Page 8 of Booked Solid

“Had to jerk your chain,” Wyatt adds with a shrug.

“So I do get to be your best man?” Corbin inquires, making us laugh at the effort.

“I was thinking ring bearer,” Wyatt corrects him, somehow keeping a straight face, when I can’t stop the bark of laughter that leaves me.

“I will bear the shit out of them,” Corbin declares with a salute. How can they be so serious when this is hilarious?

Nudging me, Winnie whispers, “I think this is the start of a beautiful bromance.”

“That or the start of them ganging up on me.”

“Why can’t it be both?” Wyatt and Corbin shift to face me as they ask in unison.

Oh crap. I’m in trouble.

Epilogue One

Ashton

January the next year…

We got married not long after arriving in Sweetville. The mayor, Jeff Bronson, performed the ceremony. The changing leaves served as our backdrop, the weather cooperating to allow us to have it outside. The women in the family, Winnie included as she is that to us, made an arch for Wyatt and I to stand under. Hannah, with her awe-inspiring talents, offered to help decorate it and do my bouquet, giving us a beautiful setting and flowers with which to pledge to our love. Following it, we changed into casual clothing and spend the day with everyone at the Harvest Festival. Watching as the new queen was chosen, the corn maze was explored, so was the beer garden and numerous wine varieties, and so many other events that we fell into an exhausted heap that night. That might’ve had something to do with all the dancing we did, though.

Our wedding isn’t the first Mayor Bronson has proceeded over in an impromptu capacity, though it has been a while since the last. Not exactly a tradition, yet I can easily see that changing with how the residents of Sweetville seem to be falling in love so rapidly.

Not a bad contagion, in my opinion.

In fact, I hope it continues to spread. Everyone deserves happiness and what better way to get it than finding the one person meant to share it with you?

And Wyatt, my husband, is that for me as I am for him. After we expressed our love for each other that day, Corbin and Winnie insisted we take the rest of the day off. Wyatt and I gave token protests, but left with huge smiles after they assured us they could handle it. When Wyatt introduced me to his bike, I could see why he adored her. An affection that grew the second he put me on the back of it and roared off. Forget riding into the sunset on a horse, I’ll do so with an engine revving underneath me and my arms wrapped around the man of my dreams.

He took me to the building he was buying, telling me of his covert conversations with Kellan to accomplish it. The realization that Wyatt knew, even then, that he wanted to make something of us had me in tears. Which upset him until I promised him they were happy.

We spent a while on Lola, neither of us in a hurry to get home. Stopping for a picnic courtesy of the meal Ella had prepared for us, the basket fitting nicely on the rack where Wyatt usually stored his bag when he rode alone. I’m not going to lie, him informing me that he always had was a relief. I love that nobody but me has been on here with him.

It was how we took our honeymoon, too. While the mistake was rectified regarding my name, allowing me to board a plane without any interference, Wyatt and I decided our way was better. A week in the mountains, minimal clothing required as we rarely left the cabin, and it was hard to leave.

Since then, we’ve taken numerous excursions, some overnight, others for only a few hours, just being together. Enjoying life. It hasn’t been as often lately with adulting getting in the way, which makes it even more special when we get to do it.

He’s been quite busy getting everything in place to open Hog Wyld and today it’ll come to fruition. He’s nervous, a trait I never thought to associate with him. However, it’s understandable considering this is his dream. His new career path following saying goodbye to his old one.

I know it’ll be a success and soon he will, too.

The whole town is showing up to support him. A website has been created, ads purchased, and a waiting list already started.

Eventually, our family will grow, sons and/or daughters joining us. And when they do, they will have a childhood full of everything they deserve. The stuff that was missing from mine and Corbin’s.

Perhaps, even though we’d always wished differently, that’s exactly how it was supposed to be. Without that absence we may not have struck out on our own, moved to a place that felt like home the second we arrived, and found our forevers.

Maybe instead of hating our parents for abandoning us, and our grandparents for doing the bare minimum until we were legally no longer their problem, we should thank them?

“Baby, we need to go soon,” Wyatt hollers. We’ve just finished breakfast, apple cinnamon waffles using Eddie’s secret from everybody else recipe, following a shower where we thoroughly dirtied each other than got clean only to repeat the cycle – twice, and now we’re preparing to leave.

Knowing he’s antsy, I move to stand in front of him, place my hands on his cheeks and touch my lips to his. As expected, the tension eases from him and he pulls me against him, his fingers threading through my hair as he holds me still. Keeping me where he wants me. “I thought we had to go?”

Scooping me into his arms, Wyatt states, “We’ve got time.”

Epilogue Two

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