Page 28 of Glass & Groundwork
I shook my head as I tried to suppress a smile. “Before that. Immediately after ‘I do.’”
Gio's mouth opened into a silent O as realization hit. “We… kiss?”
“Yes!” I threw my arms up. “This is supposed to look legit, right? Well, we can't have our first kiss at the altar, this isn't aMarried at First Sightsituation. You need to kiss me. Right here, right now.”
Gio ran a hand through his hair, sending some of the perfectly-parted strands the wrong way. His eyes drifted down to land on my lips as color crept up his cheeks again. “Right. Yeah. Okay. Sure.”
I reached up and cupped his cheeks. “It doesn't have to mean anything, okay? It's just a kiss between friends, that's all, no big deal.”
He pressed his lips into a flat line, his gaze returning to my mouth, before he gave a slow nod. “Okay.So, how do we do this? Do you usually lean to the left, or lean to the right? Should I take off my glasses?”
Oh my God, he was so fucking adorable. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. I wouldn’t do that to him, not when he looked so determined. I pushed the amusement down and kept my voice calm and direct. “Keep the glasses on, you’re going to have them on for the ceremony, so we might as well have a practice run. For the rest of it… how about you stay there, and I’ll come to you?”
Gio gulped audibly. “Okay.”
He closed his eyes and waited. Not wanting to leave him hanging, I pushed up on my toes and angled my head to slot our mouths together. I pressed a soft kiss to his lips and waited, testing his reaction. Gio let out a sigh, kept his eyes closed, and stayed still.
Grinning to myself, I secretly loved getting to see this man so unsure of something that should be easy. I slid my hands behind his neck and leaned in again. My mouth met his, but I didn’t pull back this time. I stayed until I felt him relax and his lips parted. I took advantage of it and slid my tongue along his lips, loving the sharp inhale that came from him.
Gio’s arms, which had been hanging stiffly at his sides, came to my waist and clutched my jacket as he finally began to move his mouth against mine. I was suddenly the surprised one, whenthe kiss became hungrier and his tongue explored my mouth, a groan rolling up from his throat. I was pulled closer as he sank deeper into my mouth, making me dizzy from the intensity of it. This kiss had moved far past friend territory and, frankly, I wasn’t mad about it. Our tongues danced together, and he tasted so damn good.
The door to the bathroom opened, and we both froze. A man coughed as he squeezed awkwardly past us to the urinal. At the sound of someone unzipping his pants, and it wasn’t either of us, we slowly slid apart. I met Gio’s gaze and his cheeks were flaming red. Not really sure how to proceed, we simply stood there, waiting for the guy to finish his business. It had to be the longest piss in history, how much had this guy had to drink?
“Excuse me.” The man grunted. Gio and I split apart, giving him room to step between us to reach the sink. At least he was washing his hands. As soon as he was done, he left the room, leaving us behind.
The silence filling the bathroom with us left in the wake of whatever just happened burst with the loud laughter that erupted from me. It was all so incredibly ridiculous. The kiss. The piss. Why did he just walk around us when we were clearly in the middle of something? When you gotta go, you gotta go, I guess. It was probably good we were interrupted, though, because… Gio’s tongue.What the fuck!With no explanation for any of it, I just let it go. Laughter continued to roll out of me until I was clutching my side.
Gio’s lips began to twitch, then he huffed with amusement, and soon he was joining me, leaning against the sink to support him as we released all the tension that had built up between us.
When we were able to settle and catch our breaths, Gio slid a glance at me and exhaled. “Was that okay?”
Okay?Were my feet still attached to my body? I couldn’t tell, because I felt like I was floating. “Fuck, Gio, that was great! Kissme like that again and you’ll make believers out of everyone.” Including me.
His head moved up and down slowly and a strange mix of emotions crossed his face, but when his eyes met mine, he smiled. It was a soft one at first, but something seemed to settle in him. A boost of confidence straightened his shoulders and lifted his head. He held his arm out to me. “Shall we?”
Looking up at him, I felt one side of my mouth tilt up. Aside from his determination, he looked a little disheveled. I licked a couple fingers and fixed the strands of his hair that were standing up and didn’t miss the way Gio's lips twitched at the action. As I hooked my arm through his, a grin stretched my cheeks. “Yes. I think we’re ready now.”
We opened the bathroom door to find all of Gio’s kids standing there, along with Derek and Marley. Marley was beaming as he looked at us, his gaze sliding between me and Gio, and I allowed myself to feel excited once more. When I told him at the market that I was going to marry Gio, I got to have a moment of pure joy with him. He squealed and crushed me in an embrace. I had to talk him down from all of the floral plans that came pouring out of him and explain that it was going to be a simple, courthouse ceremony. I didn’t explain why, and he didn’t ask, but it had been fun to have someone to share the moment with and pretend it was real.
“We were starting to wonder if you were going to come back out,” Yahir commented with a tease.
Eduardo stepped forward, wearing a slight smirk, and gave us an assessing look. “You guys good?”
Gio held his head high and cleared his throat. “Yes. We’re good.”
“Good, because we’d better hurry or you’ll miss your appointment,” he gave a wink and pointed down the hallway.
“Shit! How much time do we have?” How long were we in there? With the hungry way Gio had been kissing me, time had ceased completely.
“Five minutes,” Nicky yelled.
“Fuck!” We all started moving down the hallway in a swarm, rushing to get to the county clerk’s office.
Marley broke through the crowd to get in front of me. We didn’t stop, he merely walked backwards as he handed me a beautiful arrangement of purple and yellow flowers, all tied together with a blue ribbon. “Wait. Here, you need this.”
The flowers gave me pause and I came to a halt. Seeing them made my eyes mist. “Oh my God, Marley, these are beautiful. You didn’t have to do this.”
He grinned in that pure sunshine way of his. “Yes, I did. You can’t get married without a bouquet. Oh, and one more thing. Derek?”
