Page 76 of Binding Their Hearts

“Dearly beloved.” Will sighed in gusty, exaggerated fashion. “That’s as far as I got with the traditional invocation, because let’s face it, we’re nontraditional folks, just like the three we’re here to celebrate.”

“Preach it!” The lone shout gathered a chorus of Amens, cheers, snaps, and whistles that pierced the day’s formality and exposed the deep intimacy beneath.

He’d chosen Will not for formality but for familiarity. Their guests hadn’t come for an expansive buffet and an open bar or because their presence sent the proper social signals. They attended out of love and support for three of their own who had found something sacred. They celebrated the proof of possibility—that a fairy-tale ending existed for everyone no matter how far their lives strayed from the mean.

“We are gathered here today because our own Master Henry is officially taking himself off the market”—Will spared him a pouting glance, to which he returned a flat-eyed and silent how droll—“and these two lovelies with him, more’s the pity.”

A hint of pink flushed Jay’s cheeks. His boy’s heart lived so near the surface that any compliment from a trusted voice fed the well of need within. Henry squeezed Jay’s hand, and the squeeze came back to him. Therapy was setting the foundations; the well had a solid base now, secure and well crafted, so praise no longer ran out like water in a sieve, leaving Jay empty and craving.

“Now, it’s customary to ask why the would-be spouses shouldn’t be wed and to prattle on about the institution of marriage. Having been to many such weddings myself and once stood before the altar at one, I say to hell with that.” Lively, gesturing, with his grand smile and twinkling eyes, Will was undoubtedly delighted to hold sway over the crowd. And to needle his oldest friend, as Henry could hardly object in the middle of his own ceremony after asking Will to lead it. “Instead, we have some people who know these grooms and bride best to say why they should be married.”

Jay twitched, and Henry eased closer, brushing their shoulders. However Will and Jay had settled on the order of events, Jay clearly hadn’t been privy to this one. Nor was he to the moment Henry had arranged later. Wheels within wheels turned the gears of this wedding.

As Will extended his hand to the crowd, he bent and whispered to the three of them. “You’ll want to turn around for this part.”

Turning necessitated unlinking and relinking hands in a relatively graceful shuffle. Jay’s racing heartbeat drummed through Henry’s palm as Mother stood in the front row.

She pressed her hands together, prayerlike, her fingertips nearly touching her lips, and nodded as she’d done over every finished work he’d ever presented for her approval. Tightness, unexpected, rose in his throat, his mouth growing dry as his eyes grew wet. That he was a thirty-nine-year-old man at his wedding mattered not at all, it seemed—the warmth of parental pride could yet fuel his heart. Someday, Alice willing, he would stand at his own child’s nuptials.

His mother’s mouth trembled before she firmed her back and slowly turned, surveying the guests.

“No mother of multiple children will ever admit to having a favorite.” She tipped her head toward him. “This one, though.” At her splayed hands, chuckles passed through the crowd. “He has found the things we all desperately want for our children: love, happiness, the heart’s ease of partners who see us truly as we are and love us all the more for it.”

Had his mother known that ease in her marriage? He wouldn’t have thought so, but his perspective on his father had calcified at a young age.

She laughed with the lightness of birdsong. “Many are those who’ve told me Henry is a mysterious boy. ‘Such an excellent listener,’ they say. ‘So wise, so compassionate—yet we’ve spoken for an hour, and I haven’t learned a thing about him.’”

He ought to take offense at the agreement visible on faces around the room. Perhaps especially at the way Alice and Jay swung their heads in unison to face each other, smiles unabashedly freed.

“I mean…” Alice whispered.

“Uh-huh,” Jay mouthed.

Beautiful brats. He ought to kiss them senseless and bathe in their sheer delight.

“Since Henry was small”—his mother lowered her hand and brushed the air at hip height, and the phantom caress of memory grazed his head and shoulders—“his thoughtful, generous nature came yoked to an underlying intensity. Curiosity and determination drive him forward, but always with intention. He rarely does anything by accident.” Blinking rapidly, she gazed at the three of them, pressing her lips tight as the energy in the room bent toward her, those in their seats leaning in. “And that’s how I knew.”

Her hushed words floated across a sea of sighs.

“I began hearing stories—no, not even that much at first. Mere mentions. Notions. This boy, Jay.” She splayed her left hand flat, then her right. “This girl, Alice. Thoughts all a-tumble, circling these unexpected meetings, these chance encounters, always returning to this boy, Jay. This girl, Alice. The emotional call overwhelmed the pace of intellectual curiosity, of certainty and caution and planning.”

Oh, the indignity of love—his heart had been entirely too obvious to all but himself.

Clutching her hands together, Mother drew them to her chest and laid them against her heart. “My Henry had fallen in love.”

Perhaps why they called it falling, as the experience humbled people before it elevated them beyond all compare. Vision so changed encompassed more than the mundane world; the eyes of love, once opened, could not close to its presence again.

“Alice. Jay.” Mother patted Emma’s shoulder. “I had a bit of help with the phrasing. This is what I ask of you, as you pledge to share your lives with my favorite child.” She winked, first at them and then the guests, to much amusement. “Our little secret, please.” Face clear, eyes shining, she turned her spring-green gaze serious. “Alice and Jay. Will you take Henry into your hearts, accept his wise guidance, speak if you’ve been wronged, and honor him with your honesty and love?”

“I will.”

Two voices rang out, strong and confident. Jay clamped down on his hand with force enough to vibrate them both. Alice stood fast, no longer the skittish woman fleeing from commitment. At the first of the vows given today, Henry’s heart shuddered with power and purpose.

With a graceful nod, his mother reclaimed her seat and looked expectantly across the aisle.

Chapter thirty-six

Jay

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