Page 102 of Just Friends

“You just can’t let me have anything of my own, can you?” Cam asks, and I press my lips together to keep from laughing.

Dad stays quiet, but his hand squeezes the back of my neck gently, his large hand enveloping me.

My sniffle is lost in the press of their bodies. “Time for a wedding.”

“Doyouneedwitnessesfor signing the marriage license?” Ellie asks as she and Cam follow us into the shop after the ceremony. Alex and I exchange a glance, and Wes, who got ordained just to perform the ceremony for us, watches us with raised eyebrows.

Alex’s hand squeezes on my waist, and my mouth splits into a grin as I meet our friends’ gazes.

“Well, no,” I say. “Because we got married three months ago.”

Cam’s eyes widen, and Wes barks out a laugh. Ellie just grins, her face brightening with delight. We weren’t sure if they’d be mad, but their reactions are even better than I hoped for.

“I can’t say I blame you for not wanting to have my mother at your wedding,” Ellie jokes. Looking at Alex, she says, “I can’t believe you kept it a secret.”

He shrugs, pulling me tighter into his side, and I melt against him, his skin warming mine through the thin layers of our clothing. The day we got engaged, after we talked to our families and agreed to a wedding, we got back in the car, but Alex didn’t pull out. Instead, he turned to look at me and said, “I don’t want to wait.”

And I didn’t either, so we climbed back out, grinning like idiots as we raced each other through the parking lot. I had a dent in my hair from the blindfold, and his tongue was purple from the cotton candy milkshake, and we were both sweaty from chasing each other, but it was perfect. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“We knew it was important to everyone to have a wedding,” Alex says, and when his eyes meet mine, they’re full of a warmth that makes butterflies take flight in my chest. “But we didn’t want to wait.”

Wes grins, his smile a white flash in the dimness of the chapel. “I understand.”

The shop door opens again, and there’s a flash of copper hair and freckles. Lo’s face lights in a smile as she sees us. “What do you understand?” she asks, coming to stand next to Wes.

He presses a kiss to her temple and says, “Alex and Hazel secretly eloped three months ago.”

“The day we got engaged,” Alex clarifies.

A grin splits across her face, a happy pink tingeing her cheeks. She looks so genuinely happy for us that warmth spreads through me like wildfire. “You know I love an unconventional wedding,” Lo says, and envelops us both in a hug. “I’m so happy for you both.”

“Thanks, Lo,” I say into her tangle of thick hair, my arms tightening around her, holding on for a long moment before I let go. Turning to my brother, I meet his deep blue eyes, the exact color of my own. “Are you mad we didn’t tell you?”

“Of course not,” he says, his lips twisting in a smile. “You going to tell the parents?”

I glance at Alex, and find he’s already watching me, a tender expression on his achingly familiar face. I can never look at him without feeling it like a shot of adrenaline to my bloodstream. Sometimes I have to actually pinch myself to see if it’s real. Ifhe’sreal. Whenever Alex catches me doing it, he presses a kiss to the spot, his lips lingering until I’m shivering, assured that he’s flesh and bone andmine.

No one makes me feel like Alex does. I knew from that first kiss that everything was going to be okay, that I’d made the right decision in trusting my heart to him. It was flawless. Fearless.

Still holding Alex’s eyes, I say, “One day,” and he nods. “But not today. Today is for celebrating.”

Wedanceuntilthesun disappears and the stars come out to play. The ice cream turns to liquid in the buckets of melting ice, and we drink from the cartons with glow in the dark straws. Alex and I slip off again, but this time, we’re more careful with the buttons, even if he does leave a hickey somewhere hidden. My garter is embroidered with the wordsJust Friends, and instead of tossing it into the crowd, Alex rockets it into the lake under the moonlight, our friends cheering loud enough to wake the dead behind us.

The night is perfect. It’s everything I didn’t know to wish for when a butterfly landed on my shoulder three years ago. Everything and more.

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