I tried to hide it, tried to bury my emotion in Belle’s shoulder as I kept my pace, but it was no use. She stiffened in my arms, pressing back on my shoulders gently until I had no choice but to face her.
“Are you… are you crying right now?”
I tried to hide my face again, but Belle wouldn’t let me, and she laughed before kissing all over my jaw and cheeks, her lips erasing my tears as they fell.
“Oh, my God, you are. You’re crying.”
She barked out a laugh then, and any proud man would have shriveled up and died right there on the spot. As it was, I didn’t give a shit about pride, so I just laughed along with her.
“I can’t help it,” I said, kissing her neck. “I’m just… I’m so fucking happy.”
She chuckled, framing my face until I looked at her fully. Her eyes searched mine, and I slowed my rhythm between her legs, soaking up every second of the way she looked underneath me in that moment.
“You really are a big softie, aren’t you?” she asked on a smile.
I shrugged. “The biggest. You’re going to have to hold me when we watch Hallmark movies.”
She snorted.
“Still love me?”
At that, her smile widened, and she shook her head before her lips found mine. “I do. I really do. So fucking much.”
I smiled against that kiss, savoring those words like they were the air I needed to survive.
And for the rest of the night, I showed her just how much I felt the same.
Belle
If I thought Makoa couldn’t surprise me more than he already had in the time we’d been dating, I was proven wrong the second we stepped onto the dance floor at Gemma and Zach’s wedding.
It was the strangest, most adorable, and most hilarious thing I’d ever seen, to see that six-foot-five mammoth of a man doing the moon walk, lawn mower, running man, floss, and more in a navy blue tuxedo that fit him like a glove. He was the center of attention, everyone gathering around him in a circle, clapping and laughing as he dove down onto the floor and did the worm all the way back to the edge of the dance floor. He hopped up like it was nothing, grooving his way back over to where I stood with my arms crossed shaking my head. But in the next breath, I was launched up into the air in a spin, and he caught me just as easily as he’d tossed me, twirling me around before he took me in his arms.
“You’re a freaking nut!” I screamed over the music.
“I’m nuts for you.”
He kissed my neck as I rolled my eyes at the cheesy line, but I couldn’t even fake that I was annoyed for too long before I was laughing and kissing him back.
The truth was, I was happy to see him letting loose on the dance floor. God knows he needed it, after all the pressure he’d been under the last few weeks. I’d felt more like his coach than his girlfriend recently, helping him get his head right so he could show out in practice and in the final two pre-season games.
And boy, did he show out.
His third game was even more monstrous than his first, and the fact that he had a solid game last Sunday proved to his coach and the rest of his team that he could be depended on. Yes, he’d had a rough week, but he’d snapped out of it and come back with a vengeance.
And now, he was officially a Chicago Bear.
Tonight felt like a celebration of that as much as it did Zach and Gemma’s love, especially with everything in the damn place being football themed. There was a Chicago Bears jersey with BOWEN on the back that everyone signed instead of a guest book. The dance floor had been painted like a football field, green with the yard lines, complete with a field goal post at each end that Makoa had swung on before landing in a half split at one point in the night.
From the centerpieces to the flowers, Gemma had found clever ways to weave in her and Zach’s mutual love for the game into their big day, and as much as I had thought it was a hideously stupid idea in the beginning… it worked.
It was so beautifully them.
The day had gone off without a hitch, and as much as I’d sworn to keep my shit together, I’d cried a dozen times already — the first time being when I stood opposite Zach and watched his face as Gemma walked down the aisle to him, and the most recent being when Gemma and Zach held onto each other through their first dance. It had started with the soft, slow melody of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley, which shocked me, honestly, because I never would have guessed that’d be their pick for their first dance. But when the music cut out and “The Final Countdown” came on instead, the two jokesters breaking out into a wild and crazy dance, I wasn’t the only guest surprised. We’d all laughed and cheered, and it was Makoa who filled me in that the dance moves they were doing were from the final number in Silver Linings Playbook.
Because, of course.
At the base of it all, the only thing that mattered was that Gemma and Zach had permanent smiles on their faces throughout the day and into the night, too. They looked at each other in the way that made you want to both swoon and gag at the same time.
They were in love.
So desperately in love.
Makoa was a sweaty mess when I managed to drag him off the dance floor for a break. I chuckled when he flopped down into his chair, legs sprawled out, hand fanning himself. I grabbed a spare cloth napkin
