wedding. The kids are wearing costumes, but the grown-ups were given eye masks and hats and wigs to choose from when they got here. Everything’s decorated pumpkin-orange and black, with pops of cranberry-red and off-white—which is not the same as white—something most straight guys don’t know until they’re getting married. But I know it now!
Donna’s wedding gown is the most stunning cranberry-red-and-black dress I have ever seen, and her bridesmaids are in black. I’m wearing a cranberry-red tux with a black tie, and my guys are wearing blackwith cranberry-red ties. Our wedding party and Donna and her dad walked down the black candle-lined aisle to a string quartet playing “Thriller.” And by “walked” I mean they danced like Michael Jackson zombies. It was wicked amazing, and she totally surprised me with that. Mark’s son held a ring box shaped like a tiny black coffin. Our priest is wearing a skeleton suit.
For the reception, Piper suggested getting custom-made tarot cards for the table number settings. There are bunches of flowers stuck in pumpkins that were grown in our very own pumpkin patch. Would my beautiful wife and her lovely bridesmaids scold me for saying the flowers were “stuck” in pumpkins? Yes, they would. But there are a bunch of flowers stuck in pumpkins in the middle of a bunch of tables… You get the picture.
But now we’re out here on the front porch, me and my three closest cousins.
“The time for drinkin’ will come,” Nolan says—not menacingly so much assignificantly. “Now is the time for reflection.” He pulls four cigars out of his suit coat pocket and hands them out. “You’re the last one, Billy. We’ve all been made honest men.”
He infuses the lighting of each cigar with the same significance that he used to lace his words. First Declan’s, then Eddie’s, then his own, and then mine—lighting us up in the same order that our worlds werelit up by our women. We’re silent during all of this, like it’s a proper ceremony that he’s performing.
Nolan blows several smoke rings into the cool fall air. “So, Billy. What did you learn?”
I take a puff on my cigar. “What do you mean?”
The boys share a look. Declan looks back at me. “What changed to make you marriable?”
I stare back blankly. “I’m not following.”
“I think what we’re asking is what deep truth you learned to make it possible that you could marry a woman as amazing as Donna.”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
Declan sighs. “For me, I realized that no one gets me or keeps me in line the way Maddie does. That I wanted her handing me cups of coffee and rolling her eyes at me for the rest of my life. But to get that, to earn that, I had to let go and open myself up. It was…problematic. But I did that because I knew she was the one.”
“Okaaayyy,” I say, drawing out the word because I know that story. I saw it happen. Well, I saw him get drunk and make a lot of phone calls anyway.
“Or like Birdie and me,” Eddie adds, pointing his cigar for emphasis. “She was my best friend. And I wanted to protect that. But her big brain and those lips…” He shakes his head, still clearly a lovestruck fool. “I needed to risk the friendship to gain my soulmate. We wouldn’t be working together on our new Shakespeare-inspired musical about Eleanor Roosevelt titledA Roosevelt By Any Other Nameif I hadn’t been willing to take that risk.”
We all groan and chuckle.
This guy.
“Am I gonna have to see that?” I’m pretty sure it’s clear from my tone that I hope the answer is no.
Eddie rolls his eyes. “It’s just something we’re doing together for fun. But if we do actually get it produced, you should be so lucky.”
