“Will you two come? Be our witnesses?” Orion asked with pleading eyes.
Charlotte’s heart hammered within her chest. She blinked up at Everett, who looked just as shocked as she felt and they both finally smiled at one another.
“Of course we will,” she said. “I’ll call the pastor and have him meet us there. Everett?”
“I’ll call a few taxis,” Everett said. “We’ll be there in no time.”
URSULA’S WEDDING DRESS did, in fact, take up most of the back of one of the taxis. Charlotte thanked Everett for ordering a second one, which brought the two of them, along with the pastor, over to the little chapel. The pastor had performed a number of wedding ceremonies at that very chapel, and he even had a key. He snapped on the lights as the four of them stood awkwardly toward the back of the chapel.
“All right. I’ll head up there. Orion, you come along with me,” the pastor said. “Our witnesses? Take your seat. And Ursula? I think you know what to do.”
There wasn’t music. At first, Charlotte’s instinct was to put something on, something to fill the silence. But as Ursula walked up the little aisle of the chapel, her eyes heavy with tears, Charlotte realized that their emotions were too powerful; they required nothing else as a backdrop.
“You look beautiful,” Orion breathed, taking her hands in his.
“You look so handsome,” Ursula said.
She sounded different in these moments. Charlotte compared it to all the movies she had seen with Ursula acting in them. This was clearly the real Ursula, the one she kept only for Orion.
Everett reached across and gripped Charlotte’s hand as the two of them read their vows. Charlotte didn’t dare look at Everett; she knew she would burst into tears. With every breath she took, she knew she was falling for him.
And she couldn’t.
He was going to leave.
She couldn’t let herself go there.
When Ursula and Orion kissed for the first time as husband and wife, Everett and Charlotte stood and clapped and beamed at the couple. They turned and grinned back, again looking much more like young adults than world-famous millionaires. Charlotte supposed that’s what love was, in the end: just a couple of people, taking on the world together.
They had paid the taxis to wait to bring them back to the mansion. In the taxi, the pastor heaved a sigh and said, “I’m going to bed. This is much later than I planned on staying awake today. You said the wedding would be at four in the afternoon!”
Charlotte laughed. “I’m so sorry, Pastor, but the plans changed. We had no control.”
“If God wills it,” the pastor said. “I suppose you’re right.”
Back in the reception ballroom, Charlotte and Everett entered back into the fold of Charlotte’s family to intense speculation.
“Where have you two been?” Lola hissed at them.
“What do you mean?” Everett said, his eyes sparkling with secrecy. “We just stepped outside on the porch.”
“Yeah. Right,” Lola snorted.
“You can’t get anything past Mom,” Audrey said, stepping up, her hand wrapped around another croissant. “She sees everything. Luckily, I managed to get pregnant out of state.”
“You always have to bring it back to that, don’t you?” Lola said, rolling her eyes.
That moment, Ursula and Orion burst into the ballroom, their hands latched together and their smiles enormous. Everyone stopped talking. Even the DJ quit the beats.
“WE GOT MARRIED!” Ursula cried out suddenly. Orion tore toward her, bent her backward, and kissed her the way all women want to be kissed. When he brought his lips away from hers, he held his nose against hers tenderly.
It was enough to make your heartbreak.
Immediately, the ballroom buzzed with activity.
Photos had to be taken; Instagram Lives had to be filmed; tweets had to be sent; people had to tell everyone else about their opinions—like, I can’t believe they actually went through with it. They’re terrible for each other, or, I KNEW they were doing that. I figured they would sneak off and then make a whole big scene. That’s so Ursula. If you knew her the way I know her, you’d think that, too.
But honestly, none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered in these final hours of the reception was that—heck—Charlotte had done it. She had put on one of the more memorable weddings of the past twenty, thirty, forty years. She had pulled it off but not without a hitch.
“Sit back, now, baby, because you’re finally done,” Everett said teasingly.
Baby? He’s joking, obviously, but...
I want him to call me that again.
Charlotte laughed, forcing herself not to take the whole thing so seriously. “Let’s have another drink, shall we?”
“Only if you dance with me,” Everett said.
“That’s forward of you, thinking that I might want to dance with you,” Charlotte said.
Everett shrugged. “I figure it’s the kind of day to take chances.”
“Maybe you’re right.” She grinned and sat her glass to the side, just as a slow song came through the speakers. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Sorry to put you through so much torture,” he joked.
Charlotte hadn’t danced with a man since two years before Jason’s death when they had attended a wedding of one of their high school friends.
At the time, she had taken it for granted, just the way most women who had been married for what seemed like forever took such things for granted.
Now, with Everett’s arms around her, she shivered.
She wanted to tell him how weird it was for her.
But he did it, first.
“I haven’t danced with a woman like this in a long time,” he told her. “I don’t even know when it would have been. Ten years ago? Prom even?”
Charlotte laughed. “Why has it been so long?”
“I guess I’ve never bothered to get close enough to a woman to want to dance with her like this,” Everett explained.
His eyes meant business.
Like he wanted to be close to her.
“Am I out of practice?” he asked, interjecting her thoughts.
Charlotte shook her head. “I think you’re doing okay. Maybe a B or a B+.”
“I’ll take it. That’s a
