“You’re the closest thing to family I’ve ever known. Of course I’m sure.”
The corner of his mouth ticks up. “People are going to think we’re insane.”
“Aren’t we?”
His expression sobers, his green eyes intense as he holds my gaze. His hands cup my face and hold me captive. “I’ve never felt more sane in all my life. You balance the scales, Kitten. You bring me peace. Silence the demons. You possess my soul. Marrying you is the only thing in life that makes perfect sense to me.”
I close my eyes and allow his words to wash over me in a wave of love and acceptance. I can’t think clearly through the emotions surging through me to articulate a response. I haven’t felt like I’m a part of a family since before my mom died. Not in boarding school and certainly not at my dad’s house. I look around at the five sets of eyes staring at me and feel my own heat and—oh my God, I’m going to cry.
I spin quickly before anyone else can see the feelings bubbling up.
“Let’s do this!” Kaipo says, with a gentle squeeze to my shoulder. “Now we’re ohana.” His dark eyes soften and he smiles warmly. “So light a fire under that tiny ass and get in the car. Courthouse closes at five.”
Theodore puts his lips to my ear, chuckling. “It’s okay to cry.”
“I’m not crying.” I sniff back the tingling heat at the back of my nose and swipe at the moisture that threatens to leak from my eyes. “I don’t cry.”
He knows I’m lying. Over the last couple months I find I actually do cry. Commercials, movies, Kaipo’s dick sang me a Tupac song in sign language and I sobbed. After ten years I finally let my heart out of the box and Theodore says it’s just a little fragile from misuse. Something he says he’ll take the rest of his life rectifying.
“I call giving her away!” Loren says.
“Not fair!” Levi says as they jump into Carey’s truck.
Theodore closes me inside his car and jogs around the hood with more pep in his step than I’ve ever seen. “No one is giving her away!” He shuts his door and pulls out of the driveway grabbing my hand and placing it on his thigh. “Twenty-first fucking century and still we’re practicing these antiquated patriarchal customs.”
I laugh out loud at Theodore’s fierce feminism. “A woman is her own to give away.”
“I can’t believe we’re getting married.”
“Really? So you didn’t see this coming eventually?”
I shrug. “I did, but I guess I expected it would happen after we lived together for a year or more.”
“Seems pointless to wait. Besides,” Compassion shines in his gaze. “You’ve been talking about getting rid of your last name.”
Oh yeah, that.
After my dad was fired from BSU, he made a huge stink in the media about him being unfairly let go. The video of his attack on Theodore was released to the public and went viral. He ended up hiring lawyers in an attempt to get his coaching job and his reputation back. So far, he’s succeeded at neither. He has attempted to contact me, so I’ve blocked his number, and after he showed up on campus to talk to me, the University has a restraining order against him. I don’t want anything to do with him, including his last name. Hell, if I could rip his contribution to my DNA from my body I’d do it, shove it down his throat and make him choke on it.
But my last name isn’t the only reason I’m agreeing to marry Theodore.
He is quite simply the love of my life.
“Everyone’s going to assume you got me pregnant.”
He laughs. “Let them think whatever they want. Since when did we give a shit what people think?”
Two hours later I sit at a crowded table covered in chips and salsa, pitchers of margaritas, and mariachi music playing in the background. I take in each smiling face—my roommates who are more like brothers, my closest friend Rowan, and my handsome husband with his arm slung around my shoulders.
One word sings in my soul.
Family.
Epilogue
Spider
“What in the holy fuck of all fuckery is going on in here?” Carey’s eyes are as wide as his girlfriend’s as they stare into the living room at me and Emery.
She looks at me, smiles, and goes back to hanging black skulls on the Christmas tree.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Okay, fine. I’m being purposefully obtuse. I know what Carey is referring to, I hate Christmas. Yeah, I know, I must be some kind of monster, but the truth is I don’t have a single positive Christmas memory. Santa never showed up to my house and my stepdad would get drunk as hell on Christmas morning and would send me into the New Year with bruises and fading concussions.
“Since when do you celebrate?” Carey eyes the tree, smiling. “I assumed you were part of some chicken sacrificing cult that didn’t acknowledge the most wonderful time of the year.”
“Is that a uterus?” Rowan plucks one of our decorations from the box and studies it.
Emery shrugs. “Nothing says Christmas like the vessel that brought the baby Jesus into the world.”
“Okay, I guess I can see that, but why is it black?” Rowan places the plastic organ back into the box.
Carey peeks over his girlfriend’s shoulder at the mix of tree decorations Emery and I picked out. “They’re all body parts,” he says, horrified.
“Not true.” I hold up a baby doll dressed in black. “This one is cute.”
“She has blood pouring from her empty eye sockets.” Rowan takes a step closer to Carey as if she’s afraid the little thing will come to life and pounce.
“It’s our first Christmas together as husband and wife so we decided to do it our way.” Emery picks up a plastic human heart and hangs it. “You guys need to be a little more open minded.” She plugs in the string of black lights that, once illuminated, cast the room in an
